Any way to decide who plays in youth squad?

Ive actually just realized that my youth squad manager had been lining up crappy potential youngsters and has been leaving the ones with real potential outside the team (lacking football practise); is there any way to set it so that he at least plays certain players everytime they are available? id obviusly like my best prospects to have more practise in match rather than the crap ive got there just to fill the team...

Don't think there is a way to tell them who to play. Best way to do it is to either get rid of the crappy ones, or move them (the crappy ones) all to the reserve team.

You could take control of the team yourself, but then you'd have to watch all the boring U18/U21 games.

You could take control of the team yourself, but then you'd have to watch all the boring U18/U21 games.

hmm.. but if I use the instant result skin thats around there, which adds classic instant result button to full game I could avoid that right?

problem with promoting crap to reserves is that then maybe there isnt enough rotation, and players may get exhausted, which would screw up their growth

1. Manage the team yourself

2. Get rid of rubbish players so there is a smaller pool to pick from

3. Hire a good youth manager and trust his judgement

Even worse is that my U18 manager is picking greyed out players over my half decent real players.

Sure this was one of the many, many features announced for FM14 where you could better instruct you U21/U18 manager to play certain players in certain positions. Ah well.

Check how good is U18 manager JPA, if not good enough he won't be capable of identify the players with best potential. Maybe that's the problem.

As an interesting experiment, you could use the new in game editor to put a top class youth coach as manager and see does it improve team selections.

If yes then great news, if not then very disappointing indeed

Sure this was one of the many, many features announced for FM14 where you could better instruct you U21/U18 manager to play certain players in certain positions. Ah well.

Now that you mention it, I also remember reading this. What happened to this feature? Or is my memory wrong?

It's not really about the potential. He'll pick players to win and therefore pick the best players available. For instance he could pick a 1 star CA/ 1.5 star PA over a 4 silver star CA/ 5 star PA newgen.

Generally IRL the players considered to have high potential are playing because they normally are exciting talents or have some traits that differ from others, so get picked. If they weren't playing they wouldn't be rated high potential because...they're not playing. With FM you're given a star rating straight away so it kind of screws the gamers view point, even if the low potential player plays amazingly well at youth level.

Not sure if the U18/21 managers pick on PA in FM or just best suited player for the position (CA/ key attributes). Anyone know?

As others said, release some of the substandard players from your youth team. After a few seasons it can get pretty full. Aim for 25 man squad with each position covered and look to release those half star PA players. By releasing deadwood and promoting players you should keep it at a stable level allowing every player to get enough game time.

EDIT: Also check the player in question. If you have a highly rated LB, you might have 4 LB's in the youth team with one being 18 and far better current ability than the high potential.

Even worse is that my U18 manager is picking greyed out players over my half decent real players.

There is currently a bug that makes it so that new youth players are not set as available for the U19 squad automatically. Once you set them as available yourself, your manager will pick those before greyed players as expected.

There is currently a bug that makes it so that new youth players are not set as available for the U19 squad automatically. Once you set them as available yourself, your manager will pick those before greyed players as expected.

Many thanks Fax, that works a treat.

well, another thing Im having problems with in here is trying to train some of my young players into another position... it takes ages, and the fact that there is no way to tell the youth manager to put him in the position he is training in doesnt make things easier neither..

Check if your players are available for U21 matches. I find that when my younger players come back from loan I must manually set them to available for 90 minutes. If not, they just rot in your reserves. The U21 manager doesn't seem to do this for you in FM14...