More subs, fewer sackings: Five key trends in European club football
Every year Uefa provides a snapshot of the trends playing out across the continent’s top football leagues in its annual European Club Talent and Competition Landscape report.
At 85 pages, it’s not a quick read but it is a useful window on how the game is evolving, from attendances and player workload to manager sackings and competitive balance.
Here, Morning Wire has done the hard yards so you don’t have to and pulled out five of the most interesting trends from this year’s report, which relates to the 2024-25 season.
More players being used
Europe’s top 20 domestic leagues used a record number of players last season, with the number of substitutions rising one per cent to an average of 4.4 per game.
In the Premier League that figure was up six per cent year on year, as clubs made greater use of their fringe squad members to reduce the workload of star performers.
Across Europe there is a clear trend: since the introduction of rules allowing five subs per game in 2019-20, the number of players used has increased by eight per cent.
Managers sacked less
The life of a head coach is lived by the mantra of 70s Canadian rockers Trooper, who sang We’re Here For a Good Time (Not a Long Time).
But the good news for those in the hottest of hotseats is that managerial changes fell last season, to 0.98 per club – the first time the figure dropped below 1.0 in five years.
Those seeking job security should probably avoid the Turkish Super Lig, which saw 30 changes compared to the European top flight average of 13 and just 11 in the Premier League.
Average tenure was also higher in England than the overall 1.2 years, while 62 per cent of all head coaches lasted less than 12 months.
Crowds up
Attendances provided cause for cheer (pun intended), with crowds up three per cent across Europe’s top leagues.
Thirty leagues saw aggregate attendances rise, while 17 recorded their highest figures in a decade or more.
Manchester United and Real Madrid both saw aggregate crowds top 2m across all competitions, roughly on par with the total crowds for all French second-tier games put together.
Competitive balance
For the first time in more than a decade, the reigning champions failed to retain their title in more than 30 of Europe’s top divisions for the second season in a row.
In another positive sign, the number of one-sided victories – those won by three or more goals – fell to 16.7 per cent, the lowest average ever across all leagues.
The women’s club game, however, was more predictable, with 34 out of 52 leagues won by the reigning champions and 15 seeing a run of five successive titles or more.
Loans on the wane
The rise in loan transfers has been a growing phenomenon in recent years, as big clubs have stockpiled players and struggled to offload them on permanent deals.
The number of loan deals fell by 10 per cent across Europe last season, although it was still high in some of the biggest leagues.
Premier League clubs loaned out 16 players on average, although that was well short of Italy’s Serie A, where teams loaned out 24 players – basically a whole squad – on average.