Younger stars: Youth League or out on loan?

What to do with promising youngsters [at least 3 stars of potential]?

Should I keep them at the club, fielding them in the Youth/Reserve League while training them with top-notch staff?

Or will they develop better/faster if I send them out on loan to play competitive first-team football, albeit working with average staff?

Moreso, does a loan spell affect the "trained at club" process?

I think the benefits of playing first team football outweigh the benefits of reserve league football and top staff, you also have the option of playing some of the better youngsters in cup games. If you send them out on loan, Id recommend to have the option that allows you to bring back the player.

Players require competitive matches to progress.

Think of it as "They will peak at a certain level depending on the level of football they play at."

So, lets think of a 7-star "potential" player, for an EPL giant, who is showing just silver stars for current ability. He might be able to reach 7-silver-stars just by playing at your Under-18s, and 1 star by playing in your Reserves, but eventually he is going to plateau and cease developing: he's learned what he can from Reserve football.

Beyond that point, he needs competitive matches. A season on loan to a League Two club might bring him up to 2 stars, a season at League One might bring him up to 3 stars, and a season of Championship football might bring him up to 4 stars .. but beyond that, he'll plateau again .. he needs to start playing regularly in the EPL to crack into the 5- and 6-star range, and might need regular Champions League and international football to reach his full 7-star potential.

There are other factors, though:

Sending him to part-timers is less likely to help than sending him to full-timers.

Training facilities are as important as coaches, maybe more so.

Morale is key - thus, I tend to look for clubs I think are going to do well, so that his Morale is Very Good or Superb from winning matches .. plus I figure the "heat" of a promotion battle can help season him, mentally.

Tutoring can help a player develop beyond the "plateau" for a given level of play, and with the right tutor can be as useful or more so than playing out on loan .. but as you know, its hit or miss, if he doesn't get along with the tutor it can be time wasted.

Going out on loan but not cracking the starting lineup is useless - thus the recall clause. I usually sniff about the teams that ask for him on loan to make sure he won't have much competition at his Natural position, too.

Injury can halt his development, as can poor Morale and/or psychological mishandling.

One of the most common mishandling mistakes is to place too much pressure on a player - e.g., asking him to play at a level higher than he is really capable of. Your 7-silver-star kid is definitely not ready to step into an everyday role at Man U, for example; he'll be "Feeling the pressure of public expectation" in no time. You can also apply too much pressure through your team-talks and your answers to interview questions:

I had a tremendously promising 20-year-old MC who had stepped into a leading role in my BSP club. After scoring something like five goals in seven games, everybody was lauding him, from opposition managers to me giving him "Pleased" comments, etc. Finally it came up in an interview, and I forget exactly what I said but I was raving about him ...

Seemingly overnight, his progression reversed. Where he'd been steadily gaining attribute points, now he began losing them. He stopped scoring, and started turning in 6.5's and 6.6's. His morale plummeted, and nothing seemed able to get him out of the slump. He was "feeling the pressure", and handling it quite poorly. In retrospect, considering his age, I wish I'd downplayed expectations every chance I got but I was too proud of him to do that. After waiting more than a year for him to pull out of it, signing other MC's to lighten the load on him, telling him "No Pressure" .. I finally had to sell him, hoping that a different chance at a different club might help him resurrect his career.

What i tend to do it leave them in u18's until they are to old for the league. Then move them to my reserves. Where i monitor them, so if their current stars are low i'll loan them out. Once they reach 4 stars i will move them into my senior squad and make the eligible for the reserves to keep them fit and let them work their way into my senior team.

Touching story Amaroq :***)

I usually keep them at the club for a year then send them out on loan for 2-4 seasons. If they're not good enough them, I usually sell them off. For a profit of course

Interesting points - I must say that I always intend / would like to develop the promising youngsters in my squad, but it never seems to work out, they seem to hit a brick wall (probably because im not following the best practice points above for youth development)

Dont know about everyone else, but I find that buying up younger players who have developed elsewhere (aged 19 - 23) seems to work better for me in terms of success.

I guess my point is that its a lot easier to achieve success via the transfer market than youth development (as long as you have the resources to buy though).

The reason it doesn't work out is because they don't get enough first team football. If you combine loaning out players and tutoring you will have much bigger influence on them, than if you by them when they are approaching 20 or already are older than 20. I always try send my players on loan as often as possible, but most of the times on season long loan deals. Even if they don't seem to develop to much while they are on loan, their development accelerate when they come back. Of course this is if the loan spell are successful and they get some amount of games. I also try to have the young players tutored as much as possible, and even if the tutoring sometimes gets wrong I've found out that most of the times it helps. The tutoring works best when the player is quite young and it makes you able form his personality the way you want it.

So to conclude the combination of long periods on loan and tutoring is in my view the best way to get youngsters through your ranks.

Well i'll keep an eye on my youngsters as i brought a good 30 odd hot prospects from the age of 16-17 over the last two years. At the moment they are top of their u18 league with 13 wins 1 draw scored 55 and conceded 3. Facilities and staff at my team are brilliant. And i will try and update on how my players are doing. I've also taken on the habbit of getting players that play down the wings and train them to play on the opposite wing, which is proving very helpful.

At the moment i have 1 or 2 of the just turned 19 players helping out in my senior squad due to injuys in my back line.

All of the players in question recieved a 5 star potential rating when i got the report cards on them. But i tend to go through them after 1 season to see if there are any that don't reflect the scout reports.

Depends on age, if they're under 16 I keep them in my youth team and train them up. As soon as they hit 16 I'll give them a new contract and send them on loan. I'm usually picky about who I loan them to, as someone stated above, I check that they have little competition for their place and also a team that will do well in thier division.

When they return from loan, I usually check thier stats and coach reports, if they've done badly they'll either go on transfer or on loan again, if they've done ok they'll stay over the summer, play in some friendlies then go on loan again (to a team in a higher division), if they've been acceptional they'll end up on my subs bench and start playing for my main team.

With my routine you end up with quite a good schedual of

16 yr olds in bsp/league2

17 yr olds in league 1

18 yr olds in championship

19+ either in main squad or sold

I've found that it helps to sign young regens with a nationality that matches your youth coaches, if I find a great Russian regen but have no Russian speaking youth coaches, I sign a Russian youth coach. I might be paranoid but it feels like they adapt to playing in England much easier!

The problem I have at the moment is in my main lineup I have my star left winger, his backup and a youth star. I want my star winger to play a lot of games, my youth star to get a good amount of starts and sub appearences, but my backup gets annoyed when he misses out! I need him as my youth star isn't ready yet, but I'd rather get by youth player experience....what a dilema!

The problem I have at the moment is in my main lineup I have my star left winger, his backup and a youth star. I want my star winger to play a lot of games, my youth star to get a good amount of starts and sub appearences, but my backup gets annoyed when he misses out! I need him as my youth star isn't ready yet, but I'd rather get by youth player experience....what a dilema!

Have you tried making him avaliable for the reserves so then he would get 10-20 reserve games a year but still be able to be picked for you senior team.

When I do that for the backup winger he usually has a poor condition for the first team game so has an even smaller chance of being picked instead of the youth/star, I haven't tried it for the young player yet though so I may try it and see if it has any benefit other than keeping the backup happier.

In a season or so the backup player will be sold and a new young star will come in, but eventually the problem will repeat itself. I guess it's a trade off for being a good team with lots of matches and youth power!

Is it true that on loan players only get the benefits from first team experience if they are playing in an 'active' league? I read this on the forum a while back but forgot to follow it up. Lets say for example that I loaned out a youngster to a League One side but I only have only loaded up to the Championship as active, does that mean he won't get any benefits from the loan because he doesn't play in any 'real' matches?

Torpy - I think that that was a bug which has since been fixed.

However, I haven't yet come to "trust" it - I still loan all my kids out to teams in Active leagues.

Torpy - I think that that was a bug which has since been fixed.

However, I haven't yet come to "trust" it - I still loan all my kids out to teams in Active leagues.

Inactive leagues do improve the CA of loan players so no need to worry Amaroq! Although i'm not certain whether this improvement is as much as it would be if the league was active, but i have no reason to think it wouldn't be.

Doesn't the reputation of the league have a big effect on quality of CA progression?

From my own personal experiences, i tutor my Youth players until the age of 18/19 having signed them aged 16/17 so they can develop their mental stats to the level expected of a world-class team. My own State of the Art facilities and excellent coaches get the best out of them.

Once im satisfied they're ready, i'll loan them out for a season or 2 to a club in an Active league until they're 21 and have reached a CA appropriate enough for my first team.

If they still haven't developed by this time, they're transfer listed or offered out with 50% resale clause

Doesn't the reputation of the league have a big effect on quality of CA progression?

Yes, that's what I was trying to say with my long-winded post earlier. I'm not certain what the exact measure SI uses is, but "league standard" is a big factor in CA progression.

For a player at a certain CA, there will be a sweet spot, a "league standard" which will let him progress to the maximum he can.

If he plays too far below that standard, he won't progress much if at all - he can't learn anything new while repeatedly dominating players much weaker than himself, so he doesn't take it to the next level. (Imagine Rooney at age 18 - he wouldn't have improved much as a player by banging in 53 goals at the Blue Square North level!)

If he plays too far above that standard, he won't progress, either - he is stuck in "survival mode", just trying not to embarrass himself, and isn't going to gain much from his matchday experience. (Imagine a Blue Square North-quality player trying to play regularly for Man U at age 18 - he would be so overmatched by the Chelseas, Arsenals, and Barcelonas of the world, and so pilloried in the media, that it might do permanent harm to his self-confidence.)

Ive got a brilliant prospect for my 16 year old spanish winger. I signed him on a free for Chesterfield in league 2. But because of lack of money & other players, hes been enjoying a run in my first team. Something like 8 starts out of 13, he seems to handle everything alright & although his stats havent improved massively(like they would at a poor training ground in league 2) he is coming along rather well,as the leading assister.

I know when he reaches 20 & his contract runs out it will be very hard to keep him, i either hope to manage to keep hold of him or you him as a iant cash cow.

How can you get players out on load if they dont want to?

I have a couple of 18 and 19 year olds. My coaches all say that they have potential to be Premiership players and they are playing in the reserve team but the refuse to go out on loan, even though their staus says "hopes to gain 1st team experience by going on loan"

I have them set to loan and squad status as "Hot Prospect". I have offered themto my feeder clubs, Bristol City (Championship) and Clyde (1st Division) but they refuse. So I offered to all clubs. Wolves came in for one and he refused.

Totally confusing that they want first team experience but refuse to go on loan.

Am I missing something?

Would say one thing, they have each played a game or two as I was in a sticky situation due to 10....yep 10 first team injuries. If that has made them think going on loan isnt worth it as they have played 1st team football why the hope of gaining experience from going on loan?

Its a bugger

I wish I had the results of my experiment somewhere were I could copy and paste them

Loaning players out is a nightmare. Try setting their status to "decent young player", I dunno if that will help.

Cheers mate will give that a go as really need them to pick up experience but there is now way they are ready for the Premiership.

theres not enough top players in the game its really annoying. SI can NEVER seem to get the regens right. and when they did almost get there in 07 they scrapped it all in the next versions!

I find that if i oan my youngsters out the buggers never play them. So i recall them, stick them in a tutoring program and hope my reserve manager plays them occassionaly.