Thomas Tuchel calls for return of five substitutes to ease workload on players

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has joined the growing calls for five substitutes to be allowed in the Premier League again.

The league permitted five changes to be made at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but reverted back to three last term.

However, as cases rise among players over the busy festive period, Tuchel feels the players need their workload to be eased.

Tuchel was unhappy that their match at Wolves had to go ahead last weekend despite an outbreak at the club, although he hopes two of his affected players, Romelu Lukaku and Callum Hudson-Odoi, will be available at Aston Villa on Boxing Day.

He said: “For us it’s the same situation as for anyone else. We have concerns, because we are not only football players and coaches, we are also fathers and have family members so we are also concerned and have doubts and fears.

“Still we are privileged to do our jobs and do what we love the most so it’s kind of in between. I’m very impressed with how the team takes it.

“You know very well that the situation was very different when we arrived in Wolverhampton and had seven positive tests in three days.

“We had the feeling that we had an outbreak and wanted some time to deal with it mentally and to settle the team down. That was not the case and we lived with it. We tried to be as supportive as possible.

“I just can say on this occasion I would love to push for five substitutions because five substitutions were made to protect the players when coronavirus popped up and made life difficult.

“I think the situation is very serious and very challenging so if we decided to keep on playing at least we should have five changes to control the load.”