Manchester United Have The Most Homegrown Players In The Premier League, Says Report

Despite criticism that the club was abandoning their policy of promoting youth following a summer spending spree of £150 million on new arrivals, Manchester United still have the most homegrown players in the Premier League, according to a new report by Prime Time Sport.

United have seven players classified as homegrown, this coming after the departures of Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley on deadline day.

Non-English players can be counted as homegrown if they have spent a minimum of three years with their club before the age of 21. Two of United’s players, Adnan Januzaj (Belgium) and Rafael da Silva (Brazil) are both counted as homegrown players.

Along with Januzaj and Rafael, the other United players counted towards the total are: Darren Fletcher, Jonny Evans, Tyler Blackett, Jesse Lingard and goalkeeper Ben Amos.

Three clubs: Hull City, Sunderland and Queens Park Rangers; do not have any homegrown players in their squads. Burnley and Stoke City have just one.

Trailing United are Arsenal and Aston Villa who both have six homegrown players. Liverpool and Newcastle United are next with five each.

Preseason title favorites Chelsea and Manchester City have three and two players respectively. City were found to have the oldest squad in the Premier League with an average age of 28; Newcastle have the youngest (25.1).

The report also said that 67 percent of Premier League players were foreign, which is down from last season (70%). That statistic means the BPL still holds a massive advantage over Europe’s other four big leagues in regards to foreign players.

The Bundesliga trails the Premier League with 53 percent of its players coming from outside of Germany. Serie A (47%), Ligue Un (45%) and La Liga (39%) round out the other European leagues in Prime Time Sport’s report.