From the start of 2022/23, Premier League clubs will be allowed to make five substitutions per match.
We previously saw this rule temporarily brought into play at the back-end of 2019/20, when a Covid-interrupted campaign had to be played to a conclusion over the summer months.
The impact of the 5-substitutions rule
While some will argue that this should provide more opportunities for young players, there is a growing sentiment that the rule gives an advantage to those teams with bigger squads, such as Liverpool, Chelsea, and Manchester City.
The five-substitutes rule ran for nine Gameweeks at the conclusion of the 2019/20 campaign.
Four teams – Manchester City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Sheffield United – each had an extra fixture during the run-in, so they contested ten games in total.
With these extra substitutions now a factor, however, it seems unlikely that Pep Guardiola will leave his superstar names on the bench quite so often in 2022/23, leading to a likely increase in cameo appearances.
As FPL managers, we must now emphasise avoiding players who don’t look 100% nailed to start, to prevent our players from subbing on around the 80th minute to return a single point.
A total of nine Premier League managers from 2019/20 will still be in charge come Gameweek 1 of the upcoming season, with seven of them at the same clubs.
Four of the six most active head coaches are still in the managerial hot-seat, with Graham Potter the most prolific tinkerer: the Brighton and Hove Albion boss averaged 4.8 changes per match from Gameweeks 30+ to 38+ of 2019/20.
Jurgen Klopp wasn’t far behind the Albion manager (4.7), with David Moyes relatively hands-off with an average of three alterations per game.
New signings:
Fabio Vieira: Arsenal have completed the signing of Fabio Vieira after Porto confirmed they had struck an agreement for his transfer.
Due to his versatility, Arsenal will be able to use Vieira in a number of ways, but it will be interesting to see how Arteta plans to accommodate his new signing and Martin Odegaard in the same XI, given that they both traditionally thrive in very similar areas of the pitch.
Erling Haaland: The one player who will be in most of the FPL manager’s minds when they create the team before the season starts.
The 21-year-old scored 62 goals in 67 league games for Borussia Dortmund and comes to the Premier League as arguably the complete striker, joining arguably one of the best teams in the world.
But he’s not going to be cheap, and this season, spending £12-13m in the forward position didn’t get most of them very far.
Premium strikers were very much a bust in 2022/23. We saw Ronaldo playing for the worst United side in decades, Lukaku struggling to see eye-to-eye with Tuchel, and Kane playing second fiddle to Son. These failures may put FPL managers off spending a large chunk of their budget up top, but Haaland should offer a different prospect.
