Kind of hilarious though that Saints with one of the best academies in the world would have trouble meeting the homegrown requirement. It's not like it was our choice. We would love to keep the players we produce. Just another example of how messed up the sport is. But hey, at least 4,000 people aren't going to die over this.
The critical date for next year's European competition in 1 January 1994. JWP was born on 1 November 1994 so he still counts as underage. He can still play, of course, he just doesn't use up a roster spot in 2015-2016. If we make Europe in 2016-2017 he would count as club trained.
It is actually harder than it would seem to have club trained players. If we had been playing in Europe in 2013-2014 we only would have had two: Lallana and Schneiderlin. If we had held onto him Oxlade-Chamberlain only would have been old enough to qualify in 2015-2016.
What I'm saying is, it's hard for the wrong reason. Shaw and Chambers would only have been club-trained because they don't need to be on the roster... which is better than club-trained in terms of flexibility. But when they get to 21 they would count as club players. That's how it is supposed to work. But we can't hang on to players long enough even though we are running a model club. To me, those rules are in place to help smaller clubs and to encourage clubs and nations to keep some sort of identity, rather than assembling a bunch of mercenary galactico types. But they have the opposite function. Players like Shaw, Lallana, and Chambers would be in our side and actually playing. That's the type of thing you want to encourage. Instead, big clubs just poach those guys and park them on the bench. So they are still fielding a group of non-club/non-nation mercenaries. And the team that did things right has trouble fielding a team.
interesting rule, but a bit of a non issue for me. More than 23 senior players is too much for a club our size(wage & playing time) I doubt we'll have more than 18 over 21s.
If Arsenal or Liverpool win the FA Cup then it would take a monumental **** up on our behalf to not qualify for the Europa League, and if we do then I hope we go out and try and get in a fair few players as we have all seen what happens to league form when you throw in the Europa League for a mid sized team like Saints
