Found myself worying about the 25 man squad rule for the premier league this year and its possible impacts on United. Rather than allow it to keep me up all night I decided to have a bash at cobbling the potential squadlist together.
The rule is that you have to name your 25 man squad and stick to it for the Premier League. 8 of them must be ‘home-grown players’, meaning that they were registered with English clubs for a total of 3 years between the ages of 16 and 21 (we have no worries here).To complicate matters, you are allowed as many under 21s as you want in addition to the named 25 man squad.
Reassuringly, I think we’re OK on the 25 man rule (SAF will be relieved to hear this). Here’s what could be 24 of our 25 man squad:
| Strikers | Berbatov |
| Owen | |
| Rooney | |
| Chicharito | |
| Midfielders | Giggs |
| Scholes | |
| Fletcher | |
| Carrick | |
| Nani | |
| Valencia | |
| Anderson | |
| Park | |
| Gibson | |
| Obertan | |
| Cleverly (21 on 12th August) |
|
| Defenders | Vidic |
| Ferdinand | |
| Brown | |
| O’Shea | |
| Evra | |
| Neville | |
| Evans | |
| Goalkeepers | Van der Sar |
| Kuszczak |
Add to this the following Under 21s:
| Strikers | Macheda (19) |
| Defenders | Raphael (20) |
| Fabio (20) | |
| Smalling (20 – 21 on 22nd November) |
|
| Cory Evans (20) | |
| Goalkeepers | Amos (20) |
I’ve made it a 24 man squad in order to allow room for Herr Ozil – however optimistic that may seem. When we don’t recruit him there is room for one of the following: Hargreaves, Possebon or De Laet. My bet would be De Laet, given that Hargreaves seems crocked semi-permanently and Possebon is so far out of favour he has no squad number. I’m assuming that Smalling is OK as an Under 21 as he doesn’t turn 21 until after the squad registration date on 1st Sept. There are obviously a few other promising youth team players (Petrucci, Pogba, etc.) who may get the chance in the event of an injury crisis.
