Klopp and Guardiola receive support from Rovers boss Mowbray

After Manchester City and Liverpool played out a 1-1 draw at the Etihad on Sunday, both Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp threw their weight behind the proposals to reintroduce the five substitutes rule that was brought in for the final nine games of last season.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) given the green light for that to continue into this season, but the English top-flight is the only major league in Europe not to continue with the ruling that is available in both the Champions League and Europa League.

Klopp criticised Premier League chief executive Richard Masters over the issue, with the proposal twice having failed to reach the 14-club majority needed for it to be implemented. There has been growing calls for it to return however after a significant number of injuries occurred during the early weeks of the season.

With many players now heading into an international break which includes three fixtures, rather than the usual two, in an already congested season, player welfare has become a major talking point.

Unavailability issues have blighted Rovers in the early season, with absences related to the Covid-19 virus added to the club’s extensive injury list.

Mowbray hopes the international break will allow Rovers chance for several first-team players to come back into contention, with only Ben Brereton having been an ever-present in the side this season.

Adam Armstrong had gone over two years without missing a game through injury, only for his 95-game consecutive run to end in the 0-0 draw with Middlesbrough last week. That was owing to a hamstring strain picked up in the defeat at Swansea City last month.

Asked for his views on bringing the ruling back, Mowbray said: “I did subscribe to it. We have all had a vote and I definitely voted to keep it.

“I don’t understand the reasons why, I know some said it gave an advantage to the big clubs, but I don’t think so.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic, we have had a shortened pre-season of only three weeks.

“This is a professional game and you’re asking players to run and chase and fight and put their bodies on the line every three days. It’s madness to ask the same players to play every three days.

“Now, because the Premier League managers are saying it, it becomes a story. I know which way I voted three months ago.”

In all but one of Rovers’ last nine games of the 2019/20 season, Mowbray all five substitutes available. Twice he made double substitutions at half time, and also twice made a quadruple substitution.

In 34 of the 37 matches pre-lockdown, Mowbray made all his allocated substitutes, as he has done in all 11 matches so far.

Between the October and November international breaks Rovers played seven games in 21 days, and upon their return from the current hiatus, they will play nine times in the space of a month.

The introduction of the five substitutes was a new dimension for the post-lockdown re-start, as was matching being played behind closed doors.

That has continued into this season, with no firm date on what that situation may change. It is one of the many things in the game that Mowbray says is far from ideal.

“It doesn’t feel like football. It was really interesting, I was listening to Jose (Mourinho) on the tele the other day, he just wants his football back. We all just want football back with crowds,” he explained.

“We have to accept it, we have to get on with it. We don’t like it, I don’t like it. I’m a football purist, I love the game. I want to see talent, I want to see speed, I want to see creative players. Of course I was a big defender who built his career on heading a ball from goal kicks and stuff and that’s all part of the game.

“But when I’m studying the opposition sometimes and I’m looking at what we did last year against them and I’m looking some footage from a previous game about how they take their set plays and there are crowds, it’s so strange now to see a goal with a crowd behind it.

“We are hugely missing crowds.”