Premier League squads this season must apparently contain a maximum of 25 players aged over 21, at least eight of whom have to be ‘home-grown’. Home grown being defined as players trained in either England or Wales for 36 months before the end of the season in which they became 21. This would include both Theo Walcott and Cesc Fabregas for example.

Can anyone explain the logic of this ruling because I find it strange on a number of accounts? Why for example can the Premiership effectively determine the age of a squad? Are there any other industries in the UK where they are dictated to in terms of the percentages of age of home grown trained personnel? Does the International Banking community for example insist upon quotas of staff being UK trained, I somehow doubt it. What would happen if a Club choose to have no players over 21? Unlikely I know but not beyond the bounds of possibility. Presumably you could have just eight players aged over 21 but they would have to be all home-grown.

It would also appear to mean that if you develop eight youngsters in a season where they all coming along quite well but turn 21 at the same time you'd have to sell senior players in order to accommodate them - or give some of your youngsters the elbow. At Arsenal for example we currently have Mark Randall, Armand Traore, Pedro Bottello, Kieran Gibbs, Gilles Sunu, Wojciech Szczesny, Nacer Barazite and Harvard Nordtveit who will all turn 21 before next season. Given the paucity of home grown talent being developed at many Clubs it's clearly desirable that we should cling on to as many of these as possible, but in order to do so we'd now have to effectively ditch some of our senior pros.

Many players don't conveniently mature at 21 so some of these would have to either be carried for a year or so in the hope that they might come good or be ditched. This to my mind pinpoints one of the major failings of this strange rule. Clubs such as Arsenal and Manchester United require far larger squads than the Blackpools, Stokes or Wolves of this world in order to compete at the top level in Europe. They also tend to develop far more top class talent but this is achieved partly by including younger players in their larger squads. By my reckoning this new ruling will mean fewer senior players competing more often at the top level with all that entails by way of additional injuries. So I see this rule as penalising the top Clubs whilst at the same time it could well be lengthening the number of discarded players in the dole queue and maybe even increasing injuries.

I figure that we currently have about ten players fitting the ‘home grown’ bill this season. Namely: Gavin Hoyte, Theo Walcott, Carlos Vela, Jay Simpson, Vito Mannone, Denilson, Nicklas Bendtner, Cesc Fabregas, Johan Djourou & Gael Clichy. Whereas those doyens of accuracy at the Daily Mail figure we have six. So perhaps someone out there could provide a more accurate breakdown please.

Given the mediocre quality of home grown players being produced by the majority of the Championship and Premiership Clubs this looks like a ruling that will ultimately lower the standards rather than raise them. Physical ability rather than technique is still considered paramount by the majority in England and with less coaches to encourage any latent talent than the rest of Europe a decline in standards is yet again on the cards. I hope it won't be, but it could be a setback on par with the catastrophe that saw both Graham Taylor and Howard Wilkinson rise to long-ball prominence in the '90's.

Presumably from now on all Clubs will have to either produce their own players and cling onto them despite the best attentions of Barcelona and limitations on squad size or outbid Citeah for those few of any worth. The end of the Premiership as we know it then?