Sign youth or experience

I often spend a large chunk of my transfer budget on promising youth players 16-18 with the sole intention of placing them in my own youth team with the likelihood they will not experience 1st team football at my club for perhaps 3 seasons and will then progress to my reserve team at 18-19.

Slightly older youth players 19-20 would go to my reserve team and immediately marked as available for loan to gain the necessary experience to play in my 1st team, depending on their level of potential similar reputation teams or higher will enquire and then the possibility of a loan fee presents itself. Then they would graduate to my 1st team at 20-21 ready to perform.

The remaining transfer budget would go on buying experienced players in positions I know I wont have a graduate coming thru to play in.

A risky strategy which brings down the squads average age significantly, however, if your chairman is patient you can reap the rewards of having a young talented team in the coming years.

Does anyone deploy similar or in fact completely different signing policies?

i sign a mixture of talented youngsters and experienced pro's

i then play all my youngsters and extra reserves in league cup games or early round fa cup aginst smaller opposition

if i have the luxury of already qualified from champions league group with a game to go i play youngsters for even more continental experience

within 2-3 years most of these youngsters are world beaters

I usually have two people for each position. Should both get injured that occupy that position I call up the youth players.

Also play the youth players in the early rounds against anything lower than the division I'm in and in any round of competitive football I think I can easily win.

So if I start a game and have too many players in one position I'll sell of what I feel is the weakest players.

That also means that I if I don't have enough players for a position I will buy in the BEST player I can afford for that position (no point in signing someone that's worse than the players you have?)

The youth get their chance. I'll buy as many youth players that the scouts recommend to me that I like. I prefer the players that high work rate and rated well by scouts.

If I find I have too many youth players viaing for the same position I'll let the strongest go on loan (the one with most appearances in youth team) and only if they are "valuable members of the team" so they get as many games as possible. The last time I did this a right back went on loan and came back in January. I had an injured right back and he slotted in, he was then called up to the England team and his value sky rocketed.

So I feel it's important to find the balance in the team. If you need to sign someone sign someone better than you already have or else there is no point. And keep pushing the youth players out on loan and also get them involved in the first team.

If I am selling any youth player it has to be for 50% of the next transfer and a buy back clause.

That's how I'll be signing, selling, utilising the youth and experienced players.

i blow my entire budget on youth, i never sign anyone over 21 unless they are a world super-star and i have the oppourtunity.

Same here. If I have the luxury of having the choice, I rarely have any players older than their late 20's in my first team squad bar the keeper.

Ross101 I often employ a similar strategy in the transfer market, though I often look to pick up older experienced players on frees to be back up with a youth player. So I will often have my first choice LB then an older player, maybe 33-35 with lots of experience but deteriorating physically, and a younger up and coming youth player. Depending on the game I will play either one. I'm constantly bugging my board to improve youth facilities etc to try to bring through more youngsters.

Me too, I only sign players under 21. However, as I useually play lower league clubs, I love to go bargain hunting and find those players for free. And I actually end up signing roughly the same players everytime I start a new game...

I find that when money is tight and I'm searching for older players on a free, I end up filtering them by pace as that stat drops rapidly as their knees start to creak.

I have a "euthanasia" policy on players aged 32 or above. Actually, it's very rare I'll have a player over 31 unless it's a great player and I'm in the lower leagues. I think it's because on some level they appear to slow down in my eyes a lot more than they actually do in-game ^^

My general rule is to have a 26-30 year old first choice, a 19-24 year old back-up (preferably who can play a number of positions e.g. LB/RB) and a promising 16-18 year old in the rezzies or the occasional cup game.

It largely depends on who I'm playing as. If I'm Man Utd, I will definitely spend a large chunk of my budget on youth. I tend to sign a lot of youth, so that I can sell the players who don't make it in the future. On one Man Utd game, I had a steady stream of ingoing/outgoing players, as it allows me to ensure I keep a good crop of young players while keeping my transfer spending/receiving fairly balanced. However, I also make sure to sign a few experienced players with a good personality and high determination, in order to tutor my best youngsters. Then the lesser players can tutor the lesser youngsters

As lower league teams, I only tend to sign immediately helpful players, unless I find a good youngster on the cheap.

In my current game as Bath City in L2, I have mostly young players, but also sign older players (just bought a 38 year old). The older players are usually people to tutor the youngsters, and to be backups when needed. Some are just for tutoring, while others can still play in the 1st. team until my youngsters develop. And of course most of my star players are between 24 and 32 years old.

I usually start as Newcastle, so spend the first couple of seasons buying experience to improve the first team, but after that the oldest player I'll buy would be 18 or 19. If I was starting as a top team then it would be youth from the start.

Depends on the situation. Most games I start as a LLM so in the early seasons the "here and now" is more important and so I simply buy anyone who at that moment in time is better than what I have. Meanwhile I'm always on the look out for youth either to bring through or make a cheeky profit on. Eventually I end up with a policy of selling every player before they reach 30 and blooding the youngsters on a neverending conveyor belt of talent

lots of my money went to first team players, as i was newcastle... but i'm in the second season back in the premier league, and my youth squad is starting to shape up nicely, got the U18's captain and a right back, both U-18 internationals and will be very useful in future...

also, in my save aaron ramsey demanded a move away from arsenal... i put in the bid and offered him a huge signing on fee... will he go to me or the league champions liverpool i wonder?

My check list when i look for players.

*1. Age 16-18

*2. Local (From the Nation i manage in, that beeing Brazil or pref the Brazilian state where the club is located)

*3. Free or Cheap price tag. (I rarly spend big)

Ofc if my team does not have some players with experience, i do tend to try sign some aging brazilian euro stars.

My strategy for the long term is usually the following one: as I most of the time spend at least 5 years at a club, I heavily spend money on youth players, even younger than 16. I don't pick lots of them, maybe 5 each season, but the ones I pick are usually touted as future world class players. They don't even need to go on loan, when they reach 17-18 they are going directly to the first team and are set as back-up players. I remember in FM10 it was around 2030 and I spent 5M on a 16 years old French LB (I was managing Milan). In half a year he was the first choice for the LB position, though not even being 18.

I'm with West Ham in my 3rd season. After having struggled the first 2 seasons (finishing 15th and 12th) I opted for selling all my star players bar Scott Parker with the following 1st eleven I managed to finish in an incredible 3rd position!

GK: Joe Hart (23 y.)

FB: John Hateley (16 y.) and Daniel Opare (20 y.)

CD: Miles Addison (23 y.) and Jordan Spence (20 y.)

DMC: Scott Parker (30 y.)

MC: Mark Noble (24 y.) and George Moncur (17 y.)

Wingers: Junior Stanislas (20 y.) and .. Hlousek (23 y.)

ST: John Barber (16 y.)

I'm still puzzled as to how it was possible finishing 3rd with such a young first eleven, all my 2nd string players are 16-18 years old.

With me it depends on where I'm managing. If I'm in one of the top leagues then I'll sign great youth prospects and rely on my current squad to provide the experience to them. If I'm starting in the lower leagues then I'll sign experienced players who are often well over the age of 30 to get us promoted alongside a few younger loan signings from the higher leagues.

i blow my entire budget on youth, i never sign anyone over 21 unless they are a world super-star and i have the oppourtunity.

I am the same with Motherwell FC