How do you sort out players?

Another season passed and now the task is: Finding 22 players that will lead me to success next season. The problem: I have a lot of players, young and old, mostly equal... but they are way too many to keep them all.

- young talented players vs. experienced older players

- good attributes vs. good stats

- assistant reports vs. your opinion

- players that have been at the club for several years vs. newbies that may be slightly better

How do you find out which players you keep and sell?

I will look the current ability stats with FM Genie Scout from my team. Then i will select 3 keepers with the most current ability, 6 defenders, 6 midfielders, 3 attackers and 2 VM's & 2 AMC's. Then i am going to look who has the best stats per spot. For example a right center defender; right footed, heading, tackling, marking. I allways make a formation on players stats if im playing with non top club. So for example if you have 4 good midfielders and 2 good strikers you should play 4-4-2, if you have 1 good striker and 5 good midfielders play 4-5-1. Just set the best players in your formation. If you want to have your own formation then just choose the best players in every spot and upgrade every spot that are newbies, for example if you want to play 4-3-3 but you only have 2 good strikers then you should buy a new one.

- young talent vs experienced > just look up who is better.

- good attributes vs good stats > you should look at the stats what they really need.

- assistant reports vs. your opinion > definitely your opinion.

- players that have been at the club for several years vs. newbies that may be slightly better > just setup the best players but keep in mind that players could get angry with low play time.

i agree first thing is to pick your formation that you want to play depending on your players. i usually pick a starting 11 and then from there try and have at least 2 players per position and then a couple of back ups so my squad is about 24-26 players. you need a mixture of young and old or your squad will just not function. i agree with highor on all the points. your opinion is much better to go on. maybe keep some of your youngersters and send them on loan to clubs see how they do for a year or so.

Step 1: Formation v Available Players

The key to your players is to know what formation you want to play. This will highlight where weaknesses in your squad are, where you are overloaded with players, and highlight what areas need to be targeted in the transfer market. For example, if your formation has an out-and-out ST and a more withdrawn AMC, but your squad has only 1 AMC but 4 ST, then you know you should sell some of the ST and buy an AMC.

However, this can also work in reverse; sometimes, you should sort your squad list by position to see what kind of formation you can actually play given the players on hand. This is particularly important when you are new at the club, join during a closed transfer window, or have a small budget (and thus may not be able to easily just add new players to plug gaps in the formation).

Step 2: Level of Rotation v Fixture List

How often do you plan to rotate your players? The more often you intend to rotate (which is usually based on the congestion in your fixture list) the larger a squad you will need. A club with a less congested fixture list can probably get by on 18-20 first-team-capable players, whereas a club with league + cup + european football will probably need in the region of 22-26 first-team-capable players.

Again, in principle you're looking at around 2 players for each position if you intend to rotate often.

Finances are a big limitation here too, as squad size may well be capped by the financial capabilities of the team.

Step 3: Primary Objective

Where is the club right now and what are you trying to achieve? If you're making a push for promotion/the title, or scrapping to prevent relegation, then you'll need a reasonably experienced squad so that they can handle the pressure. But if you're mired in mid-table or just suffered a drop, then chances are you'll want to regenerate the club and go for youth.

Intending to stick around long-term? Then youth is the key to build your own team and ensure long-term success; but if you are short-term glory hunting, say to build a resume to land a bigger job, then age doesn't matter quite so much.

Also be aware of board expectations. No point in punting for youth and a long-term project if the board is twitchy and going to sack you the moment things look shaky.

Obviously, the longer you are at the club, the more you will need to find a balance. Depending on division, players start to lose their stats (and thus performance ability for first-team action) from around 32+. You should be planning for life without any player 30+ in your team and look for a youth replacement who can play some games here and there before eventually fully replacing the senior player after 2-3 seasons.

Step 4: New v Old

As a general rule, you need a balance of both. Too many new players destablise the club and have poor cohesion on the pitch. But having exactly the same players all the time means you stagnate and will struggle to improve.

Personally, I like to show some loyalty to those that have returned it to stick around, particularly if times are tough. Players that have been with the club for a while also tend to be fan favourites and have strong relationships within the playing squad; these can have an impact on matchday performance, so don't discount them.

Step 5: Stats v Performance

Who are the best players from a stat-based perspective? When you first join a club, you should go off the stats in order to pick your first-11, as there is little else to go off (especially if it's the start of the game). Stats are also the guide when buying players (as form under another formation/system is not a good guide). You should pick transfer targets based on their stats and whether or not they line up with what you need in order to play that position in your formation.

However, from that point forward, it is performance that counts. A player can have stats that are out of this world but could continually play crap in your chosen formation (for a number of reasons). It's not worth persisting with someone who just cannot produce the goods. Personally, 10-15 games is a good indication of how well a player will perform in your formation. If he's gone through that number of games in a reasonably close period of time (as in, not one game every two months) and is still putting in rubbish performances, then he is probably always going to be rubbish for you and should be sold.

Step 6: Assistant v You

Again, near the start of your arrival coach and assitant reports are useful given you have little else to go off. Same with scout reports for picking transfer targets.

However, your assistant is likely to be somewhat of a muppet and will make blanket generalisations about your players. Go with your gut on most occasions; ultimately you are the manager and you are picking the teams.

Don't be swayed by 'who is this player better/worse than'; think about it in terms of what role that players has in the squad and whether they fulfill it on the pitch. Sure, maybe your backup striker may not be as good as Torres, and never will be, but if he still grabs 15+ goals a season when playing against weaker teams, helping you to win those matches and keeping Torres fresh for the bigger games, then he's actually quite an important player in your squad.

Just some basic thought processes that I go through when selecting players in FM, hope it helps.

Quality post. That will help me a lot, thanks!

I know the feeling. I go for '2 players for a position' as well. But I also have a youth programme. 1 youth signing plus promising club youth players, which averages out at about 1 a season though after 10 years there have been a few barren years and a couple (inc this year) with 2. More often then not they won't make it but quite a few do and when it comes putting them in the team it can be difficult deciding who to replace and often I'll wait a while. Especially as there seem to be a surplus of DM's for me. Had to get rid of a senior one just to accomodate one of 2 similar brilliant young players (and as I still can't chose between, I still have the extra one), and a youth graduate this year is a DM as well! But it'll be a while before he's a problem. Also had an extra CM til recently (not for the 1st time) due to loyalty to the first successful developed player who was let go. And a veteran winger who had been phased out of the selection pool but is getting a well-deserved farewell season. Causes complications.

Anyway for me youth is good. not only with the youth signings but also an age cap of 28 for new players. I prefer players in their early 20's (and even have set up a 3rd filter of age up to 22 to spot young stars) whose talent is mostly developed but whose price especially in wages) has not, though when making regular signings I don't discriminate between a better 28-yr old and a 21 yr old. Plus once players get to the 30's mark I'm quicker to let them go though if (like my winger) they maintain form they can stay. Usually a couple more years though my winger is turning 36 this season which is very rare for me. He's earned it though. And my keepers are 33/4 but keepers are different (and the quality of regen keepers has already been raised).

Attributes win for me in normal situations though I'll keep a consistently in form player in the team as long as it lasts, even if they're technically inferior, and with developing players in the playing pool clearly I need to ignore the lower attributes.

Generally I trust the ass man reports and use it to help guide changes to the squad. However I have sold 5-star players a few times if they haven't been that good for some time (generally over 2 seasons at least) and as an opportunity to rejuvinate the squad while I'm at it as even if they're still mid 20's the replacements will be mostly quite a bit younger, and cheaper as the 2 players I remember offloading like this were on over 100k a week each while the rest were mid 60s max. however again there are exceptions. My favoured left winger is 5 stars but I just got reminded this evening other one is 6! However there's never been much difference between them in performance (they've both been mostly consistently good and sometimes excellent) so little basis to change the preference. Especially as the 5 star guy was doing really well this evening so whatever the other's rating was seemed irrelevant as a comparison. Plus as I've had them both for a while I'm very familiar with how similarly good they've been. Also theres the ubiquitous veteran winger. He's now 3 stars and due to him being 35 the ass man recommendation is just 2. However at a glance his technical stats look pretty much like they've always done (and physical have clearly declined but not massively) in his criminally few games last year he showed that he was capable of performing well so he's been granted a major role for his last year where despite not putting in the starring performances of old he's still been consistently good, and useful as early in the season I've found myself lacking both regular left wingers (and both right backs and 2 of the 4 forwards.) so I'd have been stuck without him anyway.

As for new vs experienced. That depends on the relative player quality. Early on I practically had to throw the vastly superior new ones in (which caused problems in my 2nd season after a 2nd summer of practically having to sign a new 11) but now they're not noticably different (and I hardly have to get more than 1 or 2 now anyway) I mostly start with a team of players I already had and gradually introduce the new players when changes are required. even if the new guys are better, if its not by much then don't start with more then a few at a time, as even when my player number needs were reduced having all 4/5 straight in wasn't massively successful.

Sorry if there was too much unnecessary stuff in there. We all play differently. Generally for me its young over old, attributes as a basis for a squad but form for selection policy, reports as a guide but personal judgement as a final word and established over new but many individuals present differing situations so be flexible. Unless you have more then a couple of surplus players don't get rid of them or others to accomodate them just for the sake of it. I hope somewhere in all this I've remembered to include the points I was trying to make with my experiences (to back them up) and they're good.