Why does FM hate young players?

Apologies if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find the thread using search.

My biggest issue with the way FM works, excluding obvious bugs, is the game's treatment of young players.

Now, I don't mean regens or unknown 16 year olds in your u18 squad. I mean players who are in real life, established, quality players, but in FM end up rotting in the reserves.

The excuse that these players developed better than SI anticipated cannot be used; these players are already in their clubs' first teams. Some examples from the current FM2012:

Danny Welbeck

Daniel Sturridge

Jack Wilshere

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

I have just finished season 2. All these players, who in real life are pretty regular starters for top top clubs, and making the England squad, are all out on loan to low-level clubs and/or transfer listed.

Likewise, if a human player utilises young players who perform impressively, i.e. plenty of goals, high average rating etc, the second you leave the club and an AI players takes over they get shunted to the reserves.

So why does FM hate young players?

For me it's a combination of reputation & CA with rep once again being the main cause of the problem.

AI managers place too much emphasis on a player's rep in all aspects of squad management & player development with hardly any recognition of actual performance or the benefit of regular first team football.

I'm reaching the point where I'll be moving on from my Leipzig team for a new challenge (maybe break the 30 year domestic domination of Real Madrid & Barcelona) & I can guarantee that my replacement will immediately sell or sideline all of my lower rep (National or lower) players despite having 7.5+ average ratings for the last 2 or 3 seasons.

I was having this discussion with somebody last night. The top clubs will get some really good young players but won't ever play them and would sooner buy somebody else to fill a position in their team when a slot becomes available. Sadly this means the players don't ever fulfil their potential and England become weaker as a result.

I was having this discussion with somebody last night. The top clubs will get some really good young players but won't ever play them and would sooner buy somebody else to fill a position in their team when a slot becomes available. Sadly this means the players don't ever fulfil their potential and England become weaker as a result.

I've found that Manchester United are one of the worst clubs for this sort of behaviour in FM, on my save they spent £22.5m on a worldwide rep 29 year old striker with a questionable injury record, he hit 14 goals in 31 games in his first season but by the halfway point of his second season he's only managed 2 goals in 20 games.

What I've seen is that as the club rep gets higher the likelihood of them bringing players through their youth system or buying talented youngsters decreases, as of 2033 Manchester United have 2 HG-club players, there are only 15 senior squad players in the Premier League who are HG-club & a third of those are at West Ham.

Good responses guys.

So perhaps reputation increases too slowly? Or there's a catch-22 situation whereby clubs won't play young players without a certain reputation level, but those players can't attain that because their clubs don't play them?

But why - and perhaps an SI rep could answer this - does this apply to players like those I mentioned above, who clearly already have the required rep when the game begins?

iirc Welbeck is behind Rooney & Berbatov, Sturridge has to compete for a starting spot against Drogba & Torres, not to sure about the Arsenal lads as I don't know how they stack up to the rest of the team in FM.

it's worse than that though. I could accept if they were treated as, for example, 3rd choice striker in a team that plays 2 up to. However, in my game;

Welbeck on loan at FC Twente

Sturridge in reserves, transfer and loan listed

Oxlade-Chamberlain makes a handful of apps each season, transfer listed by request

Wilshere, no apps in 2 seasons, transfer listed

Have a look at how the teams spread first team appearances, in general you will find that most teams will have a set starting 11 who will start every time unless injured or suspended with a few players taking turns on he sub bench & then a significant drop in appearances from about 13th on the list.

Going back to my save Newcastle United were able to win the Premier league with a 14 man senior squad, there was no disadvantage to having such a small squad as all the other title contenders in essence used the same size squad.

welbeck is 3rd striker for united, rooney and hernandez are the starting 2. welbeck is basically the same as hernandez for me though.

I think this has been a problem for a few Fm's past, In Fm2011, I left my long-established Truro team who had a massive squad of fantastic players, including young players with huge future potential. They sold the majority of the younger, lower rep players, often on ridiculous deals. Like a 20 year old with 170 CA and around 180 PA sold for just 15 million even though he could have had a long, long successful future at the club. They elected to keep a club legend who was 32 and sell a right winger with similar CA/PA who was just like 23. They sold a 24 year old with around 180 CA and 199 PA who could have been the best in the world for 10 million pounds who was mostly on loan from me (to real madrid last season) but I was ready to start playing in the first team, if I had stayed, and they elected to keep a bunch of 30-32 year olds instead. This team after I left had 120 million pounds of players leaving per season for three seasons, and only like 10-20 million of players coming in. Worst thing? they coulda gotten double that in fees for those players - had they actually haggled and rejected a few bids. That first player I mentioned, they accepted a £33m bid then instead of rejecting lower offers, for some reason accepted a bunch of 15 million pound bids, and he ended up leaving for 15 mill

They just don't seem to have the capacity to think into the future. Sure they try to buy young promising players, but then they usually waste them, and if they get to a point where they could be excellent players, they sell them and keep old players instead.

Sure, there are players that do develop, but I was shocked by how the manager completely gutted my Truro team in just a few seasons.

This more or less goes back to the problems in squad management, which has been a problem in FM for several years. That's why I hate it when I leave a club because I know the next manager will gut everyone...

Would just like to add a bit more to the problems of the way the AI do their business.

I notice the bigger clubs are more than happy to spend 20m+ on players aged 28-30 and give them 70k+ a week wages. That is a lot of money to me for players that have got probably 5 years left at best before they won't be a 1st team regular. If a player in this bracket gets transfer listed for say 25-30m then there is a long list of big clubs wanting to do a deal. I can only assume this is down to the rep and CA of the player.

You then get some really good players available either on frees or listed who are under 23. I got a Brazilian who on a free from Ath Madrid when he was 20 and already a leading star. Who else put in a bid? Yes you guessed it, nobody! He is now the best player in my CL winning team at the age of 23 but nobody has ever even tried to make an offer. Not saying I would sell but surely he would be a better investment for say 40m rather than a 29 year old who costs 25m?

I have managed though to get my team to a stage where I have 11 English first team squad players. This is because the other big clubs will happily sell players at the age of 21 when they are already good Prem players and will become leading stars if they get given the opportunity. I have picked up quite a few for 6-8m and within a year they have developed enough to reach the potential. Why not keep them and give them games against weaker sides or loan them out to a bottom half club? I seriously don't get it.

The fact that Welbeck isn't an automatic starter at Man Utd in real life doesn't excuse the way the FM Man Utd treat him. Even with Ferguson in charge, they pursue an entirely unrealistic transfer policy.

The players mentioned in the opening post are all classic examples of young players constantly punted off on loan despite being important to their teams in real life. I've seen Wilshere rotting in the Arsenal reserves at 23/24.

Sadly, FM AIs have never been as good at rotating and developing as they should be. I suppose the consolation prize is that if the AI really did value youth and potential, and understand how to make the most of it's squad, a lot of people (like me ) would find the game much harder than we actually do - so the AI's ineptitude gives a path for mediocre players to be successful. Probably not a bad thing for many people.

Welbeck just bought by Tottenham (in 2015) after rotting in the reserves for years. (I just rejected the Tottenham job too).

Sturridge (out of contract at Chelsea with no one looking to sign him.

Oxlade-Chamberlain been available for transfer forever, with only a couple of loan deals over several years. So has Gibbs.

Wilshere again no appearances for Arsenal his contract has just expired.

My first team (Forest) has several second-tier (i.e. real but not the exhausted name alike Wilshire) younger cast-offs from Arsenal and Man U. All bar one signed for free and all have now reached up around their potential (late 130s, early 140s). In doing so they have averages wish and I've had three top 6 finishes.

On a similar note my youth team is full of Bayern regen kids who were released and are now all u21 reps and PAs of 150+ , who are now developing at a massive rate in my youth team/out on loan.

Oxlade chamberlain was playing for arsenal when i faced them.

Sadly, FM AIs have never been as good at rotating and developing as they should be. I suppose the consolation prize is that if the AI really did value youth and potential, and understand how to make the most of it's squad, a lot of people (like me ) would find the game much harder than we actually do - so the AI's ineptitude gives a path for mediocre players to be successful. Probably not a bad thing for many people.

Exactly. I think this is an example of a blessing in disguise for 70-90% of the people who play this game. The human manager has an edge over the AI manager when it comes to finding and signing the most talented players, team talks (assuming you know how to do them), tactics (assuming you know the best times to implement certain strategies). Basically, the human manager has an edge over the AI in every important area of the game, once the human user educates himself and has a bit of game experience. Just look at the dafuge challenge thread for example. Most of the people posting in that thread can take a club from BSN/BSS up to the premier league and eventually win the premier league on a regular basis. I think most people find this success to be fun, as do I.

Now imagine that the AI was as good as the AI in sophisticated chess games, would the majority of users find the game to be fun then, I think not. In other words, people are always asking for the game to become more and more realistic, but I don't think this would be beneficial to most users of the game as there's a reason why managing a football club in the real world is a full time job.

Hopefully I didn't hijack the thread, but in case I did, I do agree that AI Managers should value youth and potential ability more than they currently do.

it´s a similar problem with National Team squads as well, in 2017 currently and hardly any U25 players in the bigger european teams despite plenty candidates

Now imagine that the AI was as good as the AI in sophisticated chess games, would the majority of users find the game to be fun then, I think not. In other words, people are always asking for the game to become more and more realistic, but I don't think this would be beneficial to most users of the game as there's a reason why managing a football club in the real world is a full time job.

I disagree. The number of people who do stuff like the dafuge challenge is a tiny, tiny percentage of the entire population of FM players.

Most players, particularly casual players, enjoy playing big clubs in big competitions and usually don't play a save for longer than 3 or 4 seasons. These players enjoy the challenged offered by the initial database and then quickly become bored when they become an unstoppable powerhouse after a few seasons. If the game offered a more consistent challenge at the top level, it would hold the attention of most players for longer. Instead, I think most FM players buy a version of the game, play two or three saves with various big teams then go back to playing other games because the only challenge left is to play Schrumblesberryshire United and that, honestly, doesn't interest people who want to play with their favourite players and deal in the international transfer market.

Also, there's a long way to go between the current state of FM's squad-building AI and anything remotely resembling a sophisticated chess game. Unless SI brings in some world class computer scientists and provides them with a few billion dollars to redevelop their AI, the human is always going to have a clear advantage... but it doesn't have to be as glaring as it is now.

So perhaps reputation increases too slowly? Or there's a catch-22 situation whereby clubs won't play young players without a certain reputation level, but those players can't attain that because their clubs don't play them?

It's both. Reputation increases too slowly and young players are never given a chance to play games to even slowly improve their reputation. To make matters worse, youngsters and emerging regens are often only brought into the first team in crisis situations when morale is bad and other first team players are injured meaning that their reputation will even drop further due to being involved in losses.

@The Hand of God, I agree with what you're saying, which is why I stated in my post "I do agree that AI Managers should value youth and potential ability more than they currently do." I agree that improvements can and should be made to the game, but they shouldn't go to such an extreme that sucks the fun out of the game or make it so realistic that the user has to spend hours pre-match and during the match making tweaks and intently watch all player movements due to AI sophistication. There are several 'realistic' features already included in the game that I think many or even most users don't use because they're not that much fun (examples being press conferences & team talks), just my opinion/observation of course.

@The Hand of God, I agree with what you're saying, which is why I stated in my post "I do agree that AI Managers should value youth and potential ability more than they currently do." I agree that improvements can and should be made to the game, but they shouldn't go to such an extreme that sucks the fun out of the game or make it so realistic that the user has to spend hours pre-match and during the match making tweaks and intently watch all player movements due to AI sophistication. There are several 'realistic' features already included in the game that I think many or even most users don't use because they're not that much fun (examples being press conferences & team talks), just my opinion/observation of course.

Well, the match engine AI and the transfer/squad-development AI are really two separate areas of the game. Improving the latter wouldn't really have any effect on how much attention you have to give to actual matches.

I am in 2015 and Jack Wilshere is worth £21.5 million and has played 30 league games a season apart from season one where he is injured. Chamberlain was loaned to West Ham then sold to Bolton where he plays regularly and looks like a decent player Arsenal should have kept him. Welbeck is a back up at Man United and Sturridge started around 10 games a season but will be moving to Sevilla on a free transfer at the end of the season.

The AI is poor at using young players and terrible at buying and developing them, it is one of the reasons that once you get together a decent title winning side you can keep winning the league with little challenge from the other "big" teams.

In my save Wilshere and Chamberlain are top players. Welbeck is a sub for Man Utd and Sturridge is at Newcastle.