Player development and quality for higher leagues

So I am playing a LLM save but have already made it to the top division only to be relegated back to the second after one season. This was right after flying through the second division and winning it in the first season.

Part of my issue is that I have a very young team (which I like) but since I moved to the first so quickly they didn't develop as much as I'd hoped before getting to the first division.

But also, I am not sure how many of them are really first division quality. As I examine the coach/scout reports, a good number had the potential to be 'quality second division' players but not necessarily first division.

But now I am wondering - in developing players, how much stock should we put into that part of the coach/scout report? Is it based largely off the star ratings, which themselves are suspect? Or is it a comparison to players in the relevant divisions?

I am just trying to figure out how best to go about developing players (and picking the players to develop) so that they will be capable of playing in the highest division. My aim is to have a significant number of homegrown internally developed players stick with me for a long while and into European success!

Easiest thing to do after going up the ladder is upgrade facilities and get better coaches. Next thing you can is check the personalities of your youth players, you want personalities with high professionalism. Tutor the ones with bad personalities. Check the link people to find more about personalities.

The stars are relative to your team strength and how good are the coaches/scouts at judging the players, obviously you want staff with high Judging Player Ability and Potential, the higher the more accurate.

And lastly game time, the most important aspect, give them game time.

For more details about youth developement check out Cleons blog: http://sisportscentre.com/category/ajax-when-real-life-meets-football-manager-fm14/

Thanks for that, but I should have been a bit more specific.

I understand how player development works.

My question is about selecting which players to develop. I have plenty of youth come in each year, and of course not all of them are worth my time. If I want to make it to the first division - and so I want to focus on developing players who can play there in the end - then I need some way of figuring out who those players are.

The most direct route is the scout/coach report - where you will often be told 'has the potential to be a good/leading, etc. first division player'. But my question is twofold: What is that determination based on (attributes compared to current first division players; star rating compared to first division players, etc.) and therefore how accurate is it?

Second part: Do people who focus on developing players put much credence in that part of the coach report? Or do they attempt to find players who can serve a particular purpose - have high attributes in a few key places to do a specific job - and try to slot them in that way.

I think it's best to put your money on the scouting report that says xxx player a good xxxx level quality player, rather than looking at star ratings or whatever. For example, if I have a decent scout and his report says a player is a good premier league striker, I proceeded on the assumption that he's a good premier league striker, even if his star ratings are 2-3-4 etc. The star ratings are so relative to your other players and squad strength and even player performance. For example, I had a striker who was 2 stars even though the scouting report said he was a good premier league striker. I was on the verge of selling him because he was only 2 stars, which seemed pretty mediocre, but then he had a good run of form and without any change in attributes, his star rating went up to 4 stars based on good play alone. All the while, the scouting report told me he was a good premier league striker, whether he was 2-stars or 4-stars.

So to answer the question as I understand it, is I prefer to go by the scouting report that says he has the potential to be an xxxxx level player, to determine if he's a good xxx level player, rather than looking at stars and trying to tell what level he really is. Not saying the scouting report is foolproof 100% correct, but I'd take a 2-star player who is said to be a good premier league player rather than a 3-star player who is said to be a leading championship player. Hope that makes sense.

When selecting the youth players to keep you should have in mind:

1. The players potential

Easiest thing to check. Have good scouts, check the report as long as he is rated to good for your current league keep him there.

2. Personality and Media Handling

These are important because they help you determine a players hidden attributes, they wont help you get the exact value but rather a range. For player developement Professionalism is really important, the higher the value the harder the player will train and and the faster they will grow and reach their potential.

As an example a player with a Resolute personality will always have at least 15 Professionalism. Other really good personalities are: Model Citizen (ultra rare), Perfectionist, Model Professional, Professional and Fairly Professional.

In terms of Media Handling you want to be on the lookout for Evasive and Reserved they also guarantee at least 15 Professionalism, but they might be in combination with personalities that arent as balanced as those I mentioned earlier.

Keep players with good Professionalism tutor players with high potential but bad personalities.

More about tutoring here: http://sisportscentre.com/player-personality-tutoring/

More about player personalities: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/307808-The-Ultimate-Personality-Media-Handling-Guide

3. Attribute distribution

This happens mostly with regens. You will have a central midfielder with 3 Stamina. It would take really long to build a decent value and it would take a lot of his potential that could have have gone into other attributes. You want to keep the players that a good attribute distribution relevant to their position. In terms of tehnical and mental attributes, retraining to another position could be a good option.