LAST Monday James Milner equalled one of the more minor Premier League records but a landmark nonetheless. He came on as a substitute for the 158th time, matching former Liverpool man Peter Crouch’s divisional high. And Jurgen Klopp really rolled out the substitution classics at Molineux, as he also chucked on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, one of only two players, along with Victor Anichebe, to play more than 200 Premier League games and count more than 50% of them as a substitute. If you saw Milner and the Ox on the touchline at Wolves and it felt familiar…that’s because it is.
The 1966 World Cup final is the greatest example of why the pre-substitution era was bad. Jimmy Greaves should have got extra-time at the very least. “But what if that changed history and England didn’t win the World Cup?” Frankly, Jimmy Greaves getting to play in a World Cup final is more important than England winning one, but we’re in the timeline we’re in, so let’s jump forward 26 years to 1992 – a reminder if one was needed that the start of the Premier League was closer to Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy than it is to now – and celebrate the modernists who have benefited from the ability to enter the game mainly in the second half, but occasionally in the first, possibly due to an injury.
If you say Mark Robins to a football fan of a certain vintage they’ll think of an FA Cup tie between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United in early 1990, the year that changed everything. “He saved Fergie’s job,” they’ll chuckle. “Lose at the City Ground and United give him the bullet, and everything we know doesn’t happen”. That’s the mainstream Mark Robins story, but specialists will instead point out that he was the first impact substitute in the Premier League era, scoring twice for Norwich at Highbury on the division’s opening day. Yes, Ferguson had jettisoned his saviour that quickly, and yes, Arsenal threw away a two goal lead in their first ever Premier League game but it was early and you can’t draw conclusions from things that happen in August.
‘The goal that saved Fergie’
Mark Robins vs Forest, FA Cup 3rd Round, Jan ‘90.
Brilliant ball from Hughes. pic.twitter.com/hljgBMgq6K— Old School United (@OldSchoolUtd) July 28, 2019
Remember those race charts that were briefly popular a couple of years ago? Someone momentarily figured out how to make a line graph cool, and people spent hours watching the slow increase in record transfer fees or the population of the Midwest. Well, at the end of 1992-93 Stuart Barlow was top with 18. Barlow was still top a year later with 34 but by the end of 1994-95 had been overtaken by Andy Clarke. By the end of the 1990s Clarke, whose Premier League appearances all came for Wimbledon, was still top, now on 69 but he had moved on to perennial lower league club Peterborough so his opportunity to maintain his lead had gone. The race, though, was just heating up.
By the start of 2000, there were signs of the Premier League’s slow cosmopolitanism in the most used substitutes, with Tore Andre Flo and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the top 12. Solskjaer, now a Champions League winning hero for Manchester United, had enjoyed his 1999 tremendously, scoring four goals as a substitute away at Nottingham Forest in February. It was the first hat-trick in the competition by a substitute and remains the only time a replacement player has scored more than three in the Premier League.
ON THIS DAY In 1999, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scores four goals as a sub as #MUFC thrash Forest 8-1: http://t.co/PDJA0ZBU pic.twitter.com/qdeTOOhQ
— Premier League (@premierleague) February 6, 2013
Studying a list of most used substitutes can be one of the thought-provoking ways to spend half an hour because contained within it is the ephemeral nature of sporting success and influence. Here are a list of men who are infinitely better footballers than you or I yet so often they were only deemed good enough for the matchday squad by their manager, and not the holy list that is the first XI. The Premier League top 10 on January 1 2000 contains a Brian McClair, a Graham Fenton, a Gordon Watson, a Ronnie Rosenthal and a Julian Joachim, among others. It also, to be fair, contains Paul Scholes, so being a much-used substitute does not necessarily mean an underrated career.
By the end of the 2000s the Premier League had been transformed into probably the strongest competition in the world, with the stern gaze of the classic Big Four daring anyone to try and knock them off their considerable perch. The list of the most used substitutes had also progressed, now with Kanu at the top on 118 (remember when he scored a hat-trick for Arsenal at Stamford Bridge as a substitute? No, you don’t, because he was in the starting XI that day), followed by Jermain Defoe and Shola Ameobi. Peter Crouch, soon to dominate this realm was in 8th place on 81, level with Joe Cole and Louis Saha. No offence to Stuart Barlow but the calibre of player by this point had undoubtedly risen.
By January 2020 the familiarity is shocking. There’s Crouch on 158, ripe for hunting down by second placed James Milner on 152. By this stage the top 10 even contains a bona fide Premier League legend in the form of Ryan Giggs. Appearing from the bench doesn’t prevent you becoming the top assister in Premier League history, quite the contrary. Back in 1992 there were two available substitutes and managers semi-regularly didn’t even bother with either.
Should I be proud ? https://t.co/1w9rIK6P1L
— Peter Crouch (@petercrouch) November 20, 2017
By 2020, we were living through a pandemic and the number of usable substitutes rose briefly to five in June and July, as football muddled its way through a unique restart. The only man to score four Premier League goals as a substitute, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, became the first manager to make a quintuple substitution, in Manchester United’s game with Sheffield United. The process took so long that it actually took two minutes to carry out, so Juan Mata coming on for Mason Greenwood is listed as being a minute later than the other four changes. Back in 1992-93 Manchester United failed to make a single substitution in 11 of their 42 league games. In fact, five substitutes represents 12% of United’s seasonal total in 1992-93. Different, but there’s a place for that.
Times change but football endures. We all want to see how far Milner can extend his record once he goes past Crouch. To use the parlance of the substitute: bring it on.
