To be frank,I am caught in two minds. I can see either side of the divide and I have got to accept that I am on the fence here. Let me try and puzzle out a solution to this "strife".
What Rafael Benitez says about starting top clubs' reserve teams in the lower leagues is not at all selfish. With the passage of time,Rafa has learnt to accept as well as respect the football buffs in England and I know that he's genuinely concerned about the lack of a large number of top quality players coming through the ranks in England. Most of the players in the reserves in the top teams in England are young and do have some potential(otherwise they won't all all be on the reserves). What they need at this stage is match practice,regular football and sustainence of confidence which they often are starved of at the bigger clubs. So these players need to be loaned out into the lower leagues.
But would starting reserves sides of the Premiership clubs who can afford them in the lower tiers of the footballingfamily in England help? Yes,it will. You need to absorb this fact once and for all:that the players on the reserves for the Chelseas,Man Uniteds or Arsenals are better than those playing for,say Peterborough(sorry to have hurt you) or Oxford United or whatever. To lift the players' ability and raise the standards of the youth set-up in the country,you must try and give maximum opportunity to these players. True,they may be loaned out to some of teh lower clubs but it's obvious that the facilities at most of these clubs are far from what those at the top Premiership clubs and this element too does play a huge role in the development of these kids. So starting reserve teams won't that bad an idea.
I don't have a great idea whether the lower leagues are as competitive as Mr. Barry made them out to be but the 'invasion' of the bigger English clubs into the football league would certainly help improve the standards of the leagues and even satisfy the footballing hunger of the top kids in the country.
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Subhankar Mondal is a football writer for www.goal.com.
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