Subs will play a vital role for Preston when season gets under way

The PNE manager can pick a nine-strong bench for the remaining games of the season and use five of them.

It won’t be a case of making five separate substitutions though, teams having three occasions to make a change during play as they did before.

The likelihood is that over the course of the next few weeks, Neil will need all of his squad in some shape or form.

Neil anticipates having to make changes from game to game to protect from injuries and make sure intensity levels stay high.

An additional factor is that Covid-19 testing will continue throughout the remainder of the season.

In recent weeks, positive tests have meant players having to miss training while they isolate for seven days.

Such a period of isolation would now see games missed.

Neil has studied the games being played in the German Bundesliga as a guide for how substitutes are used and the impact of injuries on squads.

In an interview with PNE’s official website, Neil said: “If you look at Germany, they have started their season and their football is not too different from ours in terms of its intensity it is played at.

“Their stats are that their injury rate is three times more than what it has been over the last four or five years and their games are more spaced out than what ours is going to be.

“We are certainly going to need the full squad and the five subs are going to be useful.

“In Germany, over the first couple of games, a few of the teams changed four or five players around the 60 minute mark, which is highly unusual.

“That is something we are going to have to look towards, in terms of being more proactive and that goes for starting line-ups as well as substitutes.

“You always have a lot to consider over the season, things like freshness and players carrying little knocks and niggles.

“Having been a player myself for a long time, there are very few games you go into without having some sort of ache or pain.

“So the lads are going to have to contend with that, but what we have to do is to try and make sure it doesn’t hamper them.”

North End resume against Luton at Kenilworth Road on Saturday afternoon (3pm).

They have a week’s gap and then embark on eight matches on a Saturday/midweek schedule through to July 22.

As part of the build-up, Neil organised friendlies against Wigan and Burnley last Friday and Saturday to sharpen the squad’s match fitness.

Most players got 90 minutes under their belts in order to press their claim.