QUESTION NO.5
With SPFL chiefs considering the reintroduction of 5 subs to ease burden of Covid problems in our game, our writers debate the merits of possible move
With fixtures piling up and Covid rife, allowing extra subs makes perfect sense
COMMON sense has long been a sticky issue for Scottish football.
Be it insisting on 10,000 seater-stadiums, turning down Sky’s millions for a suicidal deal with Setanta or even the decision to rebuild Hampden instead of flattening the National Stadium and starting again, our game has found a way to get itself in a tangle when faced with simple choices.
We’ve had squabbles over reconstruction and debacles with missing emails.
It’s no wonder fans have grown weary of the leadership on Hampden’s sixth floor given the times we’ve reached a crossroads only to take the wrong turn.
But on the question of the reintroduction of five subs for the rest of the season, the SPFL seem to have got their thinking caps on straight.
Just when we thought we’d escaped the worst clutches of Covid, the Omicron variant has dragged us back into a world of restrictions and it seems we’ll be stuck here for a while yet.
Since the new strain reached Britain at the start of last month, it has swept across the country.
The decision to bring forward the winter break was a desperate bid to let the air out of a ballooning crisis but even in the lower divisions, Hampden chiefs are facing a growing fixture backlog.
There’s already been more than a dozen games postponed due to outbreaks of the virus since the start of last month while a handful of weather-related call-offs have made matters worse.
It would be daft to think BY ANDY NEWPORT the situation will get any better in the weeks to come with the worst of winter yet to hit us.
That’s why the SPFL are right to put five subs back up for discussion this week.
There’s little room left in the fixture list to reschedule axed games.
More call-offs will mean cramming matches into shorter and shorter time frames and the toll that could take on playing squads could render the rest of the season a sporting shambles.
No one wants to see an epidemic of injuries and player burn-out tarnishing a title race with a guaranteed £40million Champions League bounty at stake.
It was a premature move to cut the number of subs available to bosses back to three in the summer when the Delta strain was still wreaking its own havoc.
The smaller clubs argued that the extra reserves would hand their bigger opponents an advantage on the basis they have deeper squads.
But this is about protecting the people who matter most, the guys on the park.
When you have the best in management down south such as Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola arguing that having just three subs puts the welfare of players are risk, surely it’s an argument worth listening to?
Former Rangers boss Steven Gerrard led the calls here and Ange Postecoglou has spoken out more recently.
Hopefully clubs make the right decision when they submit their views on Monday. For once, common sense might just prevail.