In these Covid times of clubs trying to get out of matches due to players on international duty is it time to abolish (or at least increase) the maximum squad size of 25 plus under 21s. My thinking is that it will mean that clubs who run massive squads with non playing members will be less likely to stock pile if they think they might be forced to play them. Hopefully it would also reduce the demand and hence price for youngsters and non-top rated players who will hopefully develop better actually playing for lower league/status clubs rather than doing nothing for premiership teams. Wider availability in squads should also assist with not rushing players back from injury too soon and reduce the occurances of matches being called off due to lack of player availability. Jsut brainstorming. Thoughts?
I think it would have the exact opposite effect to what you’ve suggested. Rich clubs will have NFL size squads with players happy to sit on the bench earning big money so no one else can have them. Sure you’ll have the odd player who ‘wants to play’ and will go off to Germany. But remember, according to Watford fans on this very board, youngsters who don’t go to the big clubs are not good enough for us anyway.
Are you suggesting this as a temporary measure during Covid or permanently? If the latter, I would have thought that Chelsea (say), instead of having 50 youngsters loaned out around the leagues, would have 50 internationals in their bloated squad if they were allowed to.
I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s why it was brought in in the first place? I have a vague memory of Chelsea stockpiling so many young players that the idea was to prevent that happening. They still do it to an extent but have no choice but to loan or sell a lot of them.
And in other news......one rule for the Scousers, one for everyone else. IMO, Leyton Orient now have grounds for legal action against the Football League after they were slung out of last year's League Cup due to a lergy outbreak.
I think aboloshing it will obviously have some unwarranted side effects. I'm not sure that there is a perfect solution and what we've got certainly isn't. FFP if implemented & enforced correctly should address the issue of stockpiling expensive salaries. Something along the lines of salries not exceeding a percentage of gross revenue and gross revenue shouldn't include moneybags owners bankrolling the club in some way. Of course this assumes that those in the ranks of the football heirarchy are actually of any use.
So it turns out Liverpool only had T.A.Arnold GENUINELY out with the lergy last week. They LIED to the Football League to get the match postponed, and should be slung out, semi-final or not.
