Loan Market Evaluation
Premier League 2 qualified clubs (Clubs with Category 1 academies) have loaned out 267 players this year, enough to fill fifteen 18 man squads, with 22.47% of those players being overage for U23 football.
Unsurprisingly it is Chelsea who once again top the charts for most loanees, they have 31 players out on loan - incredibly 11 of those players are over 23 years old meaning that Chelsea alone have contributed 18% of all the >23 year old loans in the league.
Closely behind Chelsea are Manchester City, with 27 loanees, although City contrast sharply in the number of overage loans with just one “senior” player having been sent out.
Reading, Sunderland and Crystal Palace have the fewest players out on loan with just 1 each.
Perhaps the most surpising result is that Norwich and Brighton have 22 and 19 players out on loan respectively (8 overage between them. Brighton are undergoing a youth revolution in recent years and have greatly expanded their youth squads while Norwich also have a strong academy in an area with relatively few rival clubs.
Under the proposed “Operation Big Picture” plan; Arsenal, Brighton, Chelsea, Manchester City, Norwich City and Wolverhampton Wanderers would have to reduce their number of loanees (the proposal was to limit loans to 15 per club).
Great post, as always, @Sweeting. Any idea where those 60 overaged players went!!! If they end up at some obscure club even at this age, they should do some career rethink.
Nice to see Elliott and Wilson both starting and playing full games tonight. Think Wilson would have secretly enjoyed scoring against Bournemouth after they seemed to drop him presumably saying he wasn’t good enough.
Sheyi Ojo starts aswell. More than likely doesn’t have a future at Liverpool but think we could get good money for him when we sell. He is definitely a championship level player who could be good enough to play in the premiership some day.
I would be very surprised with Liverpool if he is let go on a free. Bad business if they dont get money for him. I remember thinking when we sold Sterling it was okay because we had Ibe coming through and Ojo was following on after him. It didn’t work out that way but back then Ojo had a lot of potential.
Edit: Just googled his contract situation and it looks like he signed a five year contract in the summer of 2019 so not too sure