Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola has said that the Premier League made a mistake to discontinue the five substitutions per game system at the start of the season.

Recall the PL agreed to revert to three subs per game dumping the five subs they allowed during Project Restart as is being used across Europe and the Champions League.

However, Guardiola feels that league management should reconsider re-introducing the five substitutions per game system.

With at least two games a week until the New Year, Guardiola will have to carefully monitor the fitness of his players, and.

“Definitely they should [have], they should 100%,” he added. “It’s not about one club.

“There are statistics that they don’t deny – that in the Premier League players have 47 per cent more muscular injuries than the previous season. Due to no preparation for most of the teams and the amount of games.

“All the leagues – Germany, Spain, everywhere – is five substitutions to protect the players, not to protect one team.

“They should [reconsider], hopefully they can reconsider and do what the rest of the world does because we have to adjust to the pandemic situation and other things. The reality is completely different now to before. Intelligent people adjust to the situation in the world – football is about the players.”

Sergio Aguero and Benjamin Mendy are definitely out of Saturday’s trip to Sheffield United, but the City boss hopes to have some players back soon with Gabriel Jesus and Nathan Ake returning to training.

“Gabriel and Ake are getting better, Mendy is not,” the City boss confirmed. “We’ll see how they feel at training. They need to be with the team and it’s coming so it’s good to have as many as possible. This season everyone will be important.” [Goal]