Premier League 2022-23: Everything you need to know as new season starts

The 31st Premier League season begins earlier than usual – Crystal Palace face Arsenal on Friday – as football tries to fit in a winter World Cup.

What is new this season, who are the new faces and how does the winter break work?

BBC Sport explains all…

New rules

The biggest change is that each team can make five substitutions a game, up from three.

The Premier League brought the rule in for the remainder of the 2019-20 season when football returned after the first Covid lockdown in 2020.

While most of Europe’s other leagues – and Uefa competitions – kept five subs, English football went back to three.

Now five substitutions will be allowed from a bench of nine players. Teams have three opportunities to use their five subs – plus the option to make them at half-time – after which no more subs can be made.

In another change, the Premier League will bring in in a multi-ball system to reduce delays when the ball is out of play.

There will be 10 balls in total – the match ball, one with the fourth official and eight around the pitch on cones next to a ‘ball assistant’.

There are also provisions for games being postponed because of missing players, although the Premier League will assess each team’s request on a case-by-case basis.

“Approval will only be granted where the impact of player unavailability on a club’s squad is truly exceptional and where the club concerned has taken all reasonable steps to avoid the necessity to make the application,” it says.

New winter break

In a first for English football, there will be six weeks without a Premier League game this winter – as a result of the Qatar World Cupbeing moved to November and December.

There will be no Premier League football between 13 November and 26 December.

Teams are also expected to have more time between their Christmas games, although there will only be two days without matches between 26 December and 5 January.

The season starts a week earlier than last term – Friday, 5 August – and ends a week later – Sunday, 28 May – to fit that break in.

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