Whilst Manchester United used more homegrown category players in the 2016/17 Premier League than any other team, Arsenal topped the table when it came to the % of minutes those homegrown youngsters received.
Having looked at the % of total minutes handed out to Premier League youngsters across all competitions previously as the season came to a close – Click Here Sunderland topped that particular pile with then manager David Moyes giving Under 23s a combined total of 12,657 minutes, closely followed by Tottenham Hotspur’s Mauricio Pochettino giving out 12,089 minutes, this table is a little different and looks at homegrown Under 23s only and limits their minutes to the Premier League campaign as a standalone.
The legwork for this was done by Press Association Sport as carried by Sky Sports.
On this basis Arsenal gave more match minutes to their homegrown youngsters than anybody else in the top flight division but only two handed minutes – Kieran Gibbs and Ainsley Maitland-Niles are eligible for England.
Arsene Wenger gave six youngsters 19.4% of the total 6,628 Premier League minutes they had last season. Hector Bellerin benefited most with a total of 2,498 top flight minutes with Francis Coquelin, Alex Iwobi, Emiliano Martinez completing the set.
Jose Mourinho at Manchester United did hand more homegrown footballs game time that anybody else in the league, ten with 16 year old Angel Gomes becoming the first player born in or after 2000 to debut in the Premier League, but as a % of minutes their total came to 17.1%.
Paul Pogba was top of their pile playing 2,609 minutes and the French international classes as homegrown owing to his time in their Academy before he departed for Juventus, returning for a work record £89million fee last summer.
Bournemouth had their own claim to fame last season as they had the highest % of players developed in the UK youth system – 90.3% – but their own Academy only saw a single substitute appearances from both Baily Cargill and Matt Worthington across the season as Eddie Howe stuck with experience.
Burnley were the only side to use players developed exclusively in the UK or European system, with UK based development accounting for 95%. However Burnley were one of only two sides who didn’t give a single minute to a homegrown player across the Premier League campaign.
Swansea City join them in that category.
Manchester City took the record for the lowest number of UK developed players – 14% – and they used only four players from UK based Academies. Raheem Sterling (Liverpool), John Stones (Barnsley), Fabian Delph (Leeds) and their own homegrown youth Kelechi Iheanacho. City did however take the record for the greatest proportion of outside European developed players with 41% for 2016/17.
Watford were second lowest at 17.2% of UK developed players
Top six sides, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United were all in the bottom eight in terms of minutes played by UK developed players.
We carried out a study to see which club gave the most minutes to their own academy products in the 2016/17 PL season. Here are the results. pic.twitter.com/P7jcXA2ODW
? PA Sport (@pasport) 20 July 2017
