Most Town fans will have noticed that our current squad has a far more cosmopolitan feel to it these days. One of the reasons we’ve achieved so much in recent seasons has been our ability to pick up players from abroad at a fraction of the cost their English equivalent would be valued at.
Has delving into foreign markets left Town in a position where they could fall foul of the Premier League’s rules about homegrown players? Could Town be forced into naming a smaller squad than they could because of the lack of homegrown players on our books?
If you can’t be bothered reading the whole article, the quick answer is that our current squad is almost perfectly balanced between homegrown and non-homegrown players, but any transfers could muck this up and mean we have to move players on.
What are the Premier League squad rules?
The Premier League requires all clubs to name a squad with a maximum of 25 players, with a maximum of 17 non-homegrown players. That means you need 8 homegrown players to be able to use the full 25-man allocation. The rules allow you to name fewer than 25 players, if you don’t have enough homegrown players to fill your allocation, which is a situation Town could be facing by the end of the transfer window.
The big loophole in these rules surrounds under-21 players. You can name as many under 21s as you like and they don’t count in your 25-man squad allowance, regardless of where they come from. So Ramadan Sohbi, Juninho Bacuna, and Ryan Schofield will qualify as under-21s.
Last season you were classed as under 21 if your birthday fell before 1 January 1996, so I’d expect this season’s criteria to be anyone born from 1997 onwards, which means Sabiri, Billing, and Stanković no longer qualify as under 21s despite being in the under 21 list last season.
Who are Town’s homegrown players?
Homegrown doesn’t have to mean English, it just means you’ve spent three seasons in a domestic club’s academy before the age of 21. So Philip Billing and Aaron Mooy both qualify as homegrown despite not being English.
Here’s a list of the players I believe qualify as “homegrown” for Town:
- Tommy Smith
- Scott Malone
- Jonathan Hogg
- Philip Billing
- Aaron Mooy
- Ben Hamer
- Joel Coleman
- Alex Pritchard
So we’ve got eight currently. However, if you believe the rumours we may well be sending Joel Coleman out on loan soon, so he’d fall out of the squad. It’s also uncertain whether Scott Malone will be kept on, given Durm and Kongolo’s signings this transfer window. It could be that being homegrown is a significant factor in the decision on whether to keep Malone or not.
UPDATE: Town have now loaned Joel Coleman to Shrewsbury for the season, so we’re down to seven homegrown players.
Who are Town’s non-homegrown players
Town currently have 17 non-homegrown players that are classed as over 21, which means we’ve got exactly the right number of players. So we’re fine, but any non-homegrown players we sign before the end of the window will mean we’ve got to get rid of someone from this list.
Here’s our non-homegrown players:
- Jonas Lössl
- Terence Kongolo
- Elias Kachunga
- Chris Löwe
- Rajiv van La Parra
- Collin Quaner
- Laurent Depoitre
- Danny Williams
- Steve Mounié
- Mathias Jørgensen
- Christopher Schindler
- Jon Gorenc Stanković
- Abdelhamid Sabiri
- Florent Hadergjonaj
- Erik Durm
- Michael Hefele
- Adama Diakhaby
Fringe players such as Michael Hefele, Jon Stanović and Collin Quaner may start to feel a bit concerned if more foreign players are added to the squad.
So, do Town have too many foreign players?
Not yet. Currently Town have just the right number of homegrown (UPDATE: now one too few, following Coleman’s loan move) and non-homegrown players in their squad, which means we’ll be able to name a full squad. Any transfers of players that are over 21 will unsettle this balance, and mean it’s likely we’ll have to move on existing players to make space in the squad.
What happens if we don’t have enough homegrown players for the 25-man squad?
It’s not really a problem if we don’t have eight homegrown players, as long as we don’t exceed the 17-man limit of non-homegrown players. It will just mean our squad of over-21 year old players will be have fewer than 25 players in it. Given that we’ve got Bacuna, Sohbi, and Schofield in the under-21 category we’ll still have a squad big enough to cope with the season ahead.
Thanks for clearly explaining this situation, I had no idea before and explains the balancing act managers face.