For me I think less is more and with less comes more stability and improvements in the team in a year like the one we have ahead. With that improvement comes more scenarios in which you bring kids into stable situations where you are up by 2 with 15 to go which it much more conducive to development on all levels than what we have seen the club do in the previous couple of years.
I also am not a fan of what we have done in years where we have made so many changes in cups like the EL etc where you end up having such a disjointed look that invariably the kids look like rabbits in a headlight and then get targeted as not good enough. Also what generally happens is those games dry up when getting through means more and the kids don't get seen again when it hits the business end.
For me you need to have real time, real competitive scenarios where you have someone come into a settled side to show what they can do, rather than something like we might have served up previously which would be "lad we are 2 down with 30 mins, off you go and show what you can do"........whats not progress or development for me.
For balance, I am not a believer in having loads of kids round the squad for the sake of it, or filling the bench with it (unless you have to), but I see a massive opportunity for a season like next where you take your greatest youth asset like in our case LWB and integrate him into games where the scenario is suitable and for me those seasons come when you are not in loads of comps, that comes when your base side AKA the PL side is so improved and can offer up those chances, IMO that comes with less European distractions.
It isn't a maths problem in terms of opportunities, its a quality of opportunity and environment problem IMO
