This season Celtic have had customary drop-offs in later periods of games, as energy levels naturally subsided. This was mitigated however in Sunday’s 4-0 win over Motherwell at Fir Park as Ange Postecoglou rotated his squad during the game by replacing half the outfield players. It was a show of the genuine strength in depth available to the manager to replace those of tired minds and limbs, and continue to pile the pressure on the opposition.

The introduction from the bench of the likes of Jota, Matt O’Riley, James Forrest, Josip Juranovic and Nir Bittton saw first team capable players able to replace half an outfield side as bodies started to tire.

Motherwell goalkeeper Liam Kelly has already commented this week as to how the sight of top-class replacements had him wishing his manager would consider him for replacing, and perhaps that was only slightly in jest.

Part of the reason for Celtic’s ability to use the maximum number of replacements available to the manager came down to just how clinical Celtic had been in the opening 45 minutes at Fir Park, where for the second game in a row, the Hoops raced to a three-goal advantage at the break, and Ange Postecoglou touched on just that in yesterday’s press conference ahead of this evening’s game with Aberdeen.

“It’s a unique situation at the weekend because we knew there was a quick turnaround to the midweek game. When you play Wednesday and Sunday it’s okay but when you play Sunday and Wednesday you miss that day and it gets really close. You are wary about putting too much of a load, particularly on players like Reo Hatate who’s come in and is playing a lot but he’s coming off a month of no football activity.

“Liel Abada is playing every game so we bore the brunt of that in the first half of the year with injures so it does give you the opportunity to do it but for us, the key is not so much the substitutions but if we start strongly and get ahead it means we can kill off these games.”

Scottish clubs voted for the reintroduction of the five-substitute rule just prior to the winter break as a means to alleviate the stresses on squads impacted by Covid-19 and the risk to players being asked to play too many games as a result of a lack of available numbers. It was very much a common-sense decision but even in the absence of Covid issues for the time being, Celtic have had a series of injury problems and Ange Postecoglou thinks the five subs rule can be used to protect his players from injury also.

“That’s the plan. If you look at the last two games it’s not the subs that have made the difference because we have scored three goals in the first half. The subs for me help in terms of managing the load on the players because we have three games a week right up until the international break and it will probably be the same afterwards.”

“That’s a lot of football and if we want to maintain the levels and our intensity and tempo we are going to have to manage our players through that process. Now sometimes that’s going to be five subs, other times it will just be rotating the players between games. You have to have the squad to do that.

“We are getting to that place now where we have a good core group of players in terms of managing the players’ loads. I think the five subs rule will help.”

The five substitute appears for the time being to be a temporary introduction to deal primarily with player welfare during the pandemic, but it’s worth the footballing authorities considering this as a long-term option.

Players nowadays are playing an intensity of football never seen before, the demands on their fitness and being at peak condition has to be sustained, however on the other side there are more games now, more competitions and even international football has a greater number of competitive tournaments. Something has to give and player welfare should not be discarded as and when the issues surrounding the pandemic subside.

Ange Postecoglou and Celtic are currently using this rule to protect our players, there is no reason why the five-substitute rule couldn’t be continued as a permanent arrangement and help address some of the physical dangers we place on young athletes, in an environment far more competitive and demanding as it has ever been.

Niall J