Said on here for a while now, I genuinely believe this is Ashley's vision. Have a core squad of 18, then just drop in kids from the u21 setup as and when injuries occur.
It's not like us having a small squad has just happened overnight, it's been like this for at least the past four seasons. It's an utterly absurd way of looking at things, but suits the business model perfectly. However, when you've got a manager and a set of coaches who possess a total inability to develop younger players, with the manager in particular never selecting them again if they don't put in a man of the match performance on debut, then it simply won't work.