Well the reserve team philosopy was the answer up to the academies coming in and if I had to have academies it would be for players aged 18 and above who were strong enough and played in local amateur teams and even transferred in from other clubs. ie not loanees but transfers. eg like we had Dean Ashton and Luke Varney..
Also there is an unfairness in taking loanees as it can help better supported clubs to have higher rated players and get them promoted or stop relegation and so money talks. I really don't like other clubs youngsters as all we are doing is giving them games as against giving our own games. I mean we have under 23 squads here at Crewe, use them!
You must surely recognise that having a squad full of "experienced" players that they are not all going to get first team football. Our reserves now are our Academy players and you can rest assured that they will be a lot cheaper to pay than a team full of experienced blokes consigned to reserve team football.
Yes, that is a fair point but most PL and Championship clubs have how many players of first squad quality? I think it was Chelsea that had over 40 odd and so many very well paid players are waiting to even get on the bench. I would like to know what our players are paid and even in the academy..Now we have 5 subs then there are more opportunities for our academy players but they do need some time in the game and not stuck on the bench..As I said the problem with academy players in late ****s they are not always strong enough physically and when they get injured, spend weeks getting better.
https://manchesterunitedlatestnews.c...and-their-age/
Just looked at ManU which just shows there are 31 first team players there a few months ago and so at least half of that squad are not getting games week in and week out and OK they can afford it but makes the same point about excess players in most clubs even ours..