How easily do you handle passing the baton to the next generation of players?

Let me set the scene.

You were a mid-table Premiership club. You've signed a load of top players and have pushed your way right to the top. Your golden class of stars are now topping 30, but still have a lot to offer the club. However, your next generation are now topping 20 and will start to get unhappy if they don't start featuring regularly. What do you do?

To the specifics:

I have a 34 year old goalkeeper, easily one of the top five in the world. He loves the club. He's been with me for eight seasons and was captain for four of them. I have a 21 year old Argentinian (obviously ) goalkeeper who is now too good to loan out and has the potential to be better than my old timer. Both keepers can clearly do the job for me, with the 34 year old currently slightly better. I know if I don't start playing the youngster soon, he'll get itchy feet, yet I don't want to upset the 34 year old as he's been such a good servant for the club. What do you do?

I currently have four examples of this happening in my team :/

I normally try and blood the youngsters as early as possible, letting them experience the early rounds of the cups (domestic and european if lucky) and coming off the bench as soon as possible if in winnable positions.

Hopefully some of the youngsterswill who enough promise to get ahead some of the more senior pros so I then have to decide who to play - normally rotate.

Often, if a youngster is getting less games (either due to lack of form or me going out of the cups) , I will send them out on loan to get some 1st team action.

Depending how young they are I try to do a similar thing to Sir Alex at Man Utd with Tom Cleverly, by loaning them out and giving them experience of different levels of the football league ie. league 1 for a year, then next year the championship, then the Prem) etc.

Let me set the scene.

You were a mid-table Premiership club. You've signed a load of top players and have pushed your way right to the top. Your golden class of stars are now topping 30, but still have a lot to offer the club. However, your next generation are now topping 20 and will start to get unhappy if they don't start featuring regularly. What do you do?

To the specifics:

I have a 34 year old goalkeeper, easily one of the top five in the world. He loves the club. He's been with me for eight seasons and was captain for four of them. I have a 21 year old Argentinian (obviously ) goalkeeper who is now too good to loan out and has the potential to be better than my old timer. Both keepers can clearly do the job for me, with the 34 year old currently slightly better. I know if I don't start playing the youngster soon, he'll get itchy feet, yet I don't want to upset the 34 year old as he's been such a good servant for the club. What do you do?

I currently have four examples of this happening in my team :/

I use sub appearances when winning, early cup stages and against teams i usualy expect to score a boatload against.

Yes, but both of those are for when they're not quite ready for the first team.

All of my players are ready, but they each have club icons in front of them :/

I think I'd give them both cracks of the whip this season, making sure I keep the younger one in when he does well.

Yes, but both of those are for when they're not quite ready for the first team.

All of my players are ready, but they each have club icons in front of them :/

Doesnt mean it doesnt work.ive keep 2 world class keepers happy using that method.

Give them a chance and if they play well, keep playing them as a reward, in LLM, you need a massive squad to deal with all the midweek matches and having youngsters certainly helps a lot!

For a GK, I just rotate. Play the younger GK for all the cup matches regardless of competition. Play him against the lesser opposition. Usually I would just throw them into the deep end and start most games but if your Icons can't handle 2 games a week I suggest to just split the playing time evenly.

rotate for 5 games then who ever plays better keep in, if some one has a bad match drop for the other

I often get excited when one of my top playes gets injured for a couple of weeks, so I have a good excuse to play my talented replacement. :o

But I do think that the best player should play when fit, and should be a starter. And when your younger talent equels the club icon than it's too bad for the icon but he has to go. (Keeping the team balanced age-wise).

If the talent isn't quite there yet, then I:

1. Either rotate him as much with the other player as possible. Whoever has the highest fitness starts, but try to let the icon start as much against top teams and the talent against lower teams. And halfway through the season see who's got a better average (calculating in that the talent might have had it easier) and make him the prolific starter.

2. Do try to loan him out to a top team. Even teams like Barca or Inter are sometimes interested in loaning your player. And that way he might get more starting matches at a high level than at your team as a rotating player. You do need to have another sub ofcourse i.o. your talent.

In your exact example, with 2 keepers. I'd start the comp with the icon, say 7 matches. Then alternate as mentioned about 5 v 5. Letting the icon play ManU/Chelsea/etc. And try at the end of the season to come to a 60/40 divide in matches. And then the next season switch that around. Because a 35 yo keeper is great as reserve keeper, but starts to become a liability as starter. Hopefully you can keep your icon on as the main sub 'till his retirement (as long as he's still good), and he'll be glad with that role if you face him out gradually.

Having said that, it's never easy letting go of a player you've grown to love.

I never hesitate in selling my older players to give the youngsters a place in the first team.

I get more fun from finding and developing players than winning so I'll constantly sell and promote players just for my own interest. I enjoy the risk involved in selling star players and replacing them with kids.

Rotate - if the young guy plays 20 games a season, the old plays 30, and either of them filling any remaining games, they'll get enough to be happy and the young guy will improve.

Edit: like the one above, I enjoy developing new players, I will happily sell a world class 27 year old if it means I can start giving a promising 19 year old player more games. I do try to maintain an assortment of world-class players though, but the league is a lot easier so I'm able to put in lesser players against lower teams.

I tend to rotate my "next gen" players a bit, depending on how close they are to being good enough for a starting 11. The closer they get, the more time they spend on the field (unimportant matches, playing if the regular guy is injured, lots of subbing). I generally tend to pick them out early and rotate them in over a couple of years. This is primarily done when they are available for the reserves but on the first team in the initial period. That way, they've spent lots of time training with the regular team and they won't be a "new guy" to the players (although I have no idea if this even matters in-game). When we're approaching the final months before the switch (I tend to make these every new season), I start with the new guy on the pitch and subbing the older. I don't know if the game actually takes notice of this method but it would be how I'd handle it as a manager IRL.

Position is irrelevant with this method and I've yet to experience problems with it. Just make sure both get a decent amount of games and then sell the older guy or let him phase out slowly until he retires.

I keep my 16yr olds in the U18s, my 17 yr olds go out on loan, my entire reserve side (18-21 usually) are on loan somewhere.. the better ones get brought back as Carling Cup or early FA Cup players and gradually integrated into the first team. Usually when a player is over 30 I sell them and replace them with a 22-23 yr old, usually they are at the same level except one is going to get better and the other is on the way down.

Other option is if a player is starting to pick up more and more injuries or been at the club for (what I deem) too long, then I sell him. I signed Gotze for £14.5m in Jan of season 1, sold him for £56m to Barcelona in 19/20. He's 27yrs old. I have a wicked Argie ready to take on that spot, 19yrs old.

Also I keep the numbers down by selling players in my reserves that aren't progressing quick enough, or if I have too many goalies for example then i'll sell the weakest one.

Normally I would blood youngsters very early (maybe too many too early at times), but in this case if the veteran's still quality they'd get the short-term nod. I'm not that sentimental, a player retiring in one of my squads almost never happens, barring old inherited players, but sometimes a player earns it for as long as he can do it, though no longer. Only happens with really beloved players though.

With goalkeepers I currently have Delac, Joe Hart and a regen to keep happy. The simplest way I've found is play one until he concedes, then put another keeper in. Sometimes they'll get 2 or 3 games on the bounce, but usually it means there is space for all 3 within 10 games. Depending on the position and their pace it varies a lot more for outfield players. Mohammad Sissoko I initially wanted to replace at 29, went out bought a new midfielder and he just wasn't as good. Sissoko eventually became too slow at around 32/33 to play more than a bit-part and was completely dropped by 34.

With strikers, so long as the rest of your team is good enough you can carry them for ages, I remember Keirrison was still banging them in at over a goal a game even at 35/36 and having about 8 pace (this was in a team where the wingers cost £180m and a team so dominant there were on average at least 40 shots per match)

i currently have a regen and valdes, and what I do is all cup games and early europe matches i play the regen, during the later season when there are a lot more midweek games, I aim to play my backup in the league games to ensure he is still fit

I used to flog people the moment they turned 30 but I recently had a 39 year old Akinfeev in goal for Albion Rovers and he was still very good. Talented young pretenders (expensive often) came and went as I tried to integrate them but didn't quite fit. He's just retired and it's really hard to replace a quality keeper.

If a younger player can do an adequate job at replacing an Aging Star, the latter is sent packing as soon as I can...

Usually a 30yo World Class player can still be sold for 15-20M, as AI doesn't really have the notion of "already peaked", so there's no valid reason (besides sentimentalism) to keep around a player who's often on a very high wage and who's going to steadly decline month after month.

If you've been doing your tutoring right you won't even need a 30+ veteran around, as your first team regulars aged 25-28 are good enough to tutor the next batch of youngsters.

So when a player is older than 28 and his contract is expiring at the end of the season there's little point in negotiating a new (lower?) contract... If you have a substitute who's younger, cheaper and with good potential in him it's almost a no-brainer!

Rotation, rotation, rotation!

I have this problem in my save, I have numerous players in every position who are more than capable, as well as promising youngsters pushing for a place. So I rotate as much as possible, except for a couple of players who are working towards the 1000 appearance challenge.

I signed 2 new goalkeepers this season, both just turned 18 and potential stars of the future. I went with one of them and have played him every game he has been fit, dropping my star keeper in the process, even though the youngster isn't quite good enough. I am currently having an amazing season with my best defensive record ever, so I have concluded that it doesn't matter how good the keeper is!

I also rotate heavily. Of course I have a 1st XI which I play vs the best opposition, but usually every player in my 25 man squad gets from 15-40 games per season. I use the 2nd XI and/or the 1st XI together, mostly because I like to have 100% rested players available at all times, and the 1st XI being fit for fight together.

The most promising youth players I give matches at home against the weakest opposition, for instance in early cup rounds.

I rarely look at Av.R because it is so dependent on the opposition and the results.

I am fully in that situation Ackter, where the older generation are just on their way out.

Somehow, I've got my team into a sort of cycle where every 5 years or so, another handful of first teamers are finally too old. Generally, I've been sticking with the oldies for as long as they play well, though obviously if they're getting absolutely knackered, I'll rotate them out. The deciding point is usually within the first 3 games of a new season - if they have a terrible match, I'm forced to assume they're too old for it, and are placed in the reserves to retire with me.

At the moment, my captain centreback, my (only) two top strikers, and my free-scoring left winger are all 30/31. I still have no idea what I'm going to do when they're finished :/

I'll try to keep both the older players and the youngsters happy of course, but obviously I like to bring the younger players in regularly to aid their development. Nothing helps that more than first team football.

So long as the older players remain happy whilst gradually playing less football, I'll keep them in the hope they become good staff members. Otherwise, I'll sell them and fully replace them with the up and coming young players.

I struggled with this problem at Dover, having a generation of players who'd won everything and played at my club for 11/12 years. I didnt want to drop them as they had been great servants to the club. I also mostly failed to find world class youngsters who fitted my system, resulting in them not getting as much playing time as I wanted them too and my system changing too often for my liking.

As I couldnt really be bothered to spend 5 more years revamping the squad with FM12 just round the corner, I resigned and decided to see what my replacement, my biggest rival would do. Turns out he sold everyone under 28 bar 2 and led the team i spent 25 years developing on a slide down the table

I struggled with this problem at Dover, having a generation of players who'd won everything and played at my club for 11/12 years. I didnt want to drop them as they had been great servants to the club. I also mostly failed to find world class youngsters who fitted my system, resulting in them not getting as much playing time as I wanted them too and my system changing too often for my liking.

As I couldnt really be bothered to spend 5 more years revamping the squad with FM12 just round the corner, I resigned and decided to see what my replacement, my biggest rival would do. Turns out he sold everyone under 28 bar 2 and led the team i spent 25 years developing on a slide down the table

This is why I never jump clubs!

As early as possible if they can handle the pressure.