that's a fair view. The problems I see for us are:

(1) At various points last season and this season we've had more players out on loan than the cap would permit. That's included getting players such as Wildschutt, Naismith and Franke off our books (even if only recouping a small proportion of their costs) and getting exciting youth prospects some experience. If the caps had applied, is our financial situation such that we'd have prioritised cost mitigation over youth development?

(2) If the bigger clubs can't loan out their 'maybes', they get released onto the market. Yes, we might be able to bag a rough diamond. But so might the clubs that we'd otherwise be loaning our own youths to, or selling some of our unwanted players to. That might play to our advantage (an initial downward pressure on transfer values for incoming players) or it might not (being saddled with a player we don't want but can't sell or loan out, or not being able to get first team action for our next gen prospects).

(3) On an ecosystem level, over time fewer loan opportunities for academy graduates will mean academies take on less youths at the start to minimise the wastage. On the plus side that means some of the better prospects who'd have gone to the top academies then go to the next rung down, pushing the usual candidates for those academies into the next rung down, etc etc. So some academies and youth programmes will get a better raw material to work with than they might have had before. But overall there will be fewer places available at clubs that can actually train & develop players properly. There will be fewer academy graduates coming out of the top systems, and fewer getting loan development opportunities, so there will be less 'proven' talent around. That constraint on supply of quality will eventually feed into higher transfer values as clubs compete for the less risky gambles (whether we benefit from that or not depends on where we are in the pecking order)

(4) If you're a club that relies on producing talent from your own academy, but you've got less to choose from as you've cut your intake, and/or you can't test as many players out on loan, the risk of a 'failed crop' is that much greater. You're then back out into the market trying to buy better players than you've been able to develop. Fine if you've got the cash to splash, but if you've got a self-funding model reliant on the academy...

(5) If you're a club that relies on loans to bring in talent you otherwise can't afford or don't want to risk buying, any constraints on the supply of loanees is going to hurt you. That's not us now, but it has been in the past and it could well be us in the future if we miss out on promotion.

I can see pros and cons to it but I suspect the sweet spot is further down the pyramid than us. I don't think it's all that clear cut for us.

It seems to be a fix for a problem that could be fixed in other, more targeted, ways.

And on your 'everyone is in the same boat' point, it has less of an impact on top clubs with B Teams? You could argue that what Chelsea and others do is just another way of achieving some of what B Teams can provide. The long term impact of measures such as this will, I think, be greater use of B teams in the English system (initially just greater expansion into the cup competitions, but eventually in the leagues too). The rich clubs are too rich and powerful to let their position of dominance be eroded.

Posted By: CWC, Nov 30, 14:07:49