Why is this CAM player not developing?

[tacticsdude]

I’m trying to understand why this guy hasn’t developed in an entire year.

Bought him last year as a 19y/o during the summer transfer at around 108 CA. Now he sits at 111 CA after 1 year playing first team in the Serie A. His PA is 127 (see screenshot).

My training facilities are 18/20 and my coaches are all 4*. I can’t assign him a tutor (I play a young team).

He’s had a great season. He started 24 games with an average rating of 6.89. His playing style fits my tactics like a glove (hence the rating), but due to his limited skills he only scored 1 goal and provided 4 assists in those 24 games. Now I'm in the summer window again and I'm bringing in a very similar young player that will likely displace him if he doesn't get better soon.

I like him and want him on the team, and I think because of the way he plays for me, if he realizes is 127 PA potential he'd be good enough to run the pitch in Serie A, but he really needs to show me something soon or I’ll be forced to keep looking for someone else that is more technical.

I’m baffled as to why he won’t improve after all the support I've given him for an entire season. All thoughts welcome.

 

[BoxToBox]

Bad luck, sometimes players don't develop no matter what you do, even if they have all the right attributes for it.

Then again, it may just be a bad year for development and he'll crack on this season. I've had plenty of players not develop much one season only to do very well the next.

[KlaaZ]

What BoxToBox said. Also, keep in mind that his personality may have an influence as well. And yeah, some players develop later than others (which imo is a good thing and as it should be). 

[Bigpapa42]

Playing time and personality are the two main drivers. He's getting matches so personality would be the most likely culprit. Another possible issue - what have you been training him as and what has been the Additional Focus? Because if he's being trained in a similar role to what he likely plays.... most of his attacking attributes are pretty high. The rest are physical attributes and ones that don't improve significantly or defensive attributes. And if you aren't focusing on those physical attributes that are likely to improve or the defensive ones....

[Gam_]

Because he's already very close to his PA (relatively), with Professionalism of 12 and Ambition of 12 this is about the best he'll ever be. If you find him a tutor with better Ambition and Professionalism you'll be able to squeeze a few more points out of him.

[tacticsdude]

Thank you for the opinions.

I’ve had him in training to become an AML where I needed depth last season, but he hasn’t done much growth there. His individual training had been passing and stamina and I think he went up a point each over the year and that’s it.

Really, there are 3 areas that I need him to improve: Passing, stamina and long shots. If he could gain 4 or so points in each of those I’d feel I have a Santi Cazorla on the pitch. The problem right now is that he runs out of steam in the last 15mins, his passing doesn’t create chances for strikers, and he can’t pull his weight with long shots from the AMC area.

I don’t want to believe he is done growing at the age of 20 with 16 points still left in his PA. My assistant believes he still has another star+ to grow. I’m planning to give him another year in rotation.

What training do you suggest to try to boost those 3 areas?

 

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, tacticsdude said:

I don’t want to believe he is done growing at the age of 20 with 16 points still left in his PA.

This specifically tells you he has room (16 points) to improve. You will just need to be patient - it's the nature of development. He's only 20, so there's lots of time.

[herne79]

Training is neither linear nor guaranteed, no matter how "perfect" your player, coaches, facilities or relevant playing time may be.  All you can do is improve the chance of developing a player at or near his potential by giving him such chances.

In this specific case, the player has low professionalism and ambition both of which will reduce the chance of him reaching his potential.  He needs Tutoring in order to "fix" that.  You also haven't told us how much playing time he's had and at what level he's been playing at.  From age 18, match time at a relevant level becomes increasingly important for player development.  Is Serie A really the best place for a player with such a low CA?  You'd need to check his match performances to see if it's ok.  And how much playing time is he getting?  Does he play in the reserves when not in the first team?  How does he perform there?

And even after all of that as I said above, development is not linear nor guaranteed.  He might be a late bloomer.  Or perhaps he'll have a slow season or two and then take off.  Or vice versa.  Or he'll have peaks and troughs of development throughout a season.  Or 500 other different possible outcomes (well, not quite but you get the picture). 

But whatever, without Tutoring it's unlikely he'll ever reach his potential.

7 hours ago, tacticsdude said:

What training do you suggest to try to boost those 3 areas?

You can pick a specific focus (Stamina, Passing) for those two.  You can also select a specific role to train that has your desired attributes as part of their training.  Selecting Fitness training in the General Training tab will also help with Stamina, although that will impact the entire team.

[Welshace]

Also I take it he isn't already an aml? 

 

In which case, bare in mind you will be using up his remaining room for growth on the positional change.. which isn't going to do you any favours at all..

[tacticsdude]

9 hours ago, Welshace said:

Also I take it he isn't already an aml?

He is about half way developing the position. How many Ability points would that use up? I didn't know position growth would take up Ability points. It also doesn't seem to have been much thus far, since he is not growing in CA.

 

10 hours ago, herne79 said:

You also haven't told us how much playing time he's had and at what level he's been playing at.

[...] Is Serie A really the best place for a player with such a low CA?

I thought I did say. Last season he started 24 games in Serie A and had a rating of 6.89. Overall he had a joyous season for a 'hot prospect'. For instance, he was on the pitch when we beat Roma 0-3 at their home and on that day his rating was 7.8. He was central to our control of possession all season which is the core of how we got points to finish 9th the same year we earned promotion to the league. I'd say he had a good season and he would probably say he was pretty happy throughout, proud of his work and the team.

The short of it is that he fits my tactics well, and many of his attacking stats are quite high already, so the 111 CA is deceivingly low for how he actually performs on the pitch. That's why I'm still with him and hoping to develop him further. Also, his salary is tiny and I expect it to remain that way if he caps out at 127 PA.

The problem is that, due to his lack of creative play, the strikers suffered a lack of service all season when he was on the pitch. I don't want a redo of last season in that regard, that's why I'm bringing in more creative players that will likely displace him as the season moves forward.

 

RE: Training

I'm on FM17. In previous versions I could create a custom schedule for a player like this and concentrate on aerobics and passing for instance. I'm not finding a way to do that on this version. I'm also going to keep training him in passing and stamina as a focus, but if there's anything else that can be done to target the training I could use some pointers. I don't normally go this deep into player development for a 127 PA player

I have him training as an advanced playmaker in the AML spot, which includes passing and stamina but not long shots. Stats-wise he is actually more natural to inside forward, which would include long shots, but so far I don't like the way this engine makes the inside forwards move, and this guy with his low bravery does much more on the pitch playing a receded role to collect the ball and organize play (but I do need him to shoot a few times per game.)

[herne79]

10 hours ago, herne79 said:

development is not linear nor guaranteed.  He might be a late bloomer.  Or perhaps he'll have a slow season or two and then take off.  Or vice versa.  Or he'll have peaks and troughs of development throughout a season.  Or 500 other different possible outcomes (well, not quite but you get the picture). 

But whatever, without Tutoring it's unlikely he'll ever reach his potential.

Your player has low-ish professionalism and ambition both of which (along with determination) are key to player development.  The best development plan will fall flat on it's face if the player doesn't have the personality to use it effectively.

28 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

How many Ability points would that use up?

There is a whole host of things that impact CA and attributes will get different weightings depending on which role you are training.  But don't get so caught up in the numbers chase.  CA and PA are hidden for a reason so if you focus solely on those numbers you end up stressing to get every last drop of ability points from development programs, and that's never going to happen.  Train your players as well as you can, improve your facilities and coaches over time and monitor your player's progress.  If they develop, great.  If they don't then at some point you need to make a Manager's decision whether to continue in the hope he does start to develop or getting rid.

[tacticsdude]

Herne79, thank you for your opinion but it is not helping me. I've been playing since 2008, have logged thousands of hours and consider myself a top player. I understand that some stats are meant to be obscure, that development is affected by many things, and that the personality is important, but those things would be on the first paragraph of the game's quickstart manual about player development. 'Don't worry too much' is not helpful, I'll deal with him if he doesn't develop, but I'm looking for an advanced conversation about how to help a player that is 20y/o, enjoying his football, and still has 16 PA points left in him. I'm confident we can help this kid grow at least 10 more points, and if I can focus them into passing and stamina he'll get to the next level.

Ideas I gathered so far (and thanks to you and all for contributing):
- Give the kid another year and see if he has a better year
- Train a role that features the desired skills
- Maybe the positional change will eat up Ability points?
- Get him some tutoring to increase ambition and professionalism

[tacticsdude]

I brought in a 34 y/o player on a free transfer with the intention of providing tutoring. He's got a couple more points of ambition and the same 15 determination. The 20 y/o is now being tutored, let's see if that and some rotation games get us any further this season.

[Pingdinho]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't work rate play a role in training as well as in games? This player has a very poor work rate, which if it does affect training, might be preventing him from applying himself properly and improving his abilities.

Aside from this, low professionalism and ambition will kill development, just as it does for real players. Hopefully the tutoring will help.

[Tiger666]

2 hours ago, Pingdinho said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't work rate play a role in training as well as in games?

Not as far as I'm aware.

[tacticsdude]

More notes:
On the training page I get the following advice:
- Player has benefited from individual training focus (although it is clearly moving at a snail's pace)
- Progress has been limited due to the player's casual approach to training.

Any other thoughts on how to shake the "casual" approach?

 

Re: High Intensity Training
Another thing that's been bothering is the team's training intensity. Over the year's I don't feel I've gotten a sense as to what this does. In previous games I felt that messing with the levers mid season had an effect on medium-term team performance, either improving it or hurting it, so I would leave it as-is all season if we were doing well (even if it was high), and sometimes touch it if the team was on a run of poor form to see it if did something. But otherwise, player development has not seem to be affected by training intensity as long as it is average+.

In this game FM17, I had the intensity set to high in the last 3 months or so of last season and I got the feeling that it stunted player growth. I left it high through the break and the summer reconditioning and again I've seen little player growth. Then I put it to average for a few weeks in August due to some match intensity coming up, and the green growth arrows starting showing up again (which could simply be a timing coincidence).

What are your thoughts in terms of average vs high intensity training, and what is a good recommendation for a team with good training quality and mostly young players with medium to good potential.

Thanks again for sharing.

[HUNT3R]

4 hours ago, tacticsdude said:

Any other thoughts on how to shake the "casual" approach?

Herne covered this - his personality. Get him tutored.

[tacticsdude]

1 hour ago, HUNT3R said:

Herne covered this - his personality. Get him tutored.

Is that the only thing that will have an effect?

[Cougar2010]

1 hour ago, tacticsdude said:

Is that the only thing that will have an effect?

I would have thought a "top player" would know the answer to that

You could try talking to him and there are options to warn him about his training.

[tacticsdude]

55 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

I would have thought a "top player" would know the answer to that

You could try talking to him and there are options to warn him about his training.

Touché

I'm new to 2017 and a lot of things have changed since the versions I'm comfortable with. Previous versions I remember didn't mention the casual approach to training.

And BTW, what I meant by top player is that I can take a team in a big country from the 3rd division to a European final in about 5-7 seasons while turning a profit. I don't know how good that is, but I'm sure it is well beyond amateur. And the reason I said it is to facilitate cutting back on the 101 recommendations since I'm new to this forum. Still plenty to learn though, and I'm happy to continue my learning journey with the help of fellow players.

[Cougar2010]

16 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

Touché

I'm new to 2017 and a lot of things have changed since the versions I'm comfortable with. Previous versions I remember didn't mention the casual approach to training.

And BTW, what I meant by top player is that I can take a team in a big country from the 3rd division to a European final in about 5-7 seasons while turning a profit. I don't know how good that is, but I'm sure it is well beyond amateur. And the reason I said it is to facilitate cutting back on the 101 recommendations since I'm new to this forum. Still plenty to learn though, and I'm happy to continue my learning journey with the help of fellow players.

What you need to accept is that most users don't use in game editors or 3rd party applications to look at things that are designed to be hidden, they play the game the way its designed to be played.

If you did that you wouldn't know how much spare CA/PA capacity he had aside from coach reports and perceived PA through the stars.  You would then not be worrying about those 16 CA points, you would just accept that it is what it is.  He may improve further, he may not.

I'm also surprised you are bothered so much about a guy with 120 odd CA/PA in Serie A, surely there are far better players available.  I'm guessing he is what 2* at best, maybe less and his attributes are fairly limited.  He does an ok job but nothing fantastic and isn't going to significantly improve.

Bottom line is that he is the sort of player that probably out performs his perceived ability a little but looking forward he isn't going to be anything more than a rotation/backup option in the short term and even then would lose his place as soon as someone better comes along.

[tacticsdude]

Good points.

On my first Serie A season (last season, when I brought this kid in) my wage budget was under $8mill total. Currently my average player wage is about $250k p/a, which is something like 5 to 10 times less than the average Serie A team. I expanded the facilities, hired new coaches and I'm growing the stadium, so have to make it work with players I can afford. 

BTW to illustrate with an example, last season in-game Diego Perotti's (Roma) rating was 6.71 in 22 games. My 111CA kid's was 6.89 in 25 games. We took 4 points out of the 2 matches against Roma and both my Kid and Perotti were on the pitch for those games.  Perotti's CA is 142 and his salary is $5.5mill, that's 20 times what I'm paying the kid for less performance.

I hope those reasons illustrate why I bother. At times I can't get better players 'cause they won't sign for me yet, at times I can't get better players 'cause I can't afford them, and currently I don't need better CA players because this kid is an above-average performer in his position. I will inevitably replace him as the seasons come and go, but if I can get him to grow to near his full potential then he will continue to help me grow into a European slot so we have more money for real salaries.

More to the point, I started this thread because I was just baffled how little this kid grew in such a great environment with great training, great atmosphere, good results and tons of playing time in Serie A. It is probably the least growth I've noticed in my time playing.

 

About the editor:
I don't normally rely on the editor but I've had a hard time starting our in FM17 with things not working the way I understand them, so the editor has been useful to see things I'm used to in previous versions. Maybe I need to spend more time getting acquainted, but the scouting seems a mess to me compared to FM11. Back then we didn't have fog stats and quality scouts would produce great reports very quickly. It was probably unrealistically easy back then but I feel it has gone too far the other way now. I feel that if I were running a real scouting team with near unlimited resources (as I am now), I would have much higher quality reporting, much faster and in a much more digestible format than FM17 is producing them right now. So out of inability to figure out the system I'm resorting to peaking at the editor to make sense of the scout reports. Not trying to cheat (hate cheating, no fun then) but I also don't want to be hampered by woefully incomplete scout reports I can't make sense of.

I know there are teams out there scouting with full high-quality databases of players that they can query in an instant. At the bare minimum you could look at CA/PA from FM, FIFA, PES and get an idea about any player in the world in seconds. Why wouldn't a multi-million scouting department have that and way better to offer me?

 

Role Playing
I'm also using the editor to role play. I decided to take my winnings from a previous 10-year run making a club successful, and started this new save by "buying" a tiny club in Italy for a few $mill I had saved up. This is a feature I've dreamed of having in FM for years, and I decided to go ahead and try it outright using the editor. So, given that in my role playing I'm the owner of the club, I use the editor to override the board every now and then when they try to get in the way of ambitious growth.

[forameuss]

Using the editor is fine, even if some get overly weepy about it, but I'd avoid getting into the minutaie of CA and PA within the editor.  You've mentioned that the player in question is performing well, so why does it matter what his CA and PA is and whether he will reach it?  The numbers are hidden because they're purely a factor used by the game, and were never really meant to be exposed in the same way that overall player ratings are in games like FIFA.  They're also incredibly misleading, as two players with the same CA in the same position won't necessarily play similarly.  It depends how those points are distributed, so fixating on one value like it's the be all and end all will probably just lead to frustration.

[tacticsdude]

9 hours ago, forameuss said:

You've mentioned that the player in question is performing well, so why does it matter what his CA and PA is and whether he will reach it?

He performed well for the expectations, having arrived at 19y/o to play his first season of Serie A coming from the Spanish second division. But the expectations are higher each year and I'm hoping he can grow with them a little longer.

As I said before, most of his work is good which reflects in his rating, but he is not providing the strikers with any creative service which makes the strikers have a desperate time upfront and is costing us dropped points.

I provided a tutor, and also already brought in his replacement (an 18y/o with much higher potential). It is now a waiting game to see if he shows improvement faster than his young replacement earns his place on the team. Looks like he's got about 6 months to pull through.

[Spurs08]

1 hour ago, tacticsdude said:

He performed well for the expectations, having arrived at 19y/o to play his first season of Serie A coming from the Spanish second division. But the expectations are higher each year and I'm hoping he can grow with them a little longer.

As I said before, most of his work is good which reflects in his rating, but he is not providing the strikers with any creative service which makes the strikers have a desperate time upfront and is costing us dropped points.

I provided a tutor, and also already brought in his replacement (an 18y/o with much higher potential). It is now a waiting game to see if he shows improvement faster than his young replacement earns his place on the team. Looks like he's got about 6 months to pull through.

I would say professionalism is the most crucial attribute to look for in a tutor. High professionalism can counteract a lot of other flaws, it's really useful to have. Ambition is a double-edged sword for a club like yours: the player will probably develop better, but he's also more likely to try and force a move to a bigger club, especially if he also has a low loyalty.

The other thing is that the player not be working as hard because he hasn't really been made to. He's come from a lower division as a young, low-reputation player and you've given him a lot of gametime without him earning it through hard work in training, so he has little reason to work hard now. That's probably the reason his development has stalled, but a high professionalism rather than the low one he has would mitigate it and lead to him working hard regardless. 

[tacticsdude]

8 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

The other thing is that the player not be working as hard because he hasn't really been made to. He's come from a lower division as a young, low-reputation player and you've given him a lot of gametime without him earning it through hard work in training, so he has little reason to work hard now.

That is a very good point.

Between having a good time on the pitch and me praising him due to low expectations, there's little pressure on his shoulders. I wish there was a way to let him know that we are having this conversation about him. IRL I would have called him to the office to explain that if he doesn't improve in his creative play he's going to lose his place on the team. It is not fair to him or anyone that he thinks things are golden when in reality he is on the way out of the team if he doesn't work harder.

I just warned him about his training and the interaction went well. His squad status is set to Hot Prospect since he got here (I think). Is there anything else I can try to help him understand his place is at risk?

 

[herne79]

26 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

I would say professionalism is the most crucial attribute to look for in a tutor.

Professionalism, Ambition and Determination all have equal impact when it comes to player development.

[Spurs08]

Just now, herne79 said:

Professionalism, Ambition and Determination all have equal impact when it comes to player development.

But Professionalism seems to have a lot of other uses too, especially regarding squad management and dealing with complaints, whereas Ambition can be a negative. Determination is true but is also a visible attribute so it's a lot more possible to buy player who you know are determined rather than rely on personality descriptors.

Am I also right to say that high Professionalism could counteract the "casual attitude" stuff that's come up and improve development that way?

 

16 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

That is a very good point.

Between having a good time on the pitch and me praising him due to low expectations, there's little pressure on his shoulders. I wish there was a way to let him know that we are having this conversation about him. IRL I would have called him to the office to explain that if he doesn't improve in his creative play he's going to lose his place on the team. It is not fair to him or anyone that he thinks things are golden when in reality he is on the way out of the team if he doesn't work harder.

I just warned him about his training and the interaction went well. His squad status is set to Hot Prospect since he got here (I think). Is there anything else I can try to help him understand his place is at risk?

 

I think you can tell him something along those lines if you criticise last game or recent form should he have a poor performance.

[tacticsdude]

2 hours ago, herne79 said:

Professionalism, Ambition and Determination all have equal impact when it comes to player development.

I had a feeling those had equal value, thank you for confirming. Like Spurs08 said, I normally go for high determination and professionalism because of their reaction to my management style and the types of clubs I spend most of my time working for. Ambition tends to bring in other aspects of the personality that are harder to manage (they want to be key players, play for a bigger club, etc).

[tacticsdude]

Update:
It's Nov now and the kid hasn't gone up a single CA point since last season. The tutoring has had a positive effect on his personality thought, he went up in ambition and professionalism so he's at 14a, 13p 14p and 15 determination.

Performances are getting better. He's not playing as much this year since we have reinforcements, but he's had 6 games and already an assist and 1critical goal when we were down by 1 and playing with 10 men - beautiful goal too, one of those counter breaks after a corner and he had a lot to do running it up the pitch from near the half line while being chased by a couple defenders, I would have bet my car he'd miss the target at the end of that run but the finish was a Messi-like lob across the keeper coming in from the edge of the box, cool as a cucumber.

[tacticsdude]

It finally happened, on Dec 7 he went up 2 CA points since last season, that seem to have gone towards mental stats. I've been wondering if the player would be best served going out on loan to experience a different environment, but now that the needle started to move I'm wondering if I can expect more growth while he plays on my team. Right now I'm thinking I'll give him about 6 weeks and decide to send him on loan or not towards the end of the transfer window.

[herne79]

An increase in CA is irrelevant.  That could mean anything from he's improved his weaker foot ability slightly to his Leadership skill has increased (and anything in between).  An increase in relevant attributes is what's important.

A loan move could be good so long as he goes to a suitable team where he'll be guaranteed relevant match time.  Just remember you lose all control over his development if you do loan him.

It's good that his personality has improved, however it could still use work there to increase his chances of developing further.  Your facilities and coaching staff may also be holding him back a little.

[tacticsdude]

Re: Loan
I found that a number of players in similar situations were just not developing at my club, but when sent on loan grew 10-12 CA per season, which is a lot for a player that tops off at 120-130 PA - it is also way better than I've been able to develop this player over the last 18 months. I'm thinking he may be a late bloomer (any way to predict that?) but with the amount of support I'm giving him I would expect that at least his training focus would improve a bit.

I'm not sure why the loans are working, since I have far better facilities and coaching at home, so I'm guessing it may be related to the change of scene and feeling pressure to perform in a different way?

For instance, I have a goalie that has good d/a/p, signed as a 19y/o on a free last season after Juventus dropped him, coming in at about 90/130 CA/PA. Had him for half a season, no games and no growth. Second half of the season sent him on loan to the Portuguese second division and only played one game, but during that time he went up 10 CA points (in half a season). Now that he is back he is still in his growth spurt so I give him a couple of games and he goes up about another 9 CA points in the next half a season, so he has grown around 20 CA points in a full season and his prospects of achieving max PA are pretty solid. Good player too, most stats are in the right place so his 130PA will feel more like a 150 type of player.

Personality improvement:

I won't be able to give my CAM kid any more tutoring, so that improvement to 14a 14p 15d is likely as far as we are getting. I had to bring him a tutor for him and I don't see myself buying another player just to tutor this guy.

 

11 hours ago, herne79 said:

Your facilities and coaching staff may also be holding him back a little.

Facilities are 18/20 and coaches are all 4*. Could it be the coaches' personalities? Anything else I should take into consideration?

I'm also thinking about putting him in special move training when the tutoring ends. Maybe working closely with a coach will help start some growth.

 

Starting to lose faith in growing him where I want
I don't have much growth room left, only 14 PA points and it is looking like he wants to grow them in mentals (which are currently fine.) Honestly, if I can get him to grow even 2 points in passing, stamina and long shots he'll be a good rotation / cup player for my club for the next 8 years. He's starting to play in a more mature way, he passes more creatively, tries to put himself in scoring chances and his stamina lasts better through the game (even though he hasn't increased his stamina). He's just lacking the technical skills to connect his passes and shots correctly.

BTW, if you are wondering why I'm still bothering, the kid is also a natural ST poacher, so when a game is going poorly he can become a target for long balls with 15 acceleration, 15 finishing and 15 technique - right now he is my third speed option at the front. He is also developing his new AML position (already a natural inside forward), so tactically it is great to have him as an option on the bench in any situation, even at his current 113 CA.