Paul Rees looks at the evolving role of the eight substitutes and how coaches are using them tactically.

When the Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta last month referred to substitutes who had come off the bench to win matches for his side, he called them finishers, echoing rugby’s Eddie Jones who used the word not long after taking charge of England at the end of 2015.
To Jones, it is a more positive word than replacement, which has always been a hard sell for a coach.
As the former footballer Rodney Marsh once observed, the only happy players in a squad are the ones who are starting.
To Jones, w...