There are valid arguments against five subs - though it is weird that every other major league has introduced it without any fuss - but “Liverpool didn’t make any subs against Spurs isn’t Klopp a hypocrite” isn’t one of them. https://twitter.com/johncrossmirror/status/1339868354761375745

(The same goes for Guardiola against Liverpool, this really isn’t club specific and the fact it’s presented as that, that there’s this gotcha tendency, trawling for minor hypocrisies, isn’t always desperately helpful)

Both of those games were really finely poised. They were both really important. A substitution is basically a calculated risk by a manager: whether the extra energy/tactical advantage makes up for a (probable) drop off in quality. Both decided, in those contexts, it didn’t.

That’s not CONCLUSIVE proof that it’s all an act. It’s not even hypocrisy, really. They’re not saying they’ll always make 5 subs. More problematic is stuff like playing Salah for 90 minutes against Midtjylland, or not making three subs in more straightforward games.

What’s really striking is that the “smaller” clubs are willing to risk their own players’ welfare - and defy their own managers’ preferences - because they don’t want to give the big clubs what they perceive as an advantage. Again: that seems to be unique to the PL.

But then it’s interesting that the concussion subs rule has been brought in with a deliberate caveat to stop it being manipulated. If a team gets a concussion, their opponent gets to make a sub, too. It’s dressed up as about integrity, but it’s insane.

It makes you realise how little trust the clubs have in each other, and to an extent in themselves, that they’d even need to consider that. Having a potential concussion isn’t an unfair advantage, lads. It’s literally just player welfare.

All of that strikes me as being a really difficult environment in which to run a league, and it sort of explains why nobody really wanted to be chair of the PL. The lack of good faith, for a league that prides itself on collectivism, is quite debilitating, really.