Appearences or mins on pitch to develop young players?

As the title says, does anyone know what is important for "game time" for developing young players.

i.e. is it better for a player to play 90 mins every 10 games, or come on for the last 5 minutes of each of the 10 games.... is it time or appearances?

Thanks

70 replies and no-one knows the answer? Any guesses?

Originally posted by PaulB75:

As the title says, does anyone know what is important for "game time" for developing young players.

i.e. is it better for a player to play 90 mins every 10 games, or come on for the last 5 minutes of each of the 10 games.... is it time or appearances?

Thanks

Well, it depends on the mental attributes of the young player. If he is determined and can handle pressure really well, there is no harm playing him in quite a number of matches. But if he can't handle pressure well, it is not wise to play him in most of your matches. He will break down! So it depends on the player.

Hope this helps!

I'm currently in a game where I'm alot more 'hand-son with the U19 team and I'm curious about this. I took control of the matches, and training, and offering of contracts. I just finished my first season (finished 1st) and didn't really notice any difference in attribute growth between my 30 game starters and players who played 2 or 3 games. Would be interested to find out if there is any actual benefit to playing them. Would like to think there was.

Originally posted by brookie1402:

I'm currently in a game where I'm alot more 'hand-son with the U19 team and I'm curious about this.

Should be 'hands-on'. Should really stop drinking as soon as I get home from work.

I prefer to put youngsters in my starting eleven for games i feel i should win no problem and can then take them off if they're looking a bit tired. I don't like to bring on youngsters for the last 5 mins as its quite rare they will get above a 6 rating and i worry a lesser average rating will hinder their development.

Originally posted by small Mac:

I prefer to put youngsters in my starting eleven for games i feel i should win no problem and can then take them off if they're looking a bit tired. I don't like to bring on youngsters for the last 5 mins as its quite rare they will get above a 6 rating and i worry a lesser average rating will hinder their development.

This.

Additionally, when my assistant informs me of remarkable progress from a youngster, they're almost always a regular starter rather than a bit-parter. Indeed, the assistant says that himself in attributing it to the "regular first team football [they've] been getting lately".

originally posted by PaulB75:-

70 replies and no-one knows the answer? Any guesses?

That's because the only people who really know the answer are the people who coded it. There's two theories you could have on it:-

1. The game stores minutes played over a given period and uses this as the input into the player development model.

or

2. The game references appearances statistics as an input into the player development model. In which case all it recognises is full appearance or substitute regardless of minutes on the pitch.

There might be threads on it in the tactics and training forum if you do a search but off the top of my head I can't remember if there has been one recently. If you're that interested you could always test it out yourself but personally speaking the time it would take to do that would be time that could be spent actually playing the game. And it would be a lot of time as you couldn't just holiday through.

I stick with pretty much what everyone else has said. Full matches where possible and keep in mind the effects of morale when deciding to play them and in deciding upon a team talk or any player interaction.

Mins for me...

I would say it depends on the exact age of teh player. If he is just 17/18 and it is maybe his first season with the first team squad, then just play him at the end of matches to get him settled. Then maybe at around 18/19/20 you can start letting them play full matches. I use the Wenger tactic of playing youngsters in League Cup and this seems to do ok. And if you have a very young player who looks very promising when you bring him on for 15 mins and occaisonally creates a chance or dangers the opposition, you can start him in more games and he may turn out to be a really imprtant player. With defenders, I would say it is best to play them from the start though, as it is important they are settled into the game rather than being brought on right in the thick of it.

for me definitely minutes on the pitch

As people have said it will depend on how old they are. When there around 17/18 it's best to let them develop in the Under 18's league. Once there 19 then perhaps you can bring them into the reserve league or start to look at sending them out on loan to teams who will play them regularly.

After one or two seasons on loan and with games under there belt. Then I find its best to start giving them the last 20-15 mins of games, not every game but a good few perhaps between 15-25 maybe more, and even some starts in some cup games against smaller teams. The following season increase there game time and amount they play with the first team and by the time there about 23 or perhaps a little older they should have gotten to there potential and by now be first team starters or definatly part of the first team squad playing alot of games.