Quique Setién believes the new rule allowing five substitutions will "hurt" Barcelona

Quique Setién believes that the new rule allowing five substitutions will "hurt" Barcelona due to their style of play, said the Barcelona coach in a virtual chat.

"We know that we will resolve many matches in the final minutes. If you give the opponent the option to bring on fresh players at that time, the weakness that occurs with tired players will not happen," said the Cantabrian coach about the five substitutions, in a virtual conversation on the Youtube channel of the Interinsular Football Federation of Las Palmas.

"But it can also give you resources at a certain moment. It is unknown and we will see how it goes," he added.

The Board, the guarantor of the rules of football, authorized on May 8 to change from 3 to 5 substitutions per match to avoid excessive fatigue of the players, a provisional measure applied in the resumption of the competition after the coronavirus hiatus and justified by the heavy schedule.

The 2019-2020 season of the Spanish championship, with 11 matchdays remaining, returns on June 11 with the Seville-Betis derby and will continue with "matches every day," as promised by the League, to finish on July 19.

"We will start competing with high tension and stress because we are playing the league in 11 matchdays. This, added to the physical effort, we do not know how it will affect. But we will see," said Setién.

"We thought we would have more time to work as a group, but it will not be like that. The league starts in two weeks. We would have liked to have more time," he added.

After returning to training in early May, individually, Spanish footballers moved on to sessions in small groups and will be authorized to have collective sessions next week, before the return of matches, ten days later.

"It is possible that there will be many injuries, like in Germany, because we have spent two months on the couch, without playing. The heat, the fact of playing every three or four days can affect some players. The teams will not be the same as they were (in March)," he added.

After 27 matchdays, Barcelona is the leader with two more points than Real Madrid.