Squad numbers

How many un-registered guys do you keep in your primary squad? The transfer window is open, but I have 25 guys. I don't necessarily want to sell anyone quite yet, so I'm looking at leaving a few unregistered. Just wondering how you guys manage transfer desires with a larger headcount.

I try not to keep anyone unregistered.

Is it the English Premier League you are in?

Then you could try to sign a few top youngsters if you really want to as u21 players don't need to be registered.

It happens to me a few times in SPL... My youngsters just decided to get out of U19 squad, and SPL has a age 19 registration rule. My way of handling is not register the youngster, and they are eligible for champion cup group match for 1st half of season. Then, I just play those unregistered one in cup match and champion cup group match if they are relatively easy. You can get about 8-10 games I think for first half of the season until Jan transfer window. So, the players get the game time and happy even without registering.

As for you, it might be a different case because if your unregistered players aren't youngster, they might become unhappy if you don't register them. It happens to me once and I had to offload the guy unfortunately. The best bet is to keep those players with a youngster, hot prospect or back up player unregistered and use them in cup matches. If you are in champion cup, europa, etc, then maybe you can register Player A and B in the league while register player C and D in champ cup. That way, every body is happy and every body get play time. But come Jan transfer windows, you might as well offload those extra players because there's no use for you to keep them anyway. The latter part is more of a grinding part where you get into champ cup knock out, battling for the league position, etc so you don't want to leave out any of your first team member out of registration and you don't want to have extra bill for unused players anyway. But if your player is a prospect, then just keep him and put him in the cup match and some meaningless 15-20 minutes play time as a sub on the champ cup matches that you are winning comfortably.

The youngsters barely complains as long as they are in the right status, so I usually offer them like a 4-5 yr contract at age 19 with a hot prospect or backup status so that I have 4-5 years time for them to mature and not complain for not getting matches.

I only keep players if they are going to play. If I can't register them, I sell them.