| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but 10:59 - Sep 23 with 1338 views | ITFC_Essex |
Here are a few of my thoughts based on my own experience; it may seem rambly, and I know the levels are different you will get the principle of what I am saying. Sure, I never played professionally, but I have played against professionals (and ex-pros) over the years, and here is why youth development lacks something we had back in my day… and something that made me adjust and become a better player even to this day.
I first played men's football when I was 16. I was playing well for the club's youth team, and they simply didn’t have someone available who could play that position on a Saturday morning, so I was dumped straight in, starting, which was a nerve-racking but exciting experience. I started the game off weak, but as the game went on, I improved. I was, in effect, “coached” through it on the pitch by the senior players, who were both encouraging and critical in equal measure, but that support helped me through the game. I ended up playing with the men's reserves on occasion, and again, I was given the same support on and off the pitch. I soaked in what they told me; I was coached on and off the pitch, advised, and essentially by the next season I was a semi-regular in a men's team, a team which did feature some ex-pros, ex-youth team products, and reserve players from professional clubs, and some just good all-around players, and I never played any youth football again from that point on.
Why do I bring this up? Well, slapping a load of kids onto a pitch with 1 senior player against, even a weakened men's side in an actual competition, isn’t just madness; it’s suicide in my view for development. When you are a young player and you are playing against fully developed and experienced men, you absolutely need the support of other men on the field to get you through it and make you a better player. It worked wonders for me and gave me so much knowledge and confidence to push on. Had my youth side gone in and played a men's side, and got battered, especially at age 20-21 when you should really be ready for it, I would have been totally demoralised.
I don’t understand why any club is doing this. I don’t understand why we (and other clubs) dropped the Reserves system where you can happily integrate your youngsters with your fringe players, and create cohesion through the club (and playing systems). This is done as “B” teams on the continent by many countries who’s nation sides have actually won a World Cup or Euros in the last 50 years, so they must be doing something right!
Maybe we should consider having an Ipswich B, playing in one of the better local leagues (where we loan youngsters out to anyway), which could be a mixture of fringe players, U23s and U21s, would be beneficial to both our youngsters and our fringe players, who often have to come in cold to play Cup Fixtures themselves for “minutes”. I just feel it’s madness feeding our kids to the wolves like that, and calling it development.
There are better ways of doing this.
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| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 12:02 - Sep 23 with 1135 views | Swansea_Blue |
It does seem a bit of a counter productive competition. I can’t remember what the rationale for it was. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it was simply an attempt to to add a bit of glamour by including PL clubs, although I could be wrong (probably am). Did clubs even have any choice in the changes to reserve leagues and this competition? |  |
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| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 12:29 - Sep 23 with 1050 views | ITFC_Essex |
| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 12:02 - Sep 23 by Swansea_Blue |
It does seem a bit of a counter productive competition. I can’t remember what the rationale for it was. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it was simply an attempt to to add a bit of glamour by including PL clubs, although I could be wrong (probably am). Did clubs even have any choice in the changes to reserve leagues and this competition? |
We got booted out of the Premier League reserve system somewhere in the 2000's and they started making the changes to U21s and U23s during that time away. I remember we continued to field a somewhat reserve/youth mix in the Suffolk Cups during the Keane/Jewell eras but then fully integrated our system in line with the rest of the league not long after.
As for the FL Trophy, we opted in this time now we have qualified for it. The irony is, the last time we were in it we used it as a reserve team exercise anyway getting beaten by Colchester, Exeter and even U21 teams ourselves as a result! | |
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| Impact of Premier League on Reserve and Youth development on 12:38 - Sep 23 with 1010 views | bsw72 |
| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 12:29 - Sep 23 by ITFC_Essex |
We got booted out of the Premier League reserve system somewhere in the 2000's and they started making the changes to U21s and U23s during that time away. I remember we continued to field a somewhat reserve/youth mix in the Suffolk Cups during the Keane/Jewell eras but then fully integrated our system in line with the rest of the league not long after.
As for the FL Trophy, we opted in this time now we have qualified for it. The irony is, the last time we were in it we used it as a reserve team exercise anyway getting beaten by Colchester, Exeter and even U21 teams ourselves as a result! |
I wrote something on this a couple of years ago:
Back in 1992 when the Premier League started, the reserve and youth setup was just inherited from the old Football League days. Reserves played in regional leagues like the Pontins League up north and the Football Combination down south, often at the main ground, and you'd get a mix of senior pros coming back from injury, fringe players and a few kids. It wasn't glamorous but it meant young lads got a proper taste of the physical side of the game early on, and developed alongside senior more experienced pros.
The first big change was Howard Wilkinson's "Charter for Quality" in 1997, which did away with the old Schools of Excellence and brought in licensed academies and a national Academy League.
The Premier Reserve League followed a couple of years later, but it was tied to the first team's status, so if you went down your reserves went with you, and over time managers played less and less senior players in it.
The real shake-up was EPPP in 2012 when academies were graded Category One to Four, largely on facilities and spend, and reserve football was replaced by age-capped development leagues.
That became Premier League 2 in 2016, first as an under-23 competition and then back to under-21 in 2022. Clubs also got "extra" outlets like the UEFA Youth League, the Premier League International Cup and, more controversially, the EFL Trophy.
It's kept changing since. Since 2023/24 PL2 has been a single division made up only of Category One clubs, starting at 26 teams and expanding to 29 for 2025/26 with Birmingham, Burnley and Ipswich added.
Each side plays 20 games and the top 16 go into knockout play-offs, and the teams finishing 17th to 24th now go into a new play-off alongside the top eight from the Category Two league.
The problems with bringing players through haven't really gone away though. The biggest is still the jump from under-21 football to the first team. PL2 is technically decent but nowhere near the intensity of senior football, and the big clubs rarely have the minutes, so loans have become the last stage of development, with pretty mixed results.
EPPP also let the big clubs pick off the best kids from smaller academies at fixed compensation fees and then stockpile them, and only a tiny percentage of scholars ever go on to a proper Premier League career. The homegrown rule has never had enough teeth, as it's about where you trained rather than where you're from.
A couple of things pull in different directions.
Brexit stopped clubs signing under-18s from Europe, which has pushed them back towards home-grown talent but PSR has turned academy players into accounting assets, as a sale counts as pure profit, so there's now a real incentive to develop players to sell rather than to play.
Finally having "B teams" in the pyramid, like in Spain and Germany, keep getting floated as the answer, but the EFL and most fans see it as the big clubs taking over the lower leagues and I can't see it happening any time soon.
(Updated with 25/26 details) [Post edited 23 Sep 12:57]
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| Impact of Premier League on Reserve and Youth development on 14:27 - Sep 23 with 819 views | ITFC_Essex |
| Impact of Premier League on Reserve and Youth development on 12:38 - Sep 23 by bsw72 |
I wrote something on this a couple of years ago:
Back in 1992 when the Premier League started, the reserve and youth setup was just inherited from the old Football League days. Reserves played in regional leagues like the Pontins League up north and the Football Combination down south, often at the main ground, and you'd get a mix of senior pros coming back from injury, fringe players and a few kids. It wasn't glamorous but it meant young lads got a proper taste of the physical side of the game early on, and developed alongside senior more experienced pros.
The first big change was Howard Wilkinson's "Charter for Quality" in 1997, which did away with the old Schools of Excellence and brought in licensed academies and a national Academy League.
The Premier Reserve League followed a couple of years later, but it was tied to the first team's status, so if you went down your reserves went with you, and over time managers played less and less senior players in it.
The real shake-up was EPPP in 2012 when academies were graded Category One to Four, largely on facilities and spend, and reserve football was replaced by age-capped development leagues.
That became Premier League 2 in 2016, first as an under-23 competition and then back to under-21 in 2022. Clubs also got "extra" outlets like the UEFA Youth League, the Premier League International Cup and, more controversially, the EFL Trophy.
It's kept changing since. Since 2023/24 PL2 has been a single division made up only of Category One clubs, starting at 26 teams and expanding to 29 for 2025/26 with Birmingham, Burnley and Ipswich added.
Each side plays 20 games and the top 16 go into knockout play-offs, and the teams finishing 17th to 24th now go into a new play-off alongside the top eight from the Category Two league.
The problems with bringing players through haven't really gone away though. The biggest is still the jump from under-21 football to the first team. PL2 is technically decent but nowhere near the intensity of senior football, and the big clubs rarely have the minutes, so loans have become the last stage of development, with pretty mixed results.
EPPP also let the big clubs pick off the best kids from smaller academies at fixed compensation fees and then stockpile them, and only a tiny percentage of scholars ever go on to a proper Premier League career. The homegrown rule has never had enough teeth, as it's about where you trained rather than where you're from.
A couple of things pull in different directions.
Brexit stopped clubs signing under-18s from Europe, which has pushed them back towards home-grown talent but PSR has turned academy players into accounting assets, as a sale counts as pure profit, so there's now a real incentive to develop players to sell rather than to play.
Finally having "B teams" in the pyramid, like in Spain and Germany, keep getting floated as the answer, but the EFL and most fans see it as the big clubs taking over the lower leagues and I can't see it happening any time soon.
(Updated with 25/26 details) [Post edited 23 Sep 12:57]
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I wouldn't be (ha) for B teams say in League One/Two but playing in the top end of the regional non-leagues, so long as there was a fair trickle-down to those divisions to compensate them, then i'd feel happier about it. | |
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| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 14:46 - Sep 23 with 775 views | Steve_M |
| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 12:02 - Sep 23 by Swansea_Blue |
It does seem a bit of a counter productive competition. I can’t remember what the rationale for it was. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it was simply an attempt to to add a bit of glamour by including PL clubs, although I could be wrong (probably am). Did clubs even have any choice in the changes to reserve leagues and this competition? |
"I can’t remember what the rationale for it was."
Well, it was always about getting B teams into the league by threatening to withhold 'solidarity [sic] payments' to the lower division clubs.
Probably some claims about it being good for academy players blah, blah but instead it just ruined what used to be a decent competition. |  |
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| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 18:40 - Sep 23 with 576 views | armchaircritic59 |
Done a similar but shorter ( :) ) post over on the site under the last nights match report. Gross stupidity by the powers that be at the time, and the current ones are nearly as much to blame for not seeing the benefits in bringing it back. But then, that's just what you'd expect from the short sighted, money driven lot, running the game today. |  | | |
| I didn't watch the hammering last night... but on 19:18 - Sep 23 with 528 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
I did watch and they were hopeless. It was absolutely men against boys and Matusiwa was just using it as an exercise in gaining some fitness. He looked utterly frustrated before he was taken off.
It does need what you suggest and that can only come through them going out on loan to lower league clubs that will play them. However, they need to be good enough to be picked for those lower league clubs.
Contrast it to what Arsenal did with putting their best youths in with 5-6 regular first team squad players in the league cup. They clearly are far better than what we have and are able to slot into their same style of play effortlessly. The way they closed down as a team was very impressive. They also have the advantage of training against the very best press there is.
I don't know what the answer is but there is clearly a massive drop off from our first team squad to those in the U21s. I guess that if they weren't needed in the squad, playing the likes of Ouattara and Walle Egeli would help. |  |
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