Originally Posted by PS18

trouble is there aren't that many occasions when we're 2/3 goals up these days, and the ever-increasing financial pressures on managers, including fergie, means it's a risk to put unproven players on a five-man bench purely in the hope that we might get a few goals ahead. you have a point (not bringing jones on at 3-0 up vs kobenhavn is a case in point), but these pressures combined with the steadily-worsening standard of reserve football means we're (in theory) better served sending the better kids out on loan.

personally i've banged the drum for a couple of years for an increase in the number of substitutes a club is able to name in the premiership, from five to seven like in the champions league - only in the premiership, there'd be a stipulation that at least two of the subs must be players brought through the club's academy and under a certain age.