Cant get any good youth players at southampton, even tho facilities are top of the range

Im in my fourth season with southampton in the PL. I have upgraded everything to the maximam they can be! (Top training facilites. - State of the art youth facilities. - Eceptional junior coaching.- Well established youth recruitment.) I have hired some top top youth coaches, but for the past 3 seasons my acadamy hasn't produced a player with more than 1 and a half star potential. Something is goin seriously wrong because ive been told that having the best facilties means i shud be getting 2-3 players per youth intake with 3-4-5 star potential every season! Eg, my best youth players this year was a striker, his finishing was 3 and his PA was 1 and a half stars! Ive been told the CA and PA get better with the upgrades but im not getting anything back from my investment. In fact my very 1st youth intake in the championship i got a dmc with 4 and a half stars PA, and that was before i did any upgrading. Can someone please tell me if im doing something wrong? Thanks.

Short of some weird bug with your savegame, you're just having crummy luck. As a remedy I suggest helping an old lady across the street, giving a homeless man a few bucks for a cup of coffee, and giving your mother a hug. The resulting good karma should help steer your youths in the right direction

I've had two intakes with my Saints save - one brought me two 4+ youths and a couple of 3s, the second brought me 5 (!) quality youths although a couple of them have awkward stat distributions. It's really all down to luck. I've also seen some terrible intakes with a top-notch youth setup before. Given the small sample size, you are prone to streaks of good/bad luck.

Thanks 4 your reply, best get out and start helping old ladys across the road, my gameplan was to blood the best british youth team ever, sort of like man utd from the 90's, hopefuly next year will be better, will let you know!

I'm in the 4th season as Manchester United and Southampton produced couple of players with potential of 4 or more stars. I have the best scouts in game and I even bought two of their gems.

In my game as man utd took Southampton 6 years to produce anyone world class, but now he wont sign for me as his agent doesnt want him to leave southampton.

Having an academy guarantees you nothing, it just increases the chance that the players will have high potential. World class players will sometimes be generated at non-league clubs and the vast majority of players at clubs with top of the range facilities will still be naff. You're probably just having a bit of bad luck, but nothing that out of the ordinary. The good players will come If you want to build a team from the ground up by bringing younger players through the ranks, you'll have to nick promising players off other teams as well, as you'll be lucky to get a full 11 that you've produced yourself, let alone a bench and cover for injuries. If your scouts are any good, you can hoover up all the top talent and make sure that they improve in the right areas through sensible training etc.

Also, the star ratings are compared to your current players, so if you already have signed the best players in the world, you'll max out at 2.5/3 stars anyway. If your players are dire, the chances of a high star rating are obviously much higher (which might explain the high rating in the CH). On top of this, the ratings you get from your staff aren't necessarily that accurate.

You should also consider that PA is not the be all and end all of things - but is what's used to rate the players. A player with 150 PA can still become an excellent player, and might be much better upon fulfilling his potential than other players with much higher ability. Some of my top players in past FMs have only been "decent Premier League players", and yet have got a century in caps, yearly average ratings around 8-ish and won player of the year etc. These players will still be rated as not that exciting in stars when compared to other players you may have with CA of, say, 190. Your scouts and coaches only look at PA/CA - you need to be smarter than that and look at the attributes a player has. My best player on CM3 had a PA of 90, but had all the right attributes to be a monster anyway (and things were a bit different back then).

Just to let you know, 2 seasons after i started this post ive had 2 new youth recruitment teams, and both times it said there is NO notable youth plaers in this years squad!! Now im starting to think there is something seriously wrong! i have 5 top class youth coaches aswel, i really im getting annoyed at the fact that i cannot produce decent youth players, even tho all my facilties are top of the range!!!

You could always save immediately before the youth intake next time around. Reload it a few times, to confirm that you can indeed generate at least one decent prospect. Once you have confirmation, you should be able to load one more time and continue on =)

I know it's not what you want to hear, but I'm still inclined to say it's simply bad luck.

mkjellander, i have taken your advice, as of now i have reloaded it 17 times, i have had 1 or 2 dent youth come through, the best being a 3 star PA striker, but 17 reloads to get 2 decent players doesnt seem right for the facilties i have, there are teams in france, italy and germany getting 4 and three quarter star PA ratings players with nowhere need the facilities i have, in fact PSG had 3 in 1 bach of players!!!

I'd fire all your coaches and start over! ;-)

Any chance you can upload your save game to a file sharing service? I'd be happy to try and run the intake a few times, see if it's looking odd. I'm still leaning towards bad luck, but you never know.

How do i upload it? do you know and file sharing services?

any* file sharing services, ps i cant sack all my coaches id owe the an absolute fortune, got my balnce upto 50mil, dont wanna lose that haha

Having an academy guarantees you nothing, it just increases the chance that the players will have high potential. World class players will sometimes be generated at non-league clubs and the vast majority of players at clubs with top of the range facilities will still be naff.

Southhampton is not a non-league club.

This may be a daft question, but when saving/reloading, how did you see the PA ratings of players at other clubs?

Southhampton is not a non-league club.

I think we all are all aware of that, but thanks anyway.

I have no proof but i'm convinced that the standard of youth coaches make a difference, i've had games where teams in non leagues have produced great prem players but on moving up the leagues with improvements in rep and facilities, have generated worse players :confused:

Try changing the youth coaches.

my best youth players this year was a striker, his finishing was 3 and his PA was 1 and a half stars! Ive been told the CA and PA get better with the upgrades but im not getting anything back from my investment. In fact my very 1st youth intake in the championship i got a dmc with 4 and a half stars PA, and that was before i did any upgrading. Can someone please tell me if im doing something wrong? Thanks.

The reason your intakes appear to have got worse is that your squad has presumably got better. The PA stars are in comparison to the rest of your squad, rather than compared to the whole world. For example, Rickie Lambert might be a 5* player in League 1, but he'd be a 2 star or lower at Barcelona. The 4* DMC had the potential to be an outstanding player in the Championship, but your 1.5 star striker is unlikely to be Premiership standard.

The reason your intakes appear to have got worse is that your squad has presumably got better. The PA stars are in comparison to the rest of your squad, rather than compared to the whole world. For example, Rickie Lambert might be a 5* player in League 1, but he'd be a 2 star or lower at Barcelona. The 4* DMC had the potential to be an outstanding player in the Championship, but your 1.5 star striker is unlikely to be Premiership standard.

That's what I mentioned earlier and also why I'd like to know how the PA star rating for other clubs was determined (as in, are the stars compared to the OP's players, or compared to the other club's players - two very different things)... That said, the French teams always seem to produce loads of talent.

There are few good talents coming through in England as a whole. There are preset parameters for nations, and France, Brazil, Germany, Italy and Spain are all producing much more and better talent than England.

I've been at fiorentina with top of the range facilities for 18 seasons, not had one youth player above 2* potential. Some have been okay, after I signed them for the sake of it, but never had anyone near world class.

I think there deffo has to be a bit of a revamp regarding the sort of players that make it into the youth recruitment squad, how can you bring through average players at your club, when you can just go and buy a top class player that u need, there needs to be better players coming through to challenge in the 1st team, especially if you spend alot of time upgrading facilities and getting them best youth coaches about! at the minute there no value for money regarding youth players, i get that spain, germany, italy are producing better youth players, but surely if i have top of the range facilities for a 5-10 year peroid with the best youth coaches, surely england will start producing better players, at the moment the youth players are average and have been for 6 years now!! every now and then you want a rooney, a bale, an oxlade-chamberlain, a new barry ferguson (im a rangers fam haha) it makes the game alot more interesting, and will provide motivation to carry on your game!!

Sums up England's youth talent irl...

In 6 years of regens on my current southampton save I have gotten 6 regens good enough to be leading premier league players although only three have developed that far at this point in their careers. There are a number of others who are good enough to play in the premier league as decent or good.

Obviously, I have been very lucky, but Southampton can generate very good players.

Thanks 4 your reply, best get out and start helping old ladys across the road, my gameplan was to blood the best british youth team ever, sort of like man utd from the 90's, hopefuly next year will be better, will let you know!

More like the man utd 50s team that had more youth in it.

At Juventus I've had 4 players come through the ranks with HUGE potential, two in particular with Lionel Messi type potential.

I think it's all down to luck, but still make sure you have your youth recruitment level quite high, I think mine is "well established".

Also, in my 4th season as Juventus I've actually just signed a youth player from Southampton with full star potential.

I'm playing in FM11 with Southampton. I have gotten a few 3* guys and 2 3.5* guys last year (I'm in 2017). This year's intake was crap, no one above 2.5*.

I, however, do have amazing youth teams through purchasing foreigners and combining them with some of the good youth guys I get. I think my U-18 team hasn't lost a game in 4 years or so, including 4 straight U-18 cup wins and I enjoy these games as much as my first team games.

I must confess, I probably stole a bunch of OPs luck. In my two intakes with the Saints so far, I have a total of 7 players that are rated as potentially leading premier league players. The second season was bizarrely good, with 5 high quality prospects. At this point I have 4 or 5 of youths from my academy on the England U-19/21 teams, with one Brazil/England dual nationality guy missing out because he wants to play for Brazil. I fully expect to get nothing for years to come.

I'm in my 5th season with the Saints, and each season my youth intakes have gotten worse. For the last few seasons, I haven't had any notable prospects. I've had to sign youth that I want from other clubs.

I'm in my 5th season with the Saints, and each season my youth intakes have gotten worse. For the last few seasons, I haven't had any notable prospects. I've had to sign youth that I want from other clubs.

Southampton under AI produces excellent players yet under human control produces poor players. The same is with Manchester United. What I discovered is that the most important thing is how good your youth coaches are when it comes to Youth Recruitment. So, look for coaches who are good at that and you'll be getting much better youth intake.