I agree.

Horses for courses etc. Michael Owen peaked at 18, John Bostock was playing for us as a schoolboy and so forth.

If he was ready and able I am sure we'd have him with the first team. If he has to have several loans through the leagues to get him to the required level so be it. He may still not quite get there but the progression seems ongoing.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Back in the days of youth, reserve and first-team football (i.e. before academies, 'development squads', U23s, and Chelsea having fifty players on loan around Europe), the adage was that if you're 21 and not in the first team, it's time to leave.

Clubs tend to keep players on the books a bit longer now. The idea you could be 23 years old, a full-time footballer but not have played a minute for your club's first team slightly baffles me, but the thinking is probably similar to that which you outline above - for every player who is ready at 18 there will be far more who get better year on year over the ages of 18-23.

At the same time, improvement is not guaranteed in every case, the bulk will still end up not being professional footballers, and even those who do develop over the period will probably not be good enough to improve our first team.

Without repeating an earlier post of mine, I cannot think of many players to come through our youth set up, spend time on loan at increasingly higher levels of football for a few years, and then come into our first team. Ours tend to be either straight in (Clyne, Zaha, Wan-Bissaka, Mitchell) or nothing. Not sure why that is, but it does seem to be that way.

As far as being ready for the Premier league is concerned JRS is even allowing for a more than impressive season with Charlton, not yet ready.
Style wise , Wilf, comes to mind , but that’s all , at twenty Wilf had devastated Championship defences, and attracted the interest of the countries top manager, enough to invest £10 million in him.
Looking at the England under twenty ones team the other day many have already collected multiple Premier appearances, others are regulars in the Championship.
A successful season in the Championship, is needed, it could be make or break for him, as others have said he still appears a little lightweight. His weight is not a worry. his strength will be, but that’s the name of the game

It’s never easy to bring young players on in particular into Premier league standard. It can’t be a case of ,keep playing them and it will happen. A manager ,coaching team , can only act on what a young player actually does training within the first team group, it’s soon obvious what their chances are by performance in the group.
Whatever the situation on the Palace training pitches , the young players that have had at least one run out for the first team, just haven’t nailed anything down, and there have been a few , easily forgotten as they don’t stick. The reason for that must lay on the training pitch because that’s where they show what they can really do.

I remember someone commenting on here to regards the European final which JRS played in. I'm sure there were comments made that he hasn't quite strong enough and got knocked off the ball.

A step up to the championship will help his development in being able to cope with physical side of the game. If he can't cope with championship defenders then there is little hope with PL defenders.

Broadly yes, we either seam to generate prem players, or players that operate much further down. Jonny Williams is the only one that springs to mind that has spent a decent amount of time in the Championship.

As mentioned we have brought through a bunch either when we were in a lower league, or because of necessity.

But now is the first time that it feels like we have a bit of a plan with our players.