I’m watching the Big Match Revisited from 79/80 at the moment with the main match being an entertaining First Division game between Palace and Man City - Palace are winning 1-0 thanks to a goal by Ian Walsh and Dave Bennett is playing for Man City.

Anyway, the reason for my starting this thread is that Brian Moore said that eleven of the twenty four players involved were teenagers and I immediately thought of the number of times I’ve read on here and other places that so and so is not ready yet for the senior side at, say, twenty one- what has changed in the past forty or so years to make it okay to have teenagers making up half of your team that doesn’t apply now?