Youth players: Turned 17 , worth offering a contract?

I manage at League 1 level (which may be relevant), when a youth player of mine turns 17 the coach report always says "look to offload as soon as possible". For this reason I have disabled "Ass man renew youth contracts" as they seem to sign them up regardless to deals I then have to pay up to get shot of the poor quality young players. NB I have never played more than 2 seasons so no significant improvement in contracted youths has ever been noted.

My question is, are they all rubbish or are my scout reports poor / unreliable?. After all, the Ass man usually signs them up if he is given the authority - does he know something the scout reports dont show?

It is a minor point but with small clubs every £80-250 per week really counts, and paying up contracts is a crippler.

Also what is a good plan for targetting top clubs young rejects (I cant get my head around a plan that will trawl them out of the abyss - and I dont want to use cheat genie / scouts either!)

Hope this in the right forum / thread, couldnt find this point eactly elsewhere.

Is it just me or is FM09 blinking FAB!

As in real football, just a few youth players will develop into good first team players. Some of the crap players are good enough as backup players, others just for lower league football.

In League 1 the coaches/assmen would probably have poor JPA attributes; they'll tell you to offload kids with decent PAs. So if they're signed anyway and you'd have to pay compensation to get rid of them, better keep them for a year to see who seems to have real potential.

I manage at League 1 level (which may be relevant), when a youth player of mine turns 17 the coach report always says "look to offload as soon as possible". For this reason I have disabled "Ass man renew youth contracts" as they seem to sign them up regardless to deals I then have to pay up to get shot of the poor quality young players. NB I have never played more than 2 seasons so no significant improvement in contracted youths has ever been noted.

What percentage of young players get signed up? All of them, or just the ones with the best potential in your youth side? It might be worth raising as a bug if the Assistant manager is signing every young player up with no quality control.

Also what is a good plan for targetting top clubs young rejects (I cant get my head around a plan that will trawl them out of the abyss - and I dont want to use cheat genie / scouts either!)

Assuming you're not playing to LLM rules, set up a filter that searches for players under 18 or 19 with 'expiring' contracts in the second half of the season. Then set your scouts to work with match reports. That should bring up their current/potential ability ratings.

I tend to find that the good youth players come in after a couple of seasons. The Assistant Manager is generally as good as an inflatable dartboard with this kind of thing. I judge the progress of players by their performances in U18/reserve matches. Sending them on loan is useless as they barely ever play. I would say that for every 20 youth players you get in, probably 2 or 3 will make it. Obviously, the odds are enhanced if you have top facilities e.g. Arsenal but even then, it is relative. You produce better youth players but it is even harder to make the grade. The only youth players that ever make it for me are ones I've nicked from elsewhere e.g Nicolas Millan, Jan Polak.

As for targetting players. You could send a scout out to look at U18's but they never find that many. Or you could go straight to a teams U18s, select them all and get scout reports. This will add them to your shortlist as well, so you'll get notification if they leave the club. There's probably a more subtle way of doing it but this tends to work for me.

In League 1 the coaches/assmen would probably have poor JPA attributes; they'll tell you to offload kids with decent PAs. So if they're signed anyway and you'd have to pay compensation to get rid of them, better keep them for a year to see who seems to have real potential.

...and I guess if other clubs of equal reputation show interest then it would be worth signing them up? Would it be worth getting a cheap coach with excellent JPt (and little else) to generate youth specific reports and using them as a guide for youth quality or would that not be reliable?

FM09 feels like a real little world with this kind of stuff impacting on the squad. Love it.

if you never play past two seasons you may aswell release every youth player and not play in the u18s league (obv from the 2nd season when you can pull out of it), maybe even do this for the ressies league if you wanna go that far

What i do when my Ass Man tells me to offload youth members ready for a proper contract is just terminate there current ones, you only loose the likes of £3,000 or less. But it is very rare for youth to come up, its only once in a blue moon the likes of Wilshire, Ramsay or even Richards at City.

offer 1 year deals for each youth player. if they have potential or play for the first team for x games that season offer new 1 year deal.

offer 1 year deals for each youth player. if they have potential or play for the first team for x games that season offer new 1 year deal.

There is risk that your coaching staff will advise you to get rid of a good player. If you have funds give the better looking (stats that is!) players a 1-2 year contract and monitor their progress in stats and reports on matches. Thsi will give you an idea of which few maybe worth hanging onto and renewing contracts. We see in real life how many big clubs drop youth players from their books and they get picked up by other clubs and become stars

Its realistic in this respect

if you never play past two seasons you may aswell release every youth player and not play in the u18s league (obv from the 2nd season when you can pull out of it), maybe even do this for the ressies league if you wanna go that far

No you misunderstand, I have never GONE past 2 seasons - I certainly intend to though in my current game, its a long term thing.

I always offer a contract as they still have 2/3 years of building to do, they can still progress into someone you can sell for a few million.

if you never play past two seasons you may aswell release every youth player and not play in the u18s league (obv from the 2nd season when you can pull out of it), maybe even do this for the ressies league if you wanna go that far

Actually (as Bristol Rovers) I dont have a Reserves team league, do the board give me the option of having one in season 2? - id like one.

Occasionally there will be a quality potential player your coach will see as rubbish, but by and large I tend to follow the assistants advice (saying that I always try to make sure my assistant has good 'judging player ability/potential' stats)

Yup: JCA/JPA are the two key stats in my Assistant's arsenal, though I'm putting more emphasis on Tactical Knowledge this year to see if it helps him give me better advice through the match.

For the past several versions of FM, though, its not been uncommon for me to have an Assistant with 16/16 JCA/JPA, but crummy attributes as a coach .. while the best scout on my LLM club might be only a 10/12 or something like that.

. . .

That said, I like to trust a blend of my assistant and myself. I go to the player's "Training" page, and look through attribute groups. If he's training well, and he's showing improvement in some attributes, I think of it as "worth my while" to put him on a full-time contract for two years.

"Full Time" training is much more efficient than "Part Time / Youth" training, so I expect to see him grow substantially over those two years. If he levels off, he's for the transfer list, and I'm willing to let him go for nothing just to get him off the books. If he continues improving, I'll look to sign him long-term by around his 18th birthday, and start lending him out. By that point in his career development, he should be able to earn a starting berth if you choose his loan destination wisely.

if im lookin for good youngsters i get my scout to scout a nation and get them to look for players under 21 then look at the better ones again