Hartlepool United boss had this to say on five substitution ruling and where it leaves his squad

The EFL announced earlier this summer they would be following the lead of the Premier League in introducing the five substitutions rule this season, with clubs access the Championship, League One and League Two permitted to change five players across a maximum of three opportunities in games.

The ruling was originally drafted in during the Premier League’s ‘Project Restart’ campaign amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but has now returned throughout the league’s this summer.

So far in the league however, Hartley has only made two substitutions in each of the five games, although he did make four changes in the Carabao Cup defeat at Blackburn Rovers.

But despite not utilising the full five substitutes available to him yet, the Pools boss is on board with the ruling.

“I think it’s good. It means you can change it within the game,” Hartley told The Mail.

“It’s something I've come across before when I was in Scotland so I've no issues with it.

“Sometimes you might need to use the five, sometimes you don't.”

But whether Hartley opts to use his full quota of substitutions or not in games, the Pools boss has suggested the ability to make five changes reinforces the need to have a strong enough squad of players to come in and replicate the job being done by the starting XI.

“We need to have a strong squad anyway,” said Hartley.

“We feel our squad is getting stronger. We’re getting bigger numbers.

“There's always people going to be disappointed because we can only pick a certain amount of players but we have to balance the team from the bench and see what the best system and best squad we can use in games is.”

So far this season, Pools have used a total of 18 players in their opening five league games, as per data experts FBREF.

Crawley Town have used the most players in the first five games with 22, while Tranmere Rovers, Northampton Town and Barrow have used just 16 players up to this point.