Watford will be permitted to make five substitutes from this weekend onwards after Championship clubs voted in favour of increasing the number allowed during games.

Head coach Vladimir Ivic had spoken out in favour of the change previously, saying that it was important for players to be protected following a shorter pre-season than normal and with teams playing twice almost every week in a hectic schedule.

"We know that this pre-season, it was not a normal pre-season for no one," Ivic said after the Hornets' 3-2 win over Coventry City.

"Where you have every second, every three days, a game, you need to have more subs, to protect the players, not to do something else.

"We need to protect the players. If you see, all the teams have a lot of injured players, a lot of injured players. And because of this, it's not some normal period, how it was one year ago when three substitutes is normal and we keep going with this. It's totally different. And I agree with this. If you ask me, I believe that we need to have five subs."

A number of other managers in the Championship echoed Ivic's concerns and in turn voted in favour of the rule change this week.

Friday night's match between Coventry and Birmingham City will be the first game in which the extra changes will be permitted, while Watford will be able to use them for the first time on Saturday away at Queens Park Rangers.