Ajax – When The Real World Meets Football Manager FM14

[tomtuck01]

You have a website?

[Cleon]

You have a website?

The links in my location, we are having a few speed issues atm though but they'll be sorted in the next 24/48 hours

I'll hopefully have something to update this thread with in the coming week

[tomtuck01]

The links in my location, we are having a few speed issues atm though but they'll be sorted in the next 24/48 hours

All this time and I never even noticed.

[Siven]

Didnt know about that coach qualifications either

On a similar note, does anyone know what levels of facilities there are?

Example as Liverpool my facilities after upgrading are:

Top Training

Good Youth

Excellent junior coaching

Well Established youth recruitment

I think i remember state of the art is the best followed by top, but where do good,excellent and well established line up ?

[Madminister]

Quick question regarding giving game time to youngsters.

In my, well-documented (I dare say:D), Stuttgart saver I have a bunch of youngsters I want to give some game time. I'm toying with setting it up so my substitutes are made up of these youth players. Only problem is that won't give me a lot of tactical options later in the game. SO, I'm not entirely certain about the wisdom of that idea.

How do you mix it up?

[RTHerringbone]

Quick question regarding giving game time to youngsters.

In my, well-documented (I dare say:D), Stuttgart saver I have a bunch of youngsters I want to give some game time. I'm toying with setting it up so my substitutes are made up of these youth players. Only problem is that won't give me a lot of tactical options later in the game. SO, I'm not entirely certain about the wisdom of that idea.

How do you mix it up?

My view is that it depends on how ready the players are; if they have high PA and CA of 1*+, they're ready in my eyes.

Tactics shouldn't be an issue as you will probably find that you need to do almost nothing once your tactics bed in. As long as your youngsters are suited to roles in your tactics, they will be absolutely fine.

Anything less than 1*CA, and I send them on loan once they have home grown status, but only to clubs where they are guaranteed to be a vital part of the first team.

If there are players who have less than 1* CA, but who have very high (4*+) PA, I'll keep them at the club to get their home grown status ASAP, and in case I have an injury crisis. You then obviously have control over their training, tutoring and PPM development, whereas you don't if they're out on loan.

Hasn't snowed hard yet enough for me not to go to work. Grrrrrrr.

Come on trains! You usually feck up at the first sign of a bit of cold.

[Cleon]

Quick question regarding giving game time to youngsters.

In my, well-documented (I dare say:D), Stuttgart saver I have a bunch of youngsters I want to give some game time. I'm toying with setting it up so my substitutes are made up of these youth players. Only problem is that won't give me a lot of tactical options later in the game. SO, I'm not entirely certain about the wisdom of that idea.

How do you mix it up?

I just play them even if they have poor attributes. If you look at the screenshots posted in the thread you'll see how many games Kishna played and his attributes were rubbish. The key for is choosing when to play them, you wouldn't exactly play them in the big games unless you was forced to. But you might bring them on with half left in those games if things are going good.

[Madminister]

I sent two of them on the pitch after going 3-0 up against SLASK in the Euro League last night. I sent them on with 60 minutes to go and they did ok. I think I'll follow a similar strategy against mid/lower strength teams.

[mhwk]

This is Branco van den Boomen at the start of season 4 in my game.

[Mighty Red]

is this youth development approach something that can be done in FMC? I'm interested in doing something similar, but just don't have the time anymore to invest to get more than 5 years or so into the future on 'full-fat' FM...

[Cleon]

is this youth development approach something that can be done in FMC? I'm interested in doing something similar, but just don't have the time anymore to invest to get more than 5 years or so into the future on 'full-fat' FM...

Not really no.

[Mighty Red]

*sigh* - 2 kids and a job can really suck sometimes Anyway, KUTGW Cleon - always enjoy reading your threads, they help immensely!

[jimbobBRFC]

Re-training

When I first took over a Ajax there is a future transfer set for this guy;

Now for his age he isn't as developed as I would have linked so knew I'd have to set about developing him straight away as I don't have much time to shape him compared to younger players.

Firstly I had to identify what position he'd be playing for me which was easy in the end. But initially he lacks the physical attributes and technical ones to play as a winger or inside forward on either side. So I had to look and see what he was good at and immediately I noticed his tackling which is his stand out attribute along with passing. He also has pretty good dribbling so that should be able to improved to a higher attribute as well.

So I decided he could be my new wing back for the left side. So I started to learn him this position straight away. While he is learning it, its more beneficial if you actually play him there too as he'll tend to learn it a lot faster.

As for his attribute training I did;

• Stamina 2 month
  
  
• Dribbling 2 months
  
  
• Quickness 2 months
  

Then the rest of the time he's been out onto positioning training which currently is almost 3 months. I'm going to keeping him on this a little longer because an attribute of 9 is poor for any kind of defensive player.

Just spotted this Didn't see it last time I flicked through the thread. Exactly what Im trying to do so Im interested to see how this develops

[Pafeu]

My question might be slight off topic but, Cleon, how can you manage to sell your developed players for such a high fees? Denswil for example, sold to Chelsea for 27(?) mln pounds. I started some time ago Feyenoord save and I'm trying to promote young chaps as Feyenoord also have very good facilities for player development. Now I'm about to start my fourth season, few players are at their peak in very young age and are performing extremely well, in European competitions and Eredivisie but matter is there is no interest in them at all. De Vrij turned to be extremely good BPD, he has learned few useful for this role PPM's, improving in every season and no interest. Actually in my first team only one player attracted other club, he's 18 year old GK but it's just interest in loaning him. Normally I would be happy that my best players are about to stay at the club but younger chaps are waiting for their chance.

Maybe is it because of non-loaded English leagues and English clubs are not that active in transfer market?

[Cleon]

My question might be slight off topic but, Cleon, how can you manage to sell your developed players for such a high fees? Denswil for example, sold to Chelsea for 27(?) mln pounds. I started some time ago Feyenoord save and I'm trying to promote young chaps as Feyenoord also have very good facilities for player development. Now I'm about to start my fourth season, few players are at their peak in very young age and are performing extremely well, in European competitions and Eredivisie but matter is there is no interest in them at all. De Vrij turned to be extremely good BPD, he has learned few useful for this role PPM's, improving in every season and no interest. Actually in my first team only one player attracted other club, he's 18 year old GK but it's just interest in loaning him. Normally I would be happy that my best players are about to stay at the club but younger chaps are waiting for their chance.

Maybe is it because of non-loaded English leagues and English clubs are not that active in transfer market?

I have a lot of leagues loaded especially the ones who have teams who would actually buy my players i.e England/Italy/Spain etc.

I've got interest in just about everyone of my first team and have for a while now. Chelsea bid £27 million and I changed the offer to £36 million and 20% because I didn't need to see Denswil but I'd sell anyone for silly money. And they came back with the offer I asked for.

So far I've rejected £19 million for Kishna from Dortmund, £23 million for Fuller the newgen from Real/Manu/City and I've rejected £18 million for the regen striker I posted.

[Draigh]

Quality threat, Cleon, keep it up!

Anyways, I though I'd pop in with a question of my own: I've just brought in a cheap Algerian youngster because he was a model professional. My scouts and coaches don't think he'll become good enough for me (playing as Tottenham) but I'm interested in seeing if his professionalism will allow him to perform on a higher level than his ability would suggest. Anyway, one thing that concerns me is his lowish determination, so I was thinking of getting Scotty Parker (who has a determined personality with Determination 18) to tutor him so it would improve, hopefully picking up his PPM's in the process. The only concern I have is that I know determination can decrease with tutoring, but how about the hidden attributes? Would he lose his professionalism, which was the reason I bought him in the first place?

[mikcheck]

Cleon i have a young striker with only 17 years and with lots of potential. Physically he is very good and i would like to concentrate his training in other areas and i do not want to waste part of his PA to raise his physique because there are more important areas to develop. So i dont know how i should set up the strength and aerobic training bars in a way that he can keep those attributes, maybe the lowest medium? Thank you

[Cleon]

Cleon i have a young striker with only 17 years and with lots of potential. Physically he is very good and i would like to concentrate his training in other areas and i do not want to waste part of his PA to raise his physique because there are more important areas to develop. So i dont know how i should set up the strength and aerobic training bars in a way that he can keep those attributes, maybe the lowest medium? Thank you

You're using FM12? Because you mention strength and aerobic bars....they don't exist in FM13.

[mikcheck]

Yes i am! Sorry i should have mentioned that

[Cleon]

Quality threat, Cleon, keep it up!

Anyways, I though I'd pop in with a question of my own: I've just brought in a cheap Algerian youngster because he was a model professional. My scouts and coaches don't think he'll become good enough for me (playing as Tottenham) but I'm interested in seeing if his professionalism will allow him to perform on a higher level than his ability would suggest. Anyway, one thing that concerns me is his lowish determination, so I was thinking of getting Scotty Parker (who has a determined personality with Determination 18) to tutor him so it would improve, hopefully picking up his PPM's in the process. The only concern I have is that I know determination can decrease with tutoring, but how about the hidden attributes? Would he lose his professionalism, which was the reason I bought him in the first place?

It depends if you think the trade off is worth it for you. Have a look at the personality part of the thread I did and you'll see all of them and then try and fit Parkers into that and see what its made up of and then decide

[Cleon]

Yes i am! Sorry i should have mentioned that

Look through my FM12 guide I did, that should help you;

Youth Development - The Guide

[mikcheck]

Thanks a lot!

[Coleman]

Great thread, Cleon. I didn't know you could use the filters to search for PPMs, but now that I do, I'll be tutor shopping. Question: Does a coaches mental coaching ability have a great effect on youngsters? It seems it should, but I haven't seen any mention of the effect.

[sebaz]

Cleon, do you look at the same stats for First Team Coaches as for Youth Coaches? How do you shape your coaching team in general?

Brilliant thread by the way.

[iArsenal]

I got a question for you, when you set your players on individual trainings do you have them on heavy workloads? Most of my players are becoming unhappy with their training workload and I wonder how this will affect them in the future.

[Cleon]

Great thread, Cleon. I didn't know you could use the filters to search for PPMs, but now that I do, I'll be tutor shopping. Question: Does a coaches mental coaching ability have a great effect on youngsters? It seems it should, but I haven't seen any mention of the effect.

Determination, Level of discipline and motivation are more important.

[Cleon]

Cleon, do you look at the same stats for First Team Coaches as for Youth Coaches? How do you shape your coaching team in general?

Brilliant thread by the way.

Yeah I do but you also have to make sure your youth coaches have a high working with youngsters attribute though.

[Cleon]

I got a question for you, when you set your players on individual trainings do you have them on heavy workloads? Most of my players are becoming unhappy with their training workload and I wonder how this will affect them in the future.

If you've read the thread where I've posted about any player I'm developing then you'd know the answer to this. In fact I must have mentioned and spoke about this atleast 10 times on this page...

As I focus on pure player development for me match training isn't important. So for me its set on 10% throughout the season once tactic familiarity levels are all fluid. Now due to me trying to develop the player best I can everyone at the club is either learning a specific attribute or a specific role. This means that the general training is set to a low intensity alowing me to focus just on development with an heavy individual focus. If I wanted a more generic player instead of a specific bunch of players then I'd set general training to a high intensity and no individual training. This would mean development is spread evenly across all aspects rather than you shaping them into specific players.

So in short if you use specific attribute or role training then the intensity should be low to allow individual heavy focus on those workloads. For none specific role or attribute training you'd have a higher general training intensity.

I tried to use that same setup (10 % match prep, low training intensity and high individual focus), but many of my players complained that they didn't have enough to do. I therefor set training to average and individual focus on heavy (resulting in an overall intensity of heavy). Now most of my players are "content", "pleased" or "happy" with their training schedules. What are the pros and cons of that?

They complain they aren't doing enough if they are a professional bunch, you'll find out its the more pro personality types that complain about the little workload. If majority of your players are complaining then you can do as you did and change it to average. But if its just the odd player then I'd stick to your guns.

But for the number of games I play its important I stick to a plan so even if they complain I still leave it like described above because I don't want them to have an heavy work load even though they can handle it. Development without the increased risk of injuries and tiredness is far more important for me.

I could go on but you get the idea.....

[Vokes]

On a similar note, does anyone know what levels of facilities there are?

Example as Liverpool my facilities after upgrading are:

Top Training

Good Youth

Excellent junior coaching

Well Established youth recruitment

I think i remember state of the art is the best followed by top, but where do good,excellent and well established line up ?

With respect to Youth Recruitment Network, I think it goes something like Extensive, Well Established, Established, Above Average, Average... Presumably you can improve it as the club's reputation improves?

Great discussion here btw. I'm gonna give this youth approach a go. Atalanta (with their established youth recruitment network) would be an interesting youth project I think.

[Cleon]

With respect to Youth Recruitment Network, I think it goes something like Extensive, Well Established, Established, Above Average, Average... Presumably you can improve it as the club's reputation improves?

Great discussion here btw. I'm gonna give this youth approach a go. Atalanta (with their established youth recruitment network) would be an interesting youth project I think.

I nearly started a game as Atalanta myself when I was looking for a team who would suit a strikerless formation.

[Hazza22299]

I've been using your training methods to great effect, especially bringing in older players to tutor. I currently have Hilario tutoring this guy and have seen personality's change from 'Balanced' to 'Professional' thanks a lot Cleon!

[willyfantastic]

how do you get your screen to not show player pics without it having a large space for it? really like that look but dont know if its a settings change or a skin

[Cleon]

I've been using your training methods to great effect, especially bringing in older players to tutor. I currently have Hilario tutoring this guy and have seen personality's change from 'Balanced' to 'Professional' thanks a lot Cleon!

Np's

how do you get your screen to not show player pics without it having a large space for it? really like that look but dont know if its a settings change or a skin

On my screenshots?

I have player pics turned off in the options and use Steklo skin. I've never used the default skin so unsure if its a skin thing or not.

[skam]

Cleon how does your career develop? When are the updates coming? ;-)

[Cleon]

Cleon how does your career develop? When are the updates coming? ;-)

When I get the time I'll put something up, its not easy playing and writing in such detail. It takes up a lot of time and takes away from time with my family. It's not easy when you have a 9 month old daughter to look after. She takes priority and makes it hard to fully commit to a time schedule. Hopefully they'll be something soon though. People wanted to see a big update rather than several small ones, hence why its taking even longer.

[tomtuck01]

Finished my first season with Ajax yesterday night. Will post some screenshots later on of a few players. Had some great development from Queency Menig and Fabian Sporkslede.

[skam]

, its not easy playing and writing in such detail. It takes up a lot of time and takes away from time with my family

Of course it's not, of course it takes time and I'm not hurrying you up or anything. I wouldn't dare. I just wanted to know, like.... you know, how is it going and such.

[Vokes]

I nearly started a game as Atalanta myself when I was looking for a team who would suit a strikerless formation.

I'm gonna try a sweeper based approach myself - will be very interesting to see if I can produce one or two Beckenbauer types in a few years time. And Atlanta have one hell of a HYD already in place, Favini, he's got super attributes. They also have a bout 40+ players in their u20s - so I'm gonna ditch everyone under 3 star potential rating, which is a lot atm.

[Cleon]

I'm gonna try a sweeper based approach myself - will be very interesting to see if I can produce one or two Beckenbauer types in a few years time. And Atlanta have one hell of a HYD already in place, Favini, he's got super attributes. They also have a bout 40+ players in their u20s - so I'm gonna ditch everyone under 3 star potential rating, which is a lot atm.

Favini the 77 year old?

I was actually going to create a libero strikerless formation. I still intend to when I get the time, I've tried it and tested it quite a bit and it worked well. I just need to sit down and play it properly though so I might go Atalanta for that.

[skam]

One quick question - sorry if it's lame, but it's been bothering me: how to find and hire a U19 Manager? Because every time I search for anybody with such role (using search for a personel option) i can't manage to find any. Well, in fact I did find 1 person for this role, which was when I tried to sign in Alou Diarra on a free transfer (he wouldn't sign contract with mz team unless being offered U19 manager contract as well) but apart from this, I can't find anybody, who either has this kind of abilities or is willing to become a U19 Manager. Why? How?

[Cleon]

One quick question - sorry if it's lame, but it's been bothering me: how to find and hire a U19 Manager? Because every time I search for anybody with such role (using search for a personel option) i can't manage to find any. Well, in fact I did find 1 person for this role, which was when I tried to sign in Alou Diarra on a free transfer (he wouldn't sign contract with mz team unless being offered U19 manager contract as well) but apart from this, I can't find anybody, who either has this kind of abilities or is willing to become a U19 Manager. Why? How?

I just searched like you did but I also searched coaches too because some of those would be suitable.

[tomtuck01]

As promised earlier here are screenshots of Fabian Sporkelede and Queency Menig;

Fabian Sporkslede has improved very nicely due to his exposure to first team football aswell as his traning and the tutoring he has recieved. Now I'm not professing to be as good as Cleon at developing players, (looking at his screenies of Denswil and Tete compard to how they look in my save I'm miles away), but I feel I've done a decent job with Sporkslede.

Very pleased with how I've managed to improve Menig. He may not have a great average rating, (6.84), but the fifteen apperances he made for the first team have really aided his development.

[Cleon]

Some great progression there Tom. You've actually develop Menig a lot better than I got him on my save

What have you done with Meleg Tom? Did you keep him as an attacker or re-trained him to something else?

[tomtuck01]

Some great progression there Tom. You've actually develop Menig a lot better than I got him on my save

What have you done with Meleg Tom? Did you keep him as an attacker or re-trained him to something else?

Thanks alot.

With Menig I've used him mainly at AMR, (he starts as a ST/AMR, or atleast he did on my save!), as I didn't want to put too much pressure on him by chucking him upfront straight away. Next term I'll be happier to do that. I'm also going to retrain him to be an AML, (hes already "competent" there), as I think he could be useful cutting inside onto his right foot.

[Cleon]

Thanks alot.

With Menig I've used him mainly at AMR, (he starts as a ST/AMR, or atleast he did on my save!), as I didn't want to put too much pressure on him by chucking him upfront straight away. Next term I'll be happier to do that. I'm also going to retrain him to be an AML, (hes already "competent" there), as I think he could be useful cutting inside onto his right foot.

Meleg you numpty, he is a future transfer when you first take over Ajax. He comes in January iirc . He's the Serbian AML/AMR.

Nice idea with Menig btw and have him cutting inside off the left with his right foot

[Siven]

I dont think ive seen this mentioned so far.....during pre season, do you focus just on fitness training or do you have individual training set also?

Also do you give players who have been in international action (World cup/Euros etc) more of a pre season rest?

[tomtuck01]

Meleg you numpty, he is a future transfer when you first take over Ajax. He comes in January iirc . He's the Serbian AML/AMR.

Nice idea with Menig btw and have him cutting inside off the left with his right foot

Oh sorry, I saw the "Me" and just thought you were talking about Menig. Reckon I need to read mre carefully.

I'm trying to turn Meleg into a CM - DLP, as someone suggested earlier in the thread. He's still not listed as a CM, but he is now recognised as being "competent" in the role. I did give him a few games in the role aswell and he did fairly well there, averaging 6.97 from six starts.

[Cleon]

I dont think ive seen this mentioned so far.....during pre season, do you focus just on fitness training or do you have individual training set also?

Pre-season is high fitness until all are fit which takes about 2 season friendlies. Then it's heavy tactics with teamwork as a focus until the tactics are all fluid and the team has blended.

[Cleon]

Oh sorry, I saw the "Me" and just thought you were talking about Menig. Reckon I need to read mre carefully.

I'm trying to turn Meleg into a CM - DLP, as someone suggested earlier in the thread. He's still not listed as a CM, but he is now recognised as being "competent" in the role. I did give him a few games in the role aswell and he did fairly well there, averaging 6.97 from six starts.

He'll make a great DLP, he developed really well for me but it did seem slow at first. But come 4th season he was a first team starter for me and made the position his own.

[tomtuck01]

He'll make a great DLP, he developed really well for me but it did seem slow at first. But come 4th season he was a first team starter for me and made the position his own.

That was as a fullback was it not? I thought about following your lead, but wanted to see how I could manage going the other way with him.