Young Players 101

Apologies for the essay nature of the following, but after ten years of CM/FM I've finally taken the plunge and joined the forums, I guess because I've finally reached my tipping point of frustration at my one failing as a manager.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and have through thick and thin, and I've had plenty of successful here and there (four straight league and european titles with Inter two years ago, two straight BSP-Championship runs with Stevenage Borough...)

But in all those years since CM00/01, I haven't had a single regen from my own club grow into my first-choice at their position. It doesn't feel like it's for want of trying; I use specific training schedules for each position, I'm religious about the quality of my coaching staff (and their Working With Youngsters attributes), I make sure I have an Assistant Manager with good scouting characteristics so I can identify the potential starlets... And after all that, the best result that springs to mind is a middling back-up left back for a Man Utd side about five years back...

To consider my present scenario, I'm currently playing as Leicester City, sitting 3rd in the Premiership in March 2016; all my coaches are 5-star or better and my assistant has Judging Potential 20. On his advice, I have two projects going, both rated 6-star potential and regens from this season, the major one being Rob O'Connell, a left-back with Tackling 14. At age 16, he's made six substitute appearances in the league, and had three starts in the League Cup and five in the Uefa Cup. But so far, his improvement amounts to one notch in different physical stats and two different technical stats (and those were concentration and first touch!)

I've long suspected I'm not giving these players enough first-team exposure, but I don't feel as if O'Connell's level of exposure is unreasonable (especially considering the 22-year-old, £12.5M rated Sweden international he's playing behind). I sometimes wonder if I'm expecting too much, particularly with the attribute overview we got a couple of years ago; that thing never seems to move very far, but unless players are meant to be generated at Defending 9/10 (which is where the 22-year-old is on the overview), there must be a way for players like O'Connell (who ranks 5/10) to reach those dizzy heights.

Anyhoo, essay over, now, please help!

Anyhoo, essay over, now, please help!

Couple of tips I could give would be to give him more playing time and make him work with a senior. The Swedish International could coach the player (would boost mental attributes I believe) and make sure he gets about 200-300 mins of game time a season (someone had mentioned this in a thread somewhere else in the forumn ).

The technical stats will be boosted as his CA increases, and the CA increase is linked to more of the playing experience/mentoring he get. Training only conditions which all attributes are increased (for eg, if a players CA goes from 100 to 115, and if he is on a training schedule with heavy defence training, then the CA points given would be distributed more towards the Defensive stats such as tackling, marking etc).

Hope this helps. I had some great homegrown players come through in Fm09, whereas struggled in previous versions. I think this years regen quality and training tweaks are spot on, or at least a step in the right direction. SI

Yup, as vivu said, increments to the CA are attributed to playing minutes. If you find that you cannot offer your youth enough minutes at this present time, send him out on loan to a club that will.

When offering him out, make sure you select a club that will play him as a first team regular. This way, your youth will get the minutes he needs for his CA to rise.

Another tip regarding loaning your youth out is to do so when he is around 18 or 19 years old. This gives you enough time, prior to the loan, to pair him with a mentor and raise his determination attribute as well as pick up a few PPMs from the mentor.

P.S. Welcome aboard the forums!

Yup, as vivu said, increments to the CA are attributed to playing minutes. If you find that you cannot offer your youth enough minutes at this present time, send him out on loan to a club that will.

When offering him out, make sure you select a club that will play him as a first team regular. This way, your youth will get the minutes he needs for his CA to rise.

Another tip regarding loaning your youth out is to do so when he is around 18 or 19 years old. This gives you enough time, prior to the loan, to pair him with a mentor and raise his determination attribute as well as pick up a few PPMs from the mentor.

P.S. Welcome aboard the forums!

Send him out on loan to a club in a lower division should guarentee first team football if he is a good prospect although i must loaness sometimes dont even get played when i send them out

Yeah I agree you should loan any promising youngsters unless you can guarantee them a decent amount of 1st team games. I've had players at 21 years old who were showing none of their potential, but after a year on loan the've come back different players, so don't give up on them too early - some take a while before they blossom.

The most important thing in my opinion when deciding where to loan a player is the amount of games he will get, so make sure you loan a player to a club who claim he will be a valuable 1st team player.

Send him out on loan to a club in a lower division should guarentee first team football if he is a good prospect although i must loaness sometimes dont even get played when i send them out

Sending a player to a club playing in a lower division than yours is not a guarantee by itself that they will play him regularly.

The key is to pay attention to the loan offer news article for your player in your inbox. Your player will more than likely be playing regularly if you see "[Loaning Club] feel the player would become a valuable member of the first-team" in the news article.

If you see "[Loaning Club] feel the player would act as cover for the first-team", then it is not likely that your player will be playing regularly for them, unless their regulars sustain injuries.

Sending a player to a club playing in a lower division than yours is not a guarantee by itself that they will play him regularly.

The key is to pay attention to the loan offer news article for your player in your inbox. Your player will more than likely be playing regularly if you see "[Loaning Club] feel the player would become a valuable member of the first-team" in the news article.

If you see "[Loaning Club] feel the player would act as cover for the first-team", then it is not likely that your player will be playing regularly for them, unless their regulars sustain injuries.

Yes sometimes they are loaned out as cover

Thanks to everyone for the responses, plenty of questions answered but plenty asked too :confused:

I think fundamentally I'd forgotten to think about it as PA and CA, which perhaps relates back to this thing about expectations; as I find the training graphs utterly useless for tracking progress, I tend to look at the overview octagon to judge these things, and as I say I'm not sure how far it's realistic to expect things to move.

The debate about loaning brings to mind another pair of examples from my current games, both quick, tall centre backs with low technical ability (making their overview look like a wide, shallow triangle) and 6-star rated. The first, Stewart Scott, came to me at Stevenage from Connah's Quay almost as soon as he was created. After half a season on loan at Ebbsfleet in the BSP, he became one of my first-choice centre backs and was virtually ever-present through a year in League 1 and (after I'd left) three years in the Championship, plus 19 U21 caps. He's now 23, and his overview is a somewhat bigger triangle; with all that playing time, however, he's only gone from Defending 4 to Defending 7 (Tackling 13, Marking 14).

He's now bugging me because I have a similar player at Leicester in Andrew Metcalf. In his case I did have to loan him out and I followed the advice here, sending him to Colchester in League 1 where he was one of the players of the season (40 starts@7.36, two Young Player Of The Months and one Player Of The Month). And yet, his tackling and marking haven't gone up in a year (and they're 11 and 12 now) and he's at Defending 6, when my two first-choices are at Defending 8.

So as I say, it's a question of whether I expecting too much of these guys. I'm hoping that getting into Europe will push things along too; I'd built my squad by signing other people's good players before, now with the home-grown rule I'm getting to the point where almost all my back-ups are top youth prospects and there's the odd sign of major improvement.

PS On the question of tutoring, does it matter which of the three tutoring statements you use? I do tutor (the Swede's already had one cycle of tutoring O'Connell) but I've never been entirely sure what it does and whether there's a difference with the different ways you can suggest it

I cannot offer much solid explanation on the seeming stagnation of attribute growth seen on Metcalf. Maybe the level of training facilities at Colchester might have some negative impact on it? Or that the level of game he experienced in League 1 was too easy for him (hence the 7.36 average rating) and he was not pushing himself to improve as a result?

Regarding tutoring though, here is a quote from someone who had done tests on the matter:

All three improve/decrease the youngster's attributes [Determination, Professionalism, Adaptability, Ambition, Loyalty, Controversy, Temperament, Sportsmanship, Pressure] towards those of the tutor. Also all three pass on ppm.

What is the difference between the three? "Role Model" means you INSIST, "can learn" means "how about doing that?", and the middle option is in the middle. So the options have to do with how strongly you are suggesting this.

This is how it always used to be and this is how it was in FM2009, first patch included. Haven't tested the latest patch, but I don't think this has changed.

Someone else has also mentioned that choosing the "role model" option affords your trainee more mentoring time with the tutor, and the mentoring time decreases as you go down. The "can learn from" option would yield the shortest amount of mentoring time.

The key though, is that the raising of attributes and picking up of PPMs are in no way guaranteed. There is a random factor involved.

If you get a regen or sign a very highly rated youth player, with a fairly low CA but has a massive PA, would you try and stick with him in hopes that he becomes a late bloomer? Or would you impatiently release him and try and develop those wonderkids instead?

I have two or three of those low stat ones, i know they have amazing potential but their growth has been a bit slow and im starting to worry they may never reach their potential or even anywhere near it. They are still young though, around 17-18.

The debate about loaning brings to mind another pair of examples from my current games, both quick, tall centre backs with low technical ability (making their overview look like a wide, shallow triangle) and 6-star rated. The first, Stewart Scott, came to me at Stevenage from Connah's Quay almost as soon as he was created. After half a season on loan at Ebbsfleet in the BSP, he became one of my first-choice centre backs and was virtually ever-present through a year in League 1 and (after I'd left) three years in the Championship, plus 19 U21 caps. He's now 23, and his overview is a somewhat bigger triangle; with all that playing time, however, he's only gone from Defending 4 to Defending 7 (Tackling 13, Marking 14).

The basic question here would be how good your other center halves were? 6 star rating is only in relation to the existing players within the squad. So if the existing players were carp, then even with a six star rating, the regen player would be relatively carp. Also if the players CA almost= PA, then there would be obviously be little scope for improvement. Also need to check the training schedule. If your training schedule does not emphasize defending option, then the CA improvements would get spent on other attributes.

Auberius, for what time have you had this regen now? By the sound of it, it seems to be just the first or second season. If that was the case, just give the lad time. Of course you cannot expect him to mature to his full potential at the age of 16. Regens with a great potential, by a rule of thumb often improve their CA at a rate of 1 a month (as has been shown in several test on here), so a jump from 100 to 140 (or comparable) should not be expected to take less than 3 years, whatever you do to nurture the kid.

One a month's a decent rule of thumb, hadn't heard that one before. I guess the relative stars have been a problem before, as I've been shooting up the leagues the star potential has died off rather quickly and I've perhaps given up on guys a little early. Things should be far more stable now I'm up in the Champions League battle.

Should get a good look at how well the loaning works too now; Mr O'Connell and my other current regen project (a 6'5" striker with pace and acceleration 18!) both got loaned into similar situations, clubs promoted into the Championship where they'll be first-choice.

Another question that occurs late in the day; what effect does playing time in the reserves have? I generally try to make sure my regens get as much game time there as possible if they're not likely to figure in upcoming first team games, but does it count towards any improvement?

Arrr, there is some great advice given here. Even though I am not the OP, I am glad I read this. Now, it's time to give some of my prospects at least 300 minutes of playing time (they all played/started in 5 and played close to 70 minutes each.

so what is better?

5 starts or 30 sub appearances per season for young players?

Honestly, from what I recall reading on here, some tests were made by other helpful users who compared the progress of youngsters under different situations.

In the end it turned out to be pretty much unimportant whether a youngster was loaned out to play, kept in the reserves, given a few first team starts or been a first team regular. Iirc there was a small advantage for those who were given (only!) few first team start appearances. The only real difference were injuries because they paused the constant CA increase.

I was not very happy about these results as they basically mean that what we do to nurture youngsters doesn't really matter:

Incidentally, having just had another pretty ropey set of regens (just four, the best of whom I'm advised to offload!) it occurs to me that in all these years I've never used youth coaches because I've never seen any particular need for them. Does the number of youth coaches you employ affect the number and/or quality of your regens, and if so what particular attributes should I be looking for?

It's a long read, but I recommend this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=70803 for further details on this subject.

i think ur sending ur players to teams to far down the league. i had 2 promiseing players at man u, a winger and a CM. had them from 16 yr olds, they were starting for me and england by 22.

1st season tutor and playing time

2nd season same

3rd season sent out on loan to top divison spanish side, they had just got promated, they played most of the games

4th season same

5th season in first team plans

6th season starters

Trying something different to generate good regens - still in testing

Involves creating a "Schools" team (or academy) - (i.e. England Schools etc) for each country - with staff and top facilities

tweaking it a bit but the results are promising - most regens so far have a PA of between 120 and 170

It's a long read, but I recommend this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=70803 for further details on this subject.

I'd been through most of that before, doesn't seem to mention the youth coaches at all.

Sorry to bump this but I really want an answer to this question. Does the number of youth coaches you employ affect the number and/or quality of your regens, and if so what particular attributes should I be looking for in said youth coaches?

I'm not sure and would also like an answer to this question, seeing as this thread has already helped me

"....he's only gone from Defending 4 to Defending 7 (Tackling 13, Marking 14)."

Defending 4, defending 7, where can you see this??

Maybe it's half of the average of the Tackling and Marking?

"....he's only gone from Defending 4 to Defending 7 (Tackling 13, Marking 14)."

Defending 4, defending 7, where can you see this??

I'm referring to the Attributes Overview octagon, where each category has ten subdivisions.

Okay, time to bump this back into life as I've just tried something of a little experiment. After years (both real and in-game) of not employing youth coaches, I decided to try having some for three reasons;

• Having multiple five-star coaches for the same type of training wasn't having any benefit above and beyond having one such coach
  
• Employing additional coaches beyond the nine is good for scouting knowledge
  
• The AI teams do it and they must know something...
  

In particular, as you'll have gathered from this thread, I've been wondering whether the employment of youth coaches affected the quality and quantity of regens a team produces (this thought having become even more nagging after two straight years of getting just four regens, all of whom are useless...)

Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, the answer appears to be no; having run the regeneration day a good dozen times, the results appear to be essentially random, with between four and seven regens, varying from a uniform bunch of dogs to a mixed gang with one or two good prospects.

Either way I'm going to keep at it as I'm also wondering whether there's a longer-term effect at play (the youth coaches were all hired about two weeks before regen day, after all). But I'm still left with the question; realistic or not, what factors that are actually modelled in the game allow clubs with lower reputations than mine and identical training and youth facilities to consistently produce more and better regens than I do.

I find a helpful way to get your reserves to develop is to book international friendlys throughout their season!

add friednlys with small nations and teams through the seaosn in gaps between weeks, more matches leads to more expereince, espeically if you've got alot of reserves.

One little additional question while I think of it; anyone got any idea how long a player has to be at a club before he can tutor someone else? I've brought a stonking regen goalkeeper in last season, just won his third England cap at 20, but he's only got Determination 14 and a Fairly Sporting personality, so I've tried to bring in backups to tutor him but I never seem to get the option to do so...