And I think that's part of where the frustration lies with a lot of James' critics, including me.
We see a bunch of talented kids at the club and we'd rather have them be 6th choice (with Mata as a more experienced backup).
There's the counter argument that they're better off going out on loan, but I don't think all of them have outgrown the u23. I'm sure 17y old Shoretire isn't going out on loan and might benefit from the experience.
James' pace didn't get us a goal last season. I'm sure Mata is fit enough to run around for 10 minutes and his superior techique might allow us to not botch a counter attack, in case Ole doesn't trust one of the kids. We don't need 6 seniors players for one position.
I can understand that viewpoint to a degree, but I can also understand why Ole would give minutes to James over young players that "haven't outgrown the u23s" as you put it.
Firstly, those youngsters won't have the PL experience that James has, nor the level of understanding of what Ole wants from them, and often they aren't fully physically developed yet. These aren't through any fault of theirs, it's just youth and lack of experience. On top of that, throwing those young players into first team matches is a
huge increase in pressure - a poor performance and/or criticism from fans or press can set back youngsters, especially at such an early stage in their development.
Also, calling it 6 senior players for one position is disingenuous, we have multiple forwards who can play in multiple forward positions, and last season our forwards were knackered by the end of the season because there wasn't enough squad depth to rotate due to injuries.