Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s Premier League meeting with Chelsea saw an unusual change to match-day substitution options after an early head injury. Ordinarily, teams may name nine players on the bench and make up to five substitutions. That framework was altered when Spurs midfielder Lucas Bergvall took a blow to the head.<\/p>\n
The Premier League introduced concussion substitutions in 2021 after consultation with medical experts and national associations. Those measures, along with other changes, are regularly reviewed by the International Football Association Board, which upholds the laws of the game.<\/p>\n
With Spurs\u2019 medical team suspecting Bergvall may have suffered a concussion, he was withdrawn by Frank to be replaced by summer signing Xavi Simons. Because Bergvall\u2019s removal was treated under the concussion substitution protocols, both teams were permitted an extra change for the fixture. As a result, Chelsea are now able to make six changes and can implement that if Maresca wants to make additional tactical tweaks.<\/p>\n
The adjustment is procedural: it follows the concussion protocols that allow for temporary or permanent changes to substitution allowances when a player is removed on medical grounds. The immediate aim is player safety, but the consequence in this context is a tactical one, with the away side able to deploy an additional substitute beyond the usual five. Supporters may see that as offering an advantage, but the decision rests on the medical assessment and the competition rules introduced to protect players after head impacts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Six substitutions were available to both Tottenham and Chelsea after Lucas Bergvall’s head injury. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172,187],"tags":[1213,1212],"class_list":["post-4200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-concussion-substitutions","tag-lucas-bergvall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}