Stopping the crazy spending and focusing on youth.

Has anyone ever done this? changed their own transfer policy and decided to stop the crazy transfers and maybe becoming a selling club... and only keeping your best players and mixing it up with youth talent?

ive got a few decent youth players who im really considering bringing through and giving game time to once theyre around 18 or maybe a bit older after a couple of loans. I want to stop the crazy spending especially the money i get asked for when i bid for a target. Ive found a few gems ive signed for a couple of million and am considering stopping buying players and saving the money and wages.. and bringing through young talent and mixing it up a bit but feel it could be risky.

Its just i always look forward to the end of season and buying and selling but now i fancy a change and stopping the spending and maybe just buying a couple of youth players and seeing how i do but feel it may ruin my save as i could become a weaker opponent for some teams.

Do it all the time. Usually go on a 3 year spending spree getting the best team together.

After that, I only buy youth players. Last player bought for roughly €500k and sold for roughly 40m. I never sell to a club in the same league.

You need to do both. Once you have brought up some youth that need match experience, the senior players that you don't absolutely need anymore must go. If you do this you may expect some tough decisions every season. This may take 4-5 seasons and in the meantime you must sign quality players like you usually do. The trick is to have the right balance between youth and experience, and that there is a point to the whole strategy (so your youngsters must have as high or higher potential than your first XI - otherwise you are wasting your time if you already have the money).

The current ability of the youngsters you bring up to gain first team experience must be at least "decent player for most clubs in the Premier League", otherwise they won't play well enough to develop.

Also, remember that the main benefit of doing this is that you get proper HG players for the Champions League, so don't loan out your players before they are certified HG Club! That takes three years and they must be 17 or younger the 25th of June (or something) when you sign them.

I just spend crazy on youth.

I just spend crazy on youth.

Same. Never seem to get any decent youngsters out of my academy

What do you guys find yourselves spending on youth? I begrudge paying over £500k for youth but this will probably increase as my reputation and budget do.

I prefer to pay less than £1m, but for the right player I will pay anything. My best ever DC was a guy I spent £11m on at the age of 18.

Same. Never seem to get any decent youngsters out of my academy

I tend to get on average one player every 2 years that makes it into my first team, and one every 5 who becomes world class.

Depending on the team , i will often sign youth players and make one "Marquee" signing a summer if I need to fill any holes , but as iam playing with man utd i start from a strong position . Though I try and keep spending and sales evenish due to Man Utd's "finance predicament"

I read somewhere that you must have all your Youth Coaches slots allocated, so if you can have 6 and only have 3 then you probably won't get any good prospects.

And that the Youth Facilities have to be at their finest.

I'm working on this now and seeing how it goes. It's funny though I never got a good Regen while managing Barcelona in something like 20 seasons - which is ridiculous.

I left Barcelona and out of curiosity when the youths came in I decided to check out Barca youth prospects, and there quite a few, with no other club history other than Barca.

I must do this again and upload the screen shots.

I don't spend loads on youth, but I definitely spend less on players. I honestly don't enjoy spending money on WC players. For Fulham I literally cannot buy WC players, so instead bought Vass, Toszer and Bandalovski for under £4m, and now after a 6-12mth settling in period, they are turning into top class players. I prefer buying more obscure players, or more under the radar players atleast. Never once bought Neymar, Pastore, or p[layers of that ilk. Doesn't titillate me, if you know what I mean.

I used to spend money on bringing the greatest youngsters to my team, but then realised I never play a save long enough to reap the rewards! So now I spend big on players who will make an immediate impact.

I read somewhere that you must have all your Youth Coaches slots allocated, so if you can have 6 and only have 3 then you probably won't get any good prospects.

That can't possibly be true? I practically never have any youth coaches (though I always have coaches that also train the youth players), and I have gotten some excellent regens. I recon junior coaching, the one you can ask your board to increase or decrease, is very important though.

I once tried something like this to stop building up a large squad. Cut £600k/week off my wage bill in 2 seasons (£1.4m/week -> £800k/week) and filled my squad with youngsters. Didn't regret it.

The wage bill built up over time again to £1.2m/week (largely due to the fact that these youngsters that survived the initial cull all grew old together and I was reluctant to release them), but recently I've cut that down to £950k/week (it should be lower except I can't get rid of some of my older players). My long-term goal is to keep the average below £1m/week.

I'm approaching the end of my first season of a Newcastle save (and my first save on FM12) and have made a conscious decision to try and stick to the same 'rules' the club is run by in real life. I'm planning on developing the likes of Vuckic, Sammy Ameobi, Abeid, Remi Street and Adam Campbell. I've also snapped up two youths from the lower leagues that my scouts have pointed out to me - A 16 year old SC from Southend and a 15 year old DC from AFC Wimbledon and in addition to those have signed on 2 players from my youth intake (A DC, 16 & ML, 15).

Although I also plan to supplement this with proven experience wherever possible I do really like the idea of developing youth. I'm a glory hunter normally and I will manage the top class world beating teams and sign the big names for huge amounts, but as I am doing fairly well with my Newcastle side (4th in the Prem with 4 games to go) and have a modest budget to work with I want to use youth wherever possible.

I always focus on youth. What I've always done. My proudest team is my current Plymouth team - grouped a load of promising players under 20 in the Championship for mostly frees and watched them grow together as a team.

Since winning the Championship, we've never finished below 8th in 7 seasons in the top flight, and in the first season in the Prem I spent £7m on 3 players, 2 of which hardly got into the team. There's something very satisfying about developing a young squad to be the best around. But I never get good youth regens, the best always come from French and German clubs.

All my first teamers except two, my goal keeper and a striker i just bought have been brought through as such, signed very young, straight into the under 19s then brought into the first team slowly, my money taken in for transfers is about 10 times more than my money spent. I love bringing through youth, and rarely sign a player over 21 unless they are a soon to be retiring great player i think can do a job for me.

I enjoy the game most if I sign U18 players only. With the exception of some aging players on free transfers to act as tutors.

I'm going the other way around at the moment! Starting life as a LLM I went for lots of young inexperienced players who'd been released from their clubs and were on low wages. It's only now I'm challenging for the Premiership that I can't attract enough top quality youngesters to the team and I've had to look at some more experienced players. I expect for the next 3/4 years as I attempt to assert myself as a Premiership club I'll spend more and more on star players, then if/when I'm established cut that right back and only buy youth. Long term I'd be disappointed if I had to spend money on big name players and would expect anyone getting old/retiring to have had a backup coming through the ranks for years.

It's the way i always play, i hate spending big money and wages on established players.

For me, it all depends on what league I am in. I like to play LLM rules, so it isn't that easy to find players anyway.

I started in L10 and it is only worth getting players that are good enough. Obviously if they're good enough to start playing for already with the potential to get better then thats perfect because as my facilities etc are awful then the only way my players improve is by first team experience. As I started as an amateur club, I have no wages but youth games still cost money to run.

Now I am in L8 and a semi-pro club, I still have no youth as i am not willing to pay wages, about 5 first team players under 21 tho. I do have a few youngsters with good potential (mainly for backup) but as there not good enough they are out on loan.

The problem I have with youth players in lower leagues is that yeah they might get good enough to play in your league after a year or two but by that time I would hope to be in a higher league. All that money on wages has just been wasted to get a player good enough to play for another team.

If you start in lower leagues like me then I wouldn't even bother with youths (unless they are already good enough) until you get into the championship, maybe league one and your facilities are much better.

Obviously if you start in the EPL then its worth buying a couple of top youth players but mainly get the best players you can for the first year or two. After your team is untouchable then only buy youths (barring any major players getting sold)

i buy youth and top up the main squad with bargain older players who will push the team onwards.

I spend like crazy on them

Train&Tutor them

Make them Eligible for my nation

Sell them / keep the wonderkids

just loaded up the premier league on my blackpool side (where my team currently recides) average age of team is 22.6 (youngest by a few years) and has the 6th best potential. some players automatically started from the off when i bought them, some are on the fringes but get used when i need to rest my main players.

I'm currently in my 12th season with Santarcangelo in Italy. I maxed out my junior coaching budget and I am currently playing in Serie B with a team that is 90% my youth products.

Hi guys. Not sure this apply to this conversation, but here's my 2 cents...

Had bought several 16/17 year olds for future prospects. Relied on my scouts to spot these 'wonderkids' early. I tried to played them whenever I could - during the league cup, for instance - with mixed results...but I guess that'll be good experience for them.

After a couple of seasons, I guess they had become good - because I had to issue hands off warnings to Juventus and Inter.

I'm planning to promote these youngsters into my first team next season (will play sporadically for the cup games). Even now, aside from John Terry, the most of the other players in my Chelsea team are not older than 25 years old...I guess that's a good youth average, no?

Im doing a Man Utd game at the moment and this is exactly how i love playing even with top teams.

My coaches are all 4,5 - 5*. Every coach , youth coach etc position is filled with only the best coaches.

My scouts are all at poorest 18/18 with several 20/20s .

I am a good few seasons in now and i have not purchased one single "first team" player , not one.

I have won the league every season ive played apart from the third season where both Man City and ourselves finished on equal points but we lost the league on goal difference !

It is so satisfying when this way of playing works , i have bought only youngsters that my scouts find or that i find by browsing now and again , not by signing known top players.

Every purchase made since the start of my save is under 20 apart from free transfers who have determination 19+ and work rate 15+ (usually old players who retire in a year who dont get a single match but are there for tutoring youngsters )

Every season ive taken in more cash on transfers than i spend with the only "mature" players left in my squad now being rooney , nani and vidic , all the others have been forced on and younger players playing in their place.

The only man u youngsters who are now older but are still here are rafael , fabio , smalling , jones , cleverly and de gea.

I find this way of playing so much more entertaining than just buying a team and then i get bored after 2 - 3 seasons.

I dont use any tools like fmscout or anything like that , all done natural via my scout network and myself , its so much more immersive i find personally !

Since ive started playing this way in my last few fm games i dont think il ever go back to snapping up the hazards , neymars etc ..

I never spend crazy money - even if the money is there to be spent.

With youth purchases I've never spent crazy money on regens - I see examples on the forum of people spending tens of millions on 17 year olds. I like to get the 100k - 500k players that might not be the new Messi, but are more than capable of being a good top flight player and won't break the bank.

i only spend crazy money on youth to be honest. got an english regen DC from hull 17 years old £23.5 million and an english regen striker from man utd 16 years old £27.5 million.

usually i dont like spending more than £5m for youth.

my average squad age so far is 20. only 3 players over the age of 25 and i always sell at 27 to 29 years old unless they are very close to breaking a club record (such as most league goals, clean sheets etc)

Slightly off topic, but I seem to be a rarity on the forums in that I'm quite happy to buy and play older players.

Slightly off topic, but I seem to be a rarity on the forums in that I'm quite happy to buy and play older players.

I reckon it all depends on the team your playing as, lower down the leagues say League 1 level a lot of players towards the end of their careers take a drop, but if im playing as a top team, I dont sign anyone under 25, its not a good investment to sign them for them to leave again in 1 maybe 2 years

I find this way of playing so much more entertaining than just buying a team and then i get bored after 2 - 3 seasons.

I dont use any tools like fmscout or anything like that , all done natural via my scout network and myself , its so much more immersive i find personally !

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I'm the same. You should start of in Blue SQ North/South and play LLM rules. You sound like you would enjoy it more.

I had an annoying situation where my board considered a 20 million pound bid for one of my developing players too good to refuse, then a few years later I really need a left winger, and my options are.. him.. and another guy, both of which the clubs want £93 million pounds for. I want to ask how 20 million pounds was too good to refuse when it's likely I'll have to pay 93 million later . I tried haggling down to £65 million, no go.