Jose Mourinho used more academy players than any other Premier League manager last season

In total, Mourinho used 10 players who came through the club’s youth system.
Jose Mourinho has gained a reputation for not giving youth players a chance, but that may not actually be the case.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. The Manchester United boss used more academy players than any other Premier League manager last season.

In total, Mourinho used 10 players who came through the club’s youth system. They did not, however, get much game time.

Joel Pereira, Demetri Mitchell and Josh Harrop played just one game apiece, with Scott McTominay adding 96 minutes and Timothy Fosu-Mensah 94.




Angel Gomes became the first Premier League player born in the 21st century, but featured for only two minutes.

The biggest contributor to United’s total was Paul Pogba, who was allowed to leave the club after first breaking into the team and was re-signed last summer at a world-record cost of £89million.
Other findings from the study (conducted by PA):

– Arsenal topped the charts in terms of playing time for homegrown players, with Hector Bellerin, Francis Coquelin, Alex Iwobi, Kieran Gibbs, Emiliano Martinez and Ainsley Maitland-Niles combining for 6,628 minutes – 19.4 per cent of the Gunners’ total.

– At the other end of the scale, Burnley and Swansea did not use any of their own academy products.
– Bournemouth, Liverpool and Stoke also gave less than one per cent of their playing time to players developed in-house.
– The Cherries, though, used the highest proportion of players developed in the UK at 90.3 per cent of their playing time.
– Burnley were second in that category at 85 per cent and were also the only team to exclusively use players who completed their development in Europe.
– Manchester City used just one of their own academy products – Kelechi Iheanacho for 526 minutes, of 1.4 per cent of their total – and recorded the lowest totals of minutes by players developed in the UK (14 per cent) and Europe as a whole (59 per cent). They used only four players who graduated from UK-based academies, with Raheem Sterling (Liverpool), John Stones (Barnsley) and Fabian Delph (Leeds) joining Iheanacho.

– The top six teams in the league – Chelsea, Tottenham, City, Liverpool, Arsenal and United – all finished in the bottom eight in terms of minutes played by UK-developed players.

Source:www.mirror.co.uk