View: Tottenham Under-21s avoid the drop as new Premier League 2 rules are announced
Premier League clubs have voted to change the format of Premier League 2 ahead of the new season, much to the relief of Tottenham.
Tottenham’s Under-21s were relegated from Premier League 2 on the final day of last season despite finishing the campaign with a victory over London rivals West Ham and losing just three times in 2023.
A difficult start to the season for Wayne Burnett’s side, which was littered with injuries, meant Spurs had too much to do in their fight against relegation, despite taking their fight all the way to the last kick of the season.
However, Spurs will not need to worry about playing in a lower division next season after all, as the Premier League confirmed to Football London (20 June) that the competition will now become a single-tier Swiss-style format.
Clubs were concerned that the current system was harming individual player development as academies were too focused on preserving league positions and therefore holding onto younger players longer than they should have.
As a result, the new system will see relegation and promotion scrapped and instead have the 25 category one academy sides competing in one division. The model is the same one that UEFA will begin to adopt in 2024/25 for the Champions League.
The 25 teams will be seeded into five pots, dependent on historical performance, with each team playing every other team in their pot, as well as a mixture of teams from other pots. The resulting table will then be decided and the top 16 will advance to the knock-out stages.
The new system sounds a little complicated on first reading and may take a little bit of adjustment, but in the long run it has the potential to be hugely beneficial.
Without the pressure of relegation, teams will be able to play with more freedom and concentrate on each individual player’s strengths and weaknesses to help them develop. This should lead to a higher level of players coming through the academy system.
Ultimately, all that matters at academy level is game time and development, something the Premier League 2 format wasn’t properly allowing, and it will be intriguing to see how this new system will change things.
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