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  • Premier League players aged 21+ not playing or being loaned/transferred

    CFuller

    By CFuller

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    Premier League clubs seem to have a problem with handling players aged 21+ who are too old to be automatically eligible for the U21 league, but are not (yet) good enough to play for the first-team.

    Many of these players are promoted to the first-team but are not used - and they may not even be registered. Only a few of these players are offered out for loan/transfer to lower-league clubs, and the others hardly play at all - not even for the Under-21s. Even though they're not Under-21 anymore, they can technically still play in Premier League 2 (which allows five overage outfield players and one overage goalkeeper in match squads).

    For any player in their early 20s, no gametime = no development. This might be one of the biggest reasons why many young players (particularly in England) struggle to develop to their full potential, and why most teams in the future become over-reliant on older players.

    I'm running a holiday save with 36 leagues loaded in 22 nations (including the top six leagues in England). As part of my experiments, I'm following the careers of 20 first-year scholars (one from each PL club). A few of these players have been affected by this after turning 21.

    Patterson.png.7e05beab5fb546e72a3fcbeb1dc86e30.png

    Travis Patterson (Aston Villa) spent two seasons out on loan at Rotherham in Swindon, and then played for Villa's U21s in the 2026/2027 season. He's now 'too old' for the U21s, but he's not being used by the first-team or being offered out to other clubs.

    Holland.png.02ee02be2e9d70003aa955b58ac620a1.png

    Isaac Holland (Brentford) is another one. He spent the first five seasons in Brentford's development teams, with his only four first-team appearances all coming in the Champions League in 2024/2025 (no, really, Brentford qualified for the Champions League :lol:). Holland hasn't been close to the first-team since then, and even after being promoted this summer, he's still not getting any of the senior football he needs.

    Brighton.png.fba4c9bc03ccba42b9c685e414271a6c.png

    In another example, Brighton have six players (one goalkeeper, five outfielders) who are aged between 22 and 24, are in the first-team, and are unregistered. All these players could be playing as overage players for the Under-21s or could be offered out for loan/transfer - but instead, they're rotting on the sidelines in the first-team.

    Leicester.png.f16a64cc575a4330d8257cd6acc922cf.png

    Leicester have four players experiencing the same issues. Briggs, Clark and Richards have played in the EFL Cup, but Enciso hasn't made a single appearance this season - not even in non-competitive matches.

    Enciso.png.780de2d2a2a6bf8adcfb8df7f93c88ec.png

    Leicester bought Enciso for £11million in 2023 and he spent the next four seasons on loan at Portsmouth, Sunderland and Barnsley, but now he's being left to rust for the final year of his contract.

    I have uploaded two save files - one from June 2027 (a few days into the summer transfer window), and one from December 2027. Please let me know if you need anything else.

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    Neil Brock

    Neil Brock 8,840 Administrators

    Posted

    Yeah we've been discussing this internally about the balance between players moving out on loan and clubs trying to get value for doing so - so wage and fee contributions. Obviously the club should be thinking about longer term, that if a player develops out on loan they've got more chance of being a better long-term investment and a chance of breaking into the first team.

    Is being investigated as said and appreciate you providing these examples. 

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    abcdf

    I raised the same issue, it is definetly a problematic aspect of the game as it impacts heavily the development of players in longer term saves. 

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    m.braathen

    It's the single most gamebreaking issue imo. The AI is wasting so much money, skill and surely it affects the coaches too, having all these extra players to teach for no reason at all. I really hope this will be fixed :) 

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