Although in practice it did often function as a transitional step for young players, the Reserve League had no age limit and also included genuine "reserve" players: senior pros who were on the outside of the first team. I spoke to Neil Wood, who as a teenager played for Manchester United’s reserve team in the 1990s. "When I first went into the reserves squad, there were the likes of David Healy, Luke Chadwick, John O’Shea, Jonathan Greening – guys four or five years older than me," he remembered.

Proper first-team players were also dropped in occasionally to build up fitness or minutes. "It didn’t happen so often, but when it did it was great," Wood recalls. "I can remember playing alongside Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole. I played against Paul Gascoigne, when he was coming to the end of his career at Everton, and Jardel and Ibrahim Ba at Bolton. I don’t think you get those experiences in today’s under-21s; it wasn’t a regular experience when I was playing, but when it did happen it was really special."

Having also coached Manchester United’s Premier League 2 team in a successful three-year spell between 2019 and 2022, Wood is well placed to assess the differences between the old and new systems. "When I look back to my experiences [in reserve-team football], I think players that I played with were maybe a little bit more streetwise," he says. "They played a lot of street football, played a lot of school football, had to learn along the way, obviously aided by coaches as well. I wouldn’t say back then it was just a physical battle and not quality."

We also spoke to Lee Carsley, the England Under-21 head coach, who played reserve-team football at Derby. "From 17 to 18 I would have been playing against men that played in the League," he recalled. "That definitely helped my development because I understood more about communication, where your team-mate is, [because] you would play with some older pros that weren’t as athletic as they once were but they were very good with their mouths."

The present system, however, while lacking that frisson of playing alongside senior pros, does have its own advantages. "I would say probably now there's more of a tactical element, teams are doing a lot more advanced things tactically," Wood says. "As a player, you have to be really switched on to what teams are doing and how they're playing.

"The Premier League 2 gets a lot of flak, people saying it's not the real thing, but I think it's an important step for the higher talents that have come out of under-18 football, who are not quite physically ready for a loan move into the EFL, and not quite ready to step up to the first team at their club. Maybe some are in it for 12 months, some for 18 months, but it’s a really important stage of their development where they are starting to play against better players, better teams, being introduced to new problems, system problems."

 

 
One measure of the success of the new youth system is the quality of the players it produces: several of the emergent stars of the Premier League season, including Cole Palmer, Rico Lewis, Harvey Elliott and Kobbie Mainoo, whom Wood coached at United, came through U18PL and PL2 football.

"I know after the England game a few nights ago, everybody's talking about Kobbie as something different to what we have, and Kobbie is a really technically efficient player," Wood says. "[But] I think the academy systems are producing that type of player. When you look at the lads that have played in Premier League 2, the lads that came through at United, they’re high technical players who probably just didn't quite have the luck: you look at Dylan Levitt, now playing at Hibs, Angel Gomes, playing at Lille, James Garner. If I look wider, you’re looking at Cole Palmer, James McAtee. So I do think they’re out there. I think there's a lot of good work that goes on in Premier League 2 that probably doesn't get the credit it deserves."

 Both Wood and Carsley agree that exposing under-21 players gradually to physical intensity of senior football is important, offering a challenge which can’t quite be replicated at age-group level. Of coaching his United team against senior teams in the EFL Trophy, Wood says. "In a football sense, we could really play some good football and perform well, but in a physical capacity, those games are really testing and really stretching."

Carsley is a strong advocate for that initiative – "It’s brilliant experience for the under-21 players" – and also points to the importance of senior loan moves for outstanding young players. Citing the example of Tyler Morton, the Liverpool holding midfielder on loan at Hull City, he says: "You could put Tyler into an under-21 game and he wouldn’t break sweat, he wouldn’t give the ball away and nobody would get near him. But you put him into a Championship game and his mindset is a different level. The opposition are trying to stop you — it’s not 'you have the ball and we drop off', it’s blood and thunder."

Both reserve-team football and under-21 football have their pros and cons. “It’s really difficult to decide which is the best way,” Wood says. But the current system does seem to be producing a good crop of technically proficient players, and while it lacks the steepness of the learning curve which reserve-team football offered, the flexibility exists to give young players now a more tailored introduction to the rigours of senior football.