The Long Term Approach - Squad Building and Development

No matter what club you manage or the tactics you use, ideally you should have some kind of long-term vision for the club if you plan on staying for a fair few years, well at least I do, I should say. With the vision of the club and how I want to move forward then determines how I squad build and what type of players I’ll bring into the club with the necessary attributes needed for whatever roles I need them to play. This is very much long-term for me as I tend to play a particular brand of football at the clubs I manage and use the same or similar shapes throughout my stay at the club. The only real-time I don’t do that is if I need to freshen the game up then I’ll look at drastic changes just to mix it up a little. But for most parts I stick to the same philosophy and identity that I try to create the club throughout and player recruitment and player development are vital for this.

I like to give myself different options with terms of player recruitment, I use this as a strategy in itself. By this I mean, I don’t like to buy or develop like for like players, I don’t see the point in that. So what I’ll do is look for players who will play the position differently, this makes recruitment fun and gives me options off the bench without actually changing the players role in the side. Instead I focus on a different type of player playing the same role and how he will interpret the role.

As I am now a few seasons into my Santos save I thought it would be good to talk you through the roles I use and how I develop players for these roles long terms and show you a few examples of what I was talking about above. The tactic I use is the Brazilian 1970 one that I was recreating;

http://i1.wp.com/sisportscentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/1970.png

If you want to read more about the tactic itself and what it’s all about then you can find more information about it here;

http://sisportscentre.com/category/brazil-1970/

Now while I might be a few seasons into the game, I’m still not far enough to have had the chance to fill every position with youths as either my scouting network isn’t big enough yet or I’ve just not found the right type of player, I don’t just buy anyone, I only buy players who I have a clear plan for from the beginning. Especially when my transfer budget is £2.5 million for the first two seasons, so it becomes difficult to bring in a lot of new faces. However I think I’ve done quite well with the ones I have brought in so far but before I show you them, there are a few other things I need to cover first.

For me training is simply broken down to these three key stages;

• Personality
  
• Tailored development
  
• PPM’s
  

There are other factors to consider too like match experience but to keep this simple, I break training down to the three things mentioned above. Personality is important because if a player lacks ambition and professionalism then they’ll struggle to reach their full potential, so its vital that I select a personality type that allows players the chance to reach their potential. Other factors still play a part of course but to give them the best chance then personality should be at top of the list. To find out more about what types of personalities there are have a read of this;

http://sisportscentre.com/player-personality-tutoring/

When I mention tailored development I’m talking about moulding the player into the best player he can be for the job you expect him to do. This will often mean (at least for me) that I don’t follow the attributes for the role that the game suggest as I look to get something more out of the role. So to achieve this I use individual focuses for either attributes or role training. If you take this approach then to take full advantage of the individual training you must set the team training to balanced on low and the match training schedule slider should be set to 20% or lower. This will ensure that the focus is all on the individual focuses you have selected. If you change the general training from balanced, what you do is actually emphasize the attributes of whatever that category trains. You can find more about that here;

http://sisportscentre.com/training/

One thing it doesn’t mention above though is if you train an individual focus and any type of general training that is not balanced then you are skewing the attribute focuses twice which detracts from the training and slows development down as the focuses you selected aren’t being focused on as much as they should. This is why you need to decide if you want to take a more generalist approach and use general training to put focus on attributes, if you choose this option then that will be for every single player in the squad. If you choose the individual option then this means you have more control and can work on targeting specific areas of a players development. If you use both at the same time (i.e fitness, tactics, ball control, defending or attacking) then neither method is working to the full potential and while you’ll still see improvements it will be slower and not as good as choosing one or the other.

Player’s preferred moves (PPM’s) are also a very important part of development for me because they enable you to influence what a player does by teaching him a set of PPM’s that help him achieve what you want from the role. I also did a post about PPM’s quite recently so rather than cover old ground I’ll just link what I wrote previously if you’d like to understand them a bit better.

http://sisportscentre.com/utilising-players-preferred-moves/

Let’s take a look at my current best eleven that I use so we can see what type of player I currently use for the roles as well as looking at the attributes the game highlights needed for the positions.

Keeper

Central defenders

Fullback (DL)

Complete wing back

Central midfielder defend

Deep lying playmaker

Inside forward

Trequartista

Advanced playmaker

Deep lying forward

Those are my best eleven and all of them apart from trequartista were already at the club. I do have more players but I haven’t listed them as they were all shipped out and didn’t feature in my plans or were only used for tutoring options if they had good personality types. I’ve also brought one or two older faces into the club just for tutoring the youths as my squad is rather young and doesn’t have many tutors.

All the players I’m about to list either came through my youth ranks or were found by my scouts searching the world for players under 19. I don’t do anything special with regards to scouting, I just have my scouts search for players under a specific age and that’s about it.

Filipi

Deciding how I’d develop him and what role he’d be playing in the current set up was one of the easier decisions I’ve had to make. Long term he will be my trequartista as he has the attributes for that already and stands out. His personality is also professional already and as I’m short on tutors I don’t need to have him tutored immediately as he isn’t a priority for tutoring due to him having at least half of what’s required already. I decided that because he has high technical for a fifteen year old already that I didn’t really need to do individual attribute training for him. This allowed me to give him an individual role training schedule instead but even though he will be a trequartista that isn’t the role I gave him. The reasons for this is I wanted to work on his physical attributes and if we look at what the trequartista role trains we’d see there is minimal focus on the physical’s;

As you can see that focuses on a few attributes that are already extremely high. In fact, his technical attributes are already high enough for what I need for him so I’d not be that fussed if they never changed. His first touch, passing and technique are all I need, anything else in the technical column is a bonus but not essential. His mental attributes need a lot of work but that will come with age and from playing games, they should develop quite well over the next three to four years. The physical attributes though are average but I’d like him to be faster because he will have lots of space to cover on the pitch and if he drops deep he needs to be able to catch up or keep up with play. If he’s slow then he’ll struggle meaning a part of my jigsaw doesn’t work which will have a knock on effect elsewhere. I could have gave him specific attribute training but due to his young age I didn’t feel that was needed as he has no obvious weakness based on his age. With all of this in mind I decided to look through the training schedules and find one that worked more on the mental and physical attributes. This is what I decided on;

That’s the roaming playmaker role. It works on more mental attributes and physical ones. The more attributes a schedule works on the less chance they have to improve though compared to a schedule that works on less overall attributes. That isn’t a bad thing though if the attributes it targets are all areas the player needs to focus on. It will save you time in the long run compared to individual attribute training and continuously rotating them manually for a few seasons.

I mentioned further up that he needs to be able to keep up with play or catch up with it so he can be involved in everything. What I need him to do is be a link between the midfield and attack by dropping deep in search of the ball and generally just roaming about. While I expect him to chip in with goals at times this isn’t his main job. The main job I want is for him to be able to find space and commit the opposition to marking him or following him as this should create space for me to use. Or for him to use the space that the others around him create. Not only that but I expect him to do through balls or play people in who might be in better positions that himself. He really needs to be the all action type hero.

This means that long-term based on what I need I see him needing these PPM’s;

• Comes deep to get ball
  
• Tries killer balls often
  

That’s all that I see him needing for the role nothing too fancy or flashy as I expect him to be involved in everything so don’t want to make him do to many specific things as that could take away from what I need him to do overall.

Chris

This player is a tricky one because realistically he could be trained to play almost anywhere in the set up I use. He could play centre back, central midfield, attacking midfield or even as a striker. So it wasn’t straight forward having a plan for him to begin with and it took me a lot of debating to decide on where I see his position long-term. In the end I did settle on him being the advanced playmaker though. The reasons for this were simple in the end, it’s because he could be a very different type of advanced playmaker compared to what we already have at the club. He’d offer me more of a physical presence, so I see him as a hybrid defensive midfielder/advanced playmaker, a defensive advanced playmaker if you like, who could be very useful in certain situations. Don’t get me wrong I can see him becoming a regular in the side but I can also tailor him to be a specific type of player and offer me something different when playing those physical sides who defend deep and make it hard for you to break them down. I could use him as a battering ram type of player and because he’s a playmaker he will automatically attract the ball off his team mates so I’d be confident he could keep hold of it and not be bullied off the ball. I also see him winning the ball high up the pitch and defending from the front which is always useful.

Due to what I was wanting from the player, I again selected the roaming playmaker schedule for him;

It just suits everything I want to focus on. I’m not sure I’ll keep him on this long-term though it all depends how the first 12-18 months go and then I’ll review where he’s at in his development and base any changes made on that.

As for PPM’s he already has tries long-range passes but others I’d like him to learn at some point would be;

• Dictates tempo
  
• Plays own-twos
  

This would then allow him to dictate the pace of the game high up the field and based on the situation he could try a long-range pass or a one-two with whoever is up in support of him.

Siphiwe Nzama

Another pretty straight forward one this and I see him as the complete wing back but I see him as a more physical option than the current options I have available, although he is a poorer crosser of the ball but I should be able to drastically improve that with a little bit of time. He’s slightly older than the other players so I don’t have as much time with him compared to those and this has influenced how I will train him. For the first 6 months he will be trained on individual attribute focuses which will see me work on;

• Strength
  
• Positioning
  
• Crossing
  

I will give each one of those a focus for 2 months at a time then I’ll switch to some complete wing back training depending on if I see the attributes rise or not in that time. Again though, I’ll assess this after the six months to know where I stand in terms of improvements.

His PPM’s hopefully will be;

• Get’s forward when possible
  
• Runs with ball often
  

I want him to make use of his high dribbling attribute and always be as advanced as he can when we have possession of the ball so that’s what those PPM’s are based upon.

Rafael

I did toy with the idea of making this lad a centre back as I don’t really have any real prospects for that just yet but then decided I’d try and get someone more creative as a centre back to offer me something different to what I have currently. So what I went for here is use Rafael as my no-nonsense central midfielder who has the defensive duty. He needs a bit of work but he has plenty of time on his side to develop and I’m in no real rush with him.

For his training I decided to give him individual attribute focus, focusing on;

• Strength
  
• Positioning
  
• Quickness
  

He needs to be strong so he doesn’t get knocked off the ball easily and he needs quickness as he has lots of space to cover and I need to be confident he can move around to where he is needed in the quickest possible time. And focusing on his positioning should also help with that. I will rotate these on a 2 month period and then see how he’s developing, if its good progress I might switch him to a role training but I want to see what kind of improvements I see first before committing to it.

As for PPM’s there isn’t any that I want him to have for now, this might change as I get further into the game but for now its something that I’ll ignore and look at further down the line.

Julio Cesar Cabrera

This player is going to have a dual role in my side as he’ll be used as an inside forward and the deep-lying forward at times. Depending on my players condition throughout the season will determine where he plays. The reason for this is he’s too good to not fit into the team straight away but for now I also have players playing that I class as undroppable for the first season and half. The upside is in Brazil we play a lot of games so a big squad will always be used!

Long-term I see him as my inside forward due to his all round game and I think he can offer me a physical presence. Ideally if I develop him correctly he’ll be like a target man inside forward who burst forward and pushes himself past his markers and the oppositions defence. A skilful player who has strength and speed is an awesome thing to see working on the pitch in the correct set up. I think the tactic I use will suit this type of player so that’s why he’ll be developed this way. As for his training I am putting him on individual attribute focus of;

• Strength
  
• Stamina
  
• Quickness
  

I feel these three attributes let him down currently but should develop quite easy with this training. I’ll keep him on this for the full season but rotating them 2 months at a time so we don’t waste time and over focus on one particular attribute.

Long term his PPM’s should be something like;

• Runs with ball often
  
• Cuts inside
  

I might add more but for now they will be the basic minimum he has taught to him.

I have a lot more information to add about these players and how development has gone over the next few seasons and also including more players. However this post is getting far too long so I’ll have to split it and post the other bits of information in a few days time. So expect to see;

• Summary of how trainings been going including showing current profiles to see attribute changes
  
• A look at who has been tutored and who his tutor was.
  
• I’ll show you more players who I’ve brought in
  
• We will look at some of the different kind of options I have and are training that are very different to offer me something different from the current people I use.
  
• Talk about my substitution strategy and how I use my bench as a tool to change a game.
  

Hopefully someone will find what I’ve written useful

Reserved 1

Reserved 2

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Get in!!! looking forward to this nothing better than player development.

hi Cleon! amazing thread,as always ,

one quest:

sometimes when I ask some of my coachs to talk to the player in question to learn his ppm's,(for example "dictates the tempo" at one of my mc's u17, he says does not believe to be able to learn this ppm, then I do not know whether to tell him also try, I have to fear that some miss his trainning to try to learn a ppm who never finish learning

I make that forces the player to learn the ppm?

thx a lot !

and sorry for my bad english

hi Cleon! amazing thread,as always ,

one quest:

sometimes when I ask some of my coachs to talk to the player in question to learn his ppm's,(for example "dictates the tempo" at one of my mc's u17, he says does not believe to be able to learn this ppm, then I do not know whether to tell him also try, I have to fear that some miss his trainning to try to learn a ppm who never finish learning

I make that forces the player to learn the ppm?

thx a lot !

and sorry for my bad english

The coach isn't always right, in fact I find my to rarely be right, I always ignore them. You're the manager still teach him it as your coach could be wrong

The coach isn't always right, in fact I find my to rarely be right, I always ignore them. You're the manager still teach him it as your coach could be wrong

thanks, I will ignore this warnings from coaches

how long will invest in learning a ppm one u17?

once one of your players has not learned ppm you assigned?

The coach isn't always right, in fact I find my to rarely be right, I always ignore them. You're the manager still teach him it as your coach could be wrong

Absolutely, quite often my coaches (4 ou 5 star coaches) tell me something about my players ppm that I go against. I'm the manager, I know what I want from my players

When I mention tailored development I’m talking about moulding the player into the best player he can be for the job you expect him to do. This will often mean (at least for me) that I don’t follow the attributes for the role that the game suggest as I look to get something more out of the role. So to achieve this I use individual focuses for either attributes or role training. If you take this approach then to take full advantage of the individual training you must set the team training to balanced on low and the match training schedule slider should be set to 20% or lower. This will ensure that the focus is all on the individual focuses you have selected.

And how do you set player focus intensity level?

Something I've always wondered - when you're developing young players which is the best youth side to play them in? If I've got a really good 16/17-year-old, would I be better moving them into the Under 21s/Reserves, or is it better to play them in the Under 18s first?

I've always kept them in the relevant age group, but I do wonder whether the higher age group youth team would give them better training and match experience?

The team and individual focus clash was something I've been wondering about for a while now. I was tempted to alternate between Attacking and Ball Control team training but now I know the danger it can create when I'm also trying to mould my players the way you've shown here.

At what point do you decide that a player isn't going to get to the point you're hoping he will?

The coach isn't always right, in fact I find my to rarely be right, I always ignore them. You're the manager still teach him it as your coach could be wrong

Another gem Cleon. I don't know how you find the time and thought process to get them out so regularly.

<rant>

Yeah what is with this? SI put in all these great little responses from the coaches/AM and in 99.9% of the time they are dead wrong. The code doesn't look like it has changed since first implementation cause you still get back the same stupid replies year after year. FM has gone ahead in leaps and bounds in some areas, yet in a number of other areas lag far far behind. This area could be such a good feature, but currently it is as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

<end rant>

Great stuff @Cleon, as always a great read thus far. I always set myself up a long-term plan, recruitment, style of play etc. Will look forward to reading more, may pick up some hints and tips for my Sparta Prague save.

thanks, I will ignore this warnings from coaches

how long will invest in learning a ppm one u17?

once one of your players has not learned ppm you assigned?

Even if the ppm fails the first time I'll still try teaching it him again. On FM15 I think I taught players around 600 PPM's so far and had about 6 fail.

And how do you set player focus intensity level?

High. It is explained in the training link I provided

Something I've always wondered - when you're developing young players which is the best youth side to play them in? If I've got a really good 16/17-year-old, would I be better moving them into the Under 21s/Reserves, or is it better to play them in the Under 18s first?

I've always kept them in the relevant age group, but I do wonder whether the higher age group youth team would give them better training and match experience?

I put them in the first team. Have a read of this to understand more http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/417573-Development-Match-Experience-And-Everything-In-Between

The team and individual focus clash was something I've been wondering about for a while now. I was tempted to alternate between Attacking and Ball Control team training but now I know the danger it can create when I'm also trying to mould my players the way you've shown here.

At what point do you decide that a player isn't going to get to the point you're hoping he will?

It still works its just you are asking the focus to be on two things at one time so it slows things down quite a bit. All players are different and it depends at what age you got them and try developing them from. For example a 15 year old should be showing signs of improvements and getting better by the time he's 16 or 17. Someone who is 18 might take until he's 21. If a player doesn't have the attributes I require around 20-22 though I'll more than likely sell them if I think they haven't improved much during the previous seasons. By the time someone is 20 I expect them to be a regular in the team already. It's just personal preference really as to when you decide what the cut off point should be.

Another gem Cleon. I don't know how you find the time and thought process to get them out so regularly.

<rant>

Yeah what is with this? SI put in all these great little responses from the coaches/AM and in 99.9% of the time they are dead wrong. The code doesn't look like it has changed since first implementation cause you still get back the same stupid replies year after year. FM has gone ahead in leaps and bounds in some areas, yet in a number of other areas lag far far behind. This area could be such a good feature, but currently it is as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

<end rant>

Totally agree here, I had this conversation with someone recently and we spoke about how half of the game has been brought into the modern era yet some of the more basic features are still stuck in the past and don't match how rest of the game works. I really wish that in the future all feedback from staff would be more reliable and they'd understand the basics of what you was trying to create or the way you played. Then their feedback would be more meaningful. Ideally we should have options to tell the coaches what we are doing and then they could give feedback based on this. I always believed training concepts would be a better way of doing things and then feedback should be easier to get off the staff as they'd understand exactly what you was attempting to do. Currently it's all a bit too generic.

I write all year long and this means I tend to have stuff half written and then throughout the year I just adapt pieces, so its not as fluent as it seems. Half of the stuff I've posted this year was actually written last year and then changed slightly to fit FM15

This is very interesting! For the most part I try to find players that already play a certain position instead of looking at any one who has the traits to play that position. Is it possible to move an outfield player to GK? That way you can take a player who maybe has a high starting ball control traits.

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One thing it doesn’t mention above though is if you train an individual focus and any type of general training that is not balanced then you are skewing the attribute focuses twice which detracts from the training and slows development down as the focuses you selected aren’t being focused on as much as they should. This is why you need to decide if you want to take a more generalist approach and use general training to put focus on attributes, if you choose this option then that will be for every single player in the squad. If you choose the individual option then this means you have more control and can work on targeting specific areas of a players development. If you use both at the same time (i.e fitness, tactics, ball control, defending or attacking) then neither method is working to the full potential and while you’ll still see improvements it will be slower and not as good as choosing one or the other.

Sorry for thread necro, but given it's the sticky it might be useful for other newcomers.

I see a lot of conflicting information regarding this on the various interwebs.  A lot of places seem to still speak up on focused development as opposed to general, but seeing this makes me think that unless I have huge squad level deficiencies in a particular subset I value, I should just keep it on general (I almost always have some sort of role specified for training).

I'm in FM 2016 so maybe things are different (I suspect not) but I was going with roughly 2/3 ball control and 1/3 tactics as I do value those particular fields, but if it means the neglect of all other attributes I am much more inclined to lean towards balanced and just having the individual training focus do its thing.

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When I mention tailored development I’m talking about moulding the player into the best player he can be for the job you expect him to do. This will often mean (at least for me) that I don’t follow the attributes for the role that the game suggest as I look to get something more out of the role. So to achieve this I use individual focuses for either attributes or role training. If you take this approach then to take full advantage of the individual training you must set the team training to balanced on low and the match training schedule slider should be set to 20% or lower. This will ensure that the focus is all on the individual focuses you have selected. If you change the general training from balanced, what you do is actually emphasize the attributes of whatever that category trains. You can find more about that here;

http://sisportscentre.com/training/

 

One thing it doesn’t mention above though is if you train an individual focus and any type of general training that is not balanced then you are skewing the attribute focuses twice which detracts from the training and slows development down as the focuses you selected aren’t being focused on as much as they should. This is why you need to decide if you want to take a more generalist approach and use general training to put focus on attributes, if you choose this option then that will be for every single player in the squad. If you choose the individual option then this means you have more control and can work on targeting specific areas of a players development. If you use both at the same time (i.e fitness, tactics, ball control, defending or attacking) then neither method is working to the full potential and while you’ll still see improvements it will be slower and not as good as choosing one or the other

Cleon doees this still applies in FM 17?

For the maximum time spent on player training then yes.

On 2/7/2015 at 12:07, Cleon said:

One thing it doesn’t mention above though is if you train an individual focus and any type of general training that is not balanced then you are skewing the attribute focuses twice which detracts from the training and slows development down as the focuses you selected aren’t being focused on as much as they should. This is why you need to decide if you want to take a more generalist approach and use general training to put focus on attributes, if you choose this option then that will be for every single player in the squad. If you choose the individual option then this means you have more control and can work on targeting specific areas of a players development. If you use both at the same time (i.e fitness, tactics, ball control, defending or attacking) then neither method is working to the full potential and while you’ll still see improvements it will be slower and not as good as choosing one or the other.

 

 

Weird. This goes against everything I've heard so far, from pretty much everywhere I've read and watched anything about training and how to set it up. Is this really the case? And if it is, why is it not common knowledge and people advise to set up general training, position/role training, and additional focus (why is it called additional focus then, and not "individual training"?)

42 minutes ago, Areolys said:

Weird. This goes against everything I've heard so far, from pretty much everywhere I've read and watched anything about training and how to set it up. Is this really the case? And if it is, why is it not common knowledge and people advise to set up general training, position/role training, and additional focus (why is it called additional focus then, and not "individual training"?)

Then you've been reading articles from people who have absolutely zero knowledge about training. And this is common knowledge, maybe you should broaden your reading horizons

When you select a general training category it puts added emphasis on the attributes that category trains. This means those attributes have more focus on them than any other attributes, thus giving that set of attributes greater importance in training. You still set up general training but if you are specialising in player development then you need greater focus on individual and should leave it balanced. Unless you want every single player in the squad regardless of their attributes all to have high focus on one specific set of attributes. Hence why general training is more generic as it focus the same set of attributes for all players irrespective of their starting value for those attributes and can waste CA.

1 hour ago, Cleon said:

Then you've been reading articles from people who have absolutely zero knowledge about training. And this is common knowledge, maybe you should broaden your reading horizons

When you select a general training category it puts added emphasis on the attributes that category trains. This means those attributes have more focus on them than any other attributes, thus giving that set of attributes greater importance in training. You still set up general training but if you are specialising in player development then you need greater focus on individual and should leave it balanced. Unless you want every single player in the squad regardless of their attributes all to have high focus on one specific set of attributes. Hence why general training is more generic as it focus the same set of attributes for all players irrespective of their starting value for those attributes and can waste CA.

 

 

 

Let's say I've got a player that's slow. What I would do is set general training to fitness (as all my players will profit from being faster and stronger) and add Quickness to his individual training.

What you are saying is in that case that Acc and Pace won't get any extra boost? So it would still be Acc = Pac = Wor = Agi >> Fir = Pas etc. and NOT Acc = Pac >> Wor = Agi >> Fir = Pas ?

What happens if you set general training to Fitness and then individually train let's say passing? Will passing just be ignored or will it be like Acc = Pac = Pas >> Fir = Dec ?

Sorry, I'm still new to the game and try to figure this all out. But I assumed that you should TOTALLY set a general training to whatever made most sense to your team as a whole on top of that add more specialized training for each player individually so to not waste CA on useless stats. After all, I'd much rather have more str acc and pac over tackling or crossing for my striker and if I increase the likelihood of those stats to rise that's good, right?

Edit: Also, I wouldn't call Rashidi absolutely clueless, but what do I know. 

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Edit: Also, I wouldn't call Rashidi absolutely clueless, but what do I know.

Rashidi is a very good friend of mine and I've read/watched all this stuff that he's done over the past 20+ years. He has never said different to anything I've posted like you suggest, I think you have misunderstood what has been said. I have never said general training and individual training can't be used together. I said its wasteful and you lose training time if you go anything other than balanced when trying to specialise in making the individual the best player he can be, which is 100000000000000% true. But that doesn't mean you have to stick with the optimal settings and can't stray beyond them. But it's important that the users knows the difference between the two so they can make their own mind up of whether they are bothered or want to create the best individual they can. Not every ones does but that doesn't change that what I've wrote is fact, not myth, not her'say, it's all accurate information.

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Let's say I've got a player that's slow. What I would do is set general training to fitness (as all my players will profit from being faster and stronger) and add Quickness to his individual training.

What about those who already have a decent or high quickness rating in the squad? Your wasting CA on them........

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What you are saying is in that case that Acc and Pace won't get any extra boost? So it would still be Acc = Pac = Wor = Agi >> Fir = Pas etc. and NOT Acc = Pac >> Wor = Agi >> Fir = Pas ?

You've already got a much greater emphasis on acceleration and pace due to selecting fitness, it's covered under this already. Selecting it again as the individual focus is wasteful as it can't stack again as its already being worked on and at a much greater rate than normal.

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What happens if you set general training to Fitness and then individually train let's say passing? Will passing just be ignored or will it be like Acc = Pac = Pas >> Fir = Dec ?

No it won't be ignored. Look at it like this (numbers aren't accurate but to give you a general idea) when you use general training and set it as balance all attributes have equal emphasis so have the same chance to improve across the board. When you select fitness for example this changes things and means that Acceleration, Agility,Balance, Jumping, Natural Fitness, Pace, Stamina, Strength, Workrate all have a greater chance of improving than the rest of the attributes due to being worked on much harder than any attributes. Even if you've added a role training or individual attribute focus, those attributes that come under the general fitness umbrella still have higher focus. So if you use fitness lets say the emphasis figure is 75%. That means the rest of the attributes have 75% less focus on them than normal so are only being trained at 25% of normal intensity. If you then add a role training to it and an individual attribute focus the values would be something like 75% fitness attributes, 5% individual attribute, 20% role training. But if you did it with a balanced general training option it would be more like 5% individual attribute focus, 95% role training as there is no emphasis on anything else.

That's why for tailoring individual players and making them the best they can be without wasting any CA its better to stay balanced. Anyone who says differently is wrong. But again that doesn't mean you can't use general/individual but when you use an option that changes the entire focus for every single person in the first team then it becomes more generic and can be wasteful for those players who already have high attributes for the focus you've selected as training high attributes is costly as it uses lots of CA.

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After all, I'd much rather have more str acc and pac over tackling or crossing for my striker and if I increase the likelihood of those stats to rise that's good, right?

But the entire squad is also neglecting those stats to get higher strength, acceleration and pace. So the reverse is happening and your defensive players in the side are spending less time learning their important attributes like tackling, marking, positioning etc because you've instructed the entire squad to do that. So no its not always a good thing no. If you are taking a more generalist approach then sure its fine but you are wasting training and CA if you aren't developing each individual to the best of their ability as individuals and not as a collective. The more CA you waste the more handicapped the players development becomes as you have less points to spend elsewhere on other attributes. This is why for those who want a player to be able to get close to him full potential try and mould that player into the best player they can for their side and work on attribute development that they think fits their approach. That's why individual specialisation is always better. I Understand not everyone likes to micromanage that much though.

Also general training options take around 3 months to have any kind of impact as its very much a long-term approach not a short one. So if you change the focus before 3 months then you've basically wasted the training time you've just been doing for the past few months. Ideally you want 6 months +.

That's a brilliantly clear explanation Cleon, I'm sure many posters will appreciate it.

I myself have been utilising your advice to the full in this FM17 save, and I'm reaping the results.  What I'd say in defence of the OP though is that the game gives absolutely no indication that your method is the optimum one. The information that the game gives me is that the general training workload is low, but there's no hint that individual training is getting more attention. Indeed my more professional players complain that their training load is too light, so they seem unaware of more intensive individual training. Therefore, your advice is quite counter-intuitive and it's understandable when posters come across as sceptical!

I have a couple of questions about the youngest squad members such as the academy intake. If they all come to you as slow weaklings, is there a case for putting the youth squad on a general fitness regime for 6 months or the first year to boost their physical attributes before embarking on specialist training?

And how about player traits? Given that training this takes a lot away from individual training, for young players is it better to postpone any trait (PPM) training until they are older, or would you start to train those early?

57 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

That's a brilliantly clear explanation Cleon, I'm sure many posters will appreciate it.

I myself have been utilising your advice to the full in this FM17 save, and I'm reaping the results.  What I'd say in defence of the OP though is that the game gives absolutely no indication that your method is the optimum one. The information that the game gives me is that the general training workload is low, but there's no hint that individual training is getting more attention. Indeed my more professional players complain that their training load is too light, so they seem unaware of more intensive individual training. Therefore, your advice is quite counter-intuitive and it's understandable when posters come across as sceptical!

I have a couple of questions about the youngest squad members such as the academy intake. If they all come to you as slow weaklings, is there a case for putting the youth squad on a general fitness regime for 6 months or the first year to boost their physical attributes before embarking on specialist training?

And how about player traits? Given that training this takes a lot away from individual training, for young players is it better to postpone any trait (PPM) training until they are older, or would you start to train those early?

Putting young players on general fitness can work but it also increases the likelihood of fitness training related injuries. Myself I like to focus on the players attributes individually and use individual focus rotations of 2-3 months and rotate it with other low ones that I think need raising. But you could use general fitness if you wanted.

As for player traits they don't take away from training but rather add to it. PPM's, Role training etc all make up the players workload. Personally (I know Rashidi is in favor of this too) I like to work on traits as soon as possible to get the real benefits from them. Plus it takes a while to learn them and sometimes you might have to attempt to learn a specific trait a couple of times before it sticks. So earlier the better imo

Right, will do then.  I can say that following your system, injuries have dropped remarkably. People who whinge about the unrealistic high amount of injuries need to take note. But again, SI ought to make it clearer in the game.

Thank you @Cleon for your explanation. It's starting to make sense to me now.

Yes, I misunderstood a few things and did not know other things well enough.

So to get the best results with the maximum effect I'd leave general training on balanced and only use the additional training on the one stat I want to train and put this on rotation for 2-3 months.

What about intensity? Since there is only general intensity left should I set it to very low so he focuses more on his individual training or would that mean he's just training less often/hard?

Finally, there's position and role training. Cougar mentioned in another topic that there is a hidden value of 1-20 based on the role. I assume it's like a multiplier on the stats of a player if he's playing in a role and position he's natural/good at, so we would want to make sure that it's preferably maxed out, right? But does this also train the abilites that come with the role or not? But it would only be affected when there's no additional focused training set. Right? Should I then set it to the position & role the player is most likely to be in or should I leave it to default if he's already fully trained in his position?

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that to me. Feel free to point me to places where this is explained if you don't feel like repeating yourself. 

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So to get the best results with the maximum effect I'd leave general training on balanced and only use the additional training on the one stat I want to train and put this on rotation for 2-3 months.

Target the attributes that are low via individual attribute training yeah. What I do for example is rotate speed/stamina and maybe one other like tackling and give each 2 months at a time before switching. The best way of keeping track of time someone has been on a focus is to use the note options inside the game as you can set reminders for weekly, monthly, 2 months etc. Then you get a news item in your inbox informing you that its time to change it.

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What about intensity? Since there is only general intensity left should I set it to very low so he focuses more on his individual training or would that mean he's just training less often/hard?

Have it either on 10% or 20% for best results.

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Finally, there's position and role training. Cougar mentioned in another topic that there is a hidden value of 1-20 based on the role. I assume it's like a multiplier on the stats of a player if he's playing in a role and position he's natural/good at, so we would want to make sure that it's preferably maxed out, right?

Position is rated on 1-20 and that's what the descriptions determine. So someone accomplished would be 14-17 and someone natural would be 18-20 for example. You don't need to max out someones position because at the end of the day its attributes that matter, if someone has good attributes for the role he'll be fine whether he is unfamiliar or natural for the position.

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But does this also train the abilites that come with the role or not?

When you train someone in a role it trains attributes linked to that role. You can view which in game by highlighting the role and it highlights the attributes for you.

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But it would only be affected when there's no additional focused training set. Right?

You can train both at the same time and both are worked upon. It will add extra workload though so unprofessional players will likely moan about the extra work they'd be doing.

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Should I then set it to the position & role the player is most likely to be in or should I leave it to default if he's already fully trained in his position?

Choose the role that works on the attributes you want the player to work on. That doesn't have to match the role you've given then in the tactic you use. For example my defensive midfielder plays as a defensive midfielder but I train him as a Regista as I want him to be more creative long term and want him to be a more creative (naturally without changing his role) long-term.

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Thanks for taking the time to explain all that to me. Feel free to point me to places where this is explained if you don't feel like repeating yourself

There's always my blog, link is in my bio/profile as that has training covered in depth and tactics

3 minutes ago, Cleon said:

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What about intensity? Since there is only general intensity left should I set it to very low so he focuses more on his individual training or would that mean he's just training less often/hard?

Have it either on 10% or 20% for best results.

 

I'm talking about general training - training intensity. I can only set it to very low, low, average, high, very high.

will have a read trough your blog then :-)

16 minutes ago, Areolys said:

I'm talking about general training - training intensity. I can only set it to very low, low, average, high, very high.

will have a read trough your blog then :-)

Sorry I was on about general/match training split. Intensity leave average and it shouldn't cause too many issues.

Just now, Cleon said:

Sorry I was on about general/match training split. Intensity leave average and it shouldn't cause too many issues.

Earlier you recommended Balanced on LOW intensity. So AVERAGE is fine?

Also, for weeks where there are no matches, the assman suggests increasing general training intensity. I suppose for one week it makes no difference.

Just now, phnompenhandy said:

Earlier you recommended Balanced on LOW intensity. So AVERAGE is fine?

 

Also, for weeks where there are no matches, the assman suggests increasing general training intensity. I suppose for one week it makes no difference.

Average should be fine yeah. I organise friendlies when I have a week with no games to keep match fitness up, I normally schedule a game against my reserves and then everyone can play as my reserves will line up with all my fringe players so I can play everyone in one game.

Average, got it - cheers.

6 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Average, got it - cheers.

You might like my next series about training and tactics as I'm doing it with Sheffield FC so lower league

Just now, Cleon said:

You might like my next series about training and tactics as I'm doing it with Sheffield FC so lower league

Oh yes! I've been meaning to ask you about specific issues with part-time training, but I won't need to now. When will it be ready?

7 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Oh yes! I've been meaning to ask you about specific issues with part-time training, but I won't need to now. When will it be ready?

Not sure yet I only started a few hours ago. But it shouldn't be too long if I get to play the game this weekend

Okay, take your time, I'll still be part-time when you're ready!

Hi,

I play on FMTouch where is no tutoring possible. Now I've got a good youth intake with some talented players, but one of them with low determination. What can I do to develop him when there is no tutoring possible? 

57 minutes ago, sgevolker said:

Hi,

I play on FMTouch where is no tutoring possible. Now I've got a good youth intake with some talented players, but one of them with low determination. What can I do to develop him when there is no tutoring possible? 

I'm not terribly familiar with touch but maybe it had the feature where your club personality rubs off on new and young players. if so, then that may help a bit.

Otherwise, to improve determination I think certain role training will work on it. you just have to find the right ones

how long does a young player need to be played in a match for the game to consider he's getting enough playing time?

6 hours ago, charisma_charisma said:

how long does a young player need to be played in a match for the game to consider he's getting enough playing time?

It used to be 15 minutes, but I don't think it's as black & white as that now. Basically, the more the merrier; however, as a very rough rule of thumb, I have observed that 180-270 mins of game time results in an increase in CA of one point. 

14 hours ago, charisma_charisma said:

how long does a young player need to be played in a match for the game to consider he's getting enough playing time?

enough to get a match rating so 15 minutes at least 

If not setting any role training still effectively does role training (I.e., trains certain attributes relative to the natural position) then is there any reason not to set role training even if your main plan is to focus on individual attribute training?

cleon, you seem to choose either role training or individual attributes, which seems to suggest you see greater benefits on the individual attribute training by not also selecting role training. 

so I am wondering which is the case

3 hours ago, ozilthegunner said:

If not setting any role training still effectively does role training (I.e., trains certain attributes relative to the natural position) then is there any reason not to set role training even if your main plan is to focus on individual attribute training?

cleon, you seem to choose either role training or individual attributes, which seems to suggest you see greater benefits on the individual attribute training by not also selecting role training. 

so I am wondering which is the case

Huh? I always give player role training and in cases where it's needed give them individual attribute training as well. It's not one or the other its both.

6 minutes ago, Cleon said:

Huh? I always give player role training and in cases where it's needed give them individual attribute training as well. It's not one or the other its both.

I'm confused by his question too, but I think his line of thinking goes like this:

If you set specific role training and individual focus, the individual training is split 50/50.

If you set just generic role training and individual focus, more than 50% will be directed towards the latter, hence the player's attribute that you're focusing on will rise faster. 

The alternative is presumably that the player's individual training is simply lighter than it should be.

Can you clarify and confirm?

It's not worth worrying about the split for role/attribute training as individual attribute training is only a small short term boost anyway so long-term it doesn't make the slightest difference to anything. 

So if you select say a role which automatically trains an attribute there is no point is selecting the same attribute for individual training as well ? 

1 hour ago, Fritz13 said:

So if you select say a role which automatically trains an attribute there is no point is selecting the same attribute for individual training as well ? 

There is a point yeah because that attribute will have a higher focus than normal. If not then what would the point of individual attribute training be?

So if I choose to train a player in a BBM role, this training program already trains stamina. But I could then set him to train the stamina attribute in individual attribute training and this would not be time wasting ?

Is there a difference between strongly highlighted attributes and ones that are highlighted with a light background?  Strongly highlighted attributes are more important for the role and are given more training time so it makes less sense to train them individually too, as opposed to attributes that are highlighted with a light background?

1 minute ago, charisma_charisma said:

So if I choose to train a player in a BBM role, this training program already trains stamina. But I could then set him to train the stamina attribute in individual attribute training and this would not be time wasting ?

Correct.

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Is there a difference between strongly highlighted attributes and ones that are highlighted with a light background?  Strongly highlighted attributes are more important for the role and are given more training time so it makes less sense to train them individually too, as opposed to attributes that are highlighted with a light background?

The difference is only visual so people know what attributes are classed as important by the games recommendation. When it comes to actual training all attributes get equal focus whether they are primary or secondary attributes when training a role, the game isn't coded to give different amounts of training to different attributes contained in a a role schedule.