Five Subs Rule Under Attack From Clownish Hack Who Sees Celtic’s Strength.

The five subs rule has been in place for more than a season.

It’s a debate which has been had, and voted on, and the decision made by the clubs. It went through the process, and it went through it with everyone very clear on what they were voting for.

The debate is finished. What are we still talking about it for?

Tam McManus wants to re-open it.

Because of the unfairness of it all. What has prompted this daftness, this scream of outrage? The strength of Celtic’s bench. The idea that we can take off five good players and put five good players on.

He can kid on all he wants about this being an “Old Firm” issue but it’s not, and we know it’s not. Our bench is vastly superior to theirs at the moment and there are probably more signings to come.

The strength of this club is now being put forward, and he doesn’t like it and a lot of other people don’t like it.

The “disadvantage” to other clubs is a bogus argument.

Every club has the ability to do this against every other club. Five substitutions should have been the norm years ago. It encourages clubs to blood youth. It encourages teams to be more adventurous in their tactics.

It allows those most often used players to get rested more … it is an all-round good and something that has benefits for every club.

All it takes though is the sight of us taking off, for example, Kyogo and Maeda and Turnbull and Juranovic and Jenz and being able to bring on Giakoumakis, Abada, Mooy, Ralston and Welsh.

They’ve never seen a Celtic squad like this before, or seen a manager with more tools at this disposal and I can understand why it scares them.

But I’ll say it again; these rules were voted for by every club.

They were discussed and debated and every possible consequence of them explored and examined before a single club put their tick on a ballot paper. But McManus thinks it’s legalised cheating.

Our success has driven some of these people mad. Genuinely mad.

McManus’s tears are a joyous thing because he self-defines as a “neutral” on all this “Old Firm” stuff … not that I believe a word of that. But it makes you wonder how the Sevconuts feel.