Blooding young players

[Shakey]

Can anyone provide any help please? although i have played the game for a long time I am no expert but I am trying my hand at taking a lower league side with a good youth setup and developing them long term. I have done plenty of research on these forums and think i have my head around tutoring, training and such like but one question I do have is how much first team action should you give to young players and does it help aid there development? I remember years ago reading that really you should try and give a young player 15 first team games per season, but is this 15 sub appearances, 15 games of 90 minutes or just 60 minutes + etc etc...

And leading on from that question at what level does a player need to be at to play, so I have plenty of current ability 2 star players in my youth setup with potential of 4 star plus, should I be blooding these in to my first team now?

By the way, not sure if it makes any difference but I am still playing FM18

[Garrlor]

So the absolute, concrete answer to this question is........ it depends!

There are some general rules that you can follow to help blood your youngsters however. These arent exhaustive by any means, but they are things that I have either read about or have discovered myself through trial and error.

First up: Age. Before the age of 18 a young player develops the most through training and tutoring. You can see some huge gains in stats with the right training regime, alongside playing age appropriate football. In my current United save (based off Ozil's Benfica thread) I have a rule where a player won't go on loan until at least the age of 18, though I would prefer the age of 19 so that I can maximise the time they spend with my coaches.

Training. Again, young players really come on through training. Plan your schedules out in advance for the youth team. I use a 10 week rolling schedule - 4 weeks of ball control, 4 weeks tactical and 2 weeks phsyical. This works for me, as it brings on the skills I want, while thier physical abilities increase naturally up until the age of about 18/19 until they need more stimulus (matches at the right level).

Game Time : the big one. All they need is enough time on the pitch to get a rating. 30 minutes is normally enough, this will ensure that they gain enough "experience" to improve. As they increase in ability the more time they will need on the pitch, moving from sub appearences to full run outs, maybe taking them off at the 60 minute point. It is a case of judging each player based on thier ability and level and how well they fit into your team and tactic. Loans are a great way to get a player more game time, but be wary. At a young age they may be able to play against good players in the respective U-21, U-23 etc if your reserve side has done well for themselves, so it could be worth keeping them around rather than sending them down 3 divisions to get the snot kicked out of them. Make sure you get a report on your players performance so you can judge if you have to recall them. Also make sure the manager you are sending them too is suitable if possible and will play them as much as they promise. There is no point sending a player to sit on the bench when they could be playing for your U-23's or pushing for your first team.

Finally the star ratings. Your players ability and potential stars are related to the best player in that posistion in your team, as well as taking some cue from the level you are playing at. If you cheated and stuck De Gea in a Conference South side your 5 star youth prospect would suddenly drop down to half a star. It is all relative, so by all means start to slowly blood some of your promising youngsters and bring them on. At the very worst you can sell them back down the pyramid as they may be poor for you ability wise in the future as you rise up the leagues. Also, a player who has a low ability score isnt always going to be poor. A CA/PA 135 defender with stats in all the right areas is better than a PA/CA 165 one who struggles to do the basics well, the same can be applied into your star rating system.

Hope that helped a little.

[Snorks]

Good advice from @@Garrlor there.

18 and under concentrate on training

Over 18 game time is the biggest influencer on development - if at an appropriate level. (Your Coach report will suggest the appropriate level)

In recent iterations though, they removed the 'must get a rating to get a benefit' thing (was about 15mins) - ANY minutes on the field of play will help, although obviously, more of them is better!

Essentially, whatever role/duty you play the youngster in, he will get a developmental boost on those attributes. Training boosts the trained attributes, mentoring boosts the mentals,  game time is specifically the attributes needed for the role/duty. Importantly, game time at an appropriate level. 

That level may well be in your U23s, it may be at a club a couple of divisions below that's up to you.

If loaning out, as @Garrlor says, choose the club carefully. Minimum of 'Good' training facilities, minimum of 'First Team' squad status and a manager who plays same or similar formations to me are my criteria. Otherwise I'd rather keep him at home and develop him myself. 

 

I like @Garrlor's suggestion for the youth training schedule - I may well introduce that to my save.

[Seb Wassell]

10 hours ago, Garrlor said:

So the absolute, concrete answer to this question is........ it depends!

There are some general rules that you can follow to help blood your youngsters however. These arent exhaustive by any means, but they are things that I have either read about or have discovered myself through trial and error.

First up: Age. Before the age of 18 a young player develops the most through training and tutoring. You can see some huge gains in stats with the right training regime, alongside playing age appropriate football. In my current United save (based off Ozil's Benfica thread) I have a rule where a player won't go on loan until at least the age of 18, though I would prefer the age of 19 so that I can maximise the time they spend with my coaches.

Training. Again, young players really come on through training. Plan your schedules out in advance for the youth team. I use a 10 week rolling schedule - 4 weeks of ball control, 4 weeks tactical and 2 weeks phsyical. This works for me, as it brings on the skills I want, while thier physical abilities increase naturally up until the age of about 18/19 until they need more stimulus (matches at the right level).

Game Time : the big one. All they need is enough time on the pitch to get a rating. 30 minutes is normally enough, this will ensure that they gain enough "experience" to improve. As they increase in ability the more time they will need on the pitch, moving from sub appearences to full run outs, maybe taking them off at the 60 minute point. It is a case of judging each player based on thier ability and level and how well they fit into your team and tactic. Loans are a great way to get a player more game time, but be wary. At a young age they may be able to play against good players in the respective U-21, U-23 etc if your reserve side has done well for themselves, so it could be worth keeping them around rather than sending them down 3 divisions to get the snot kicked out of them. Make sure you get a report on your players performance so you can judge if you have to recall them. Also make sure the manager you are sending them too is suitable if possible and will play them as much as they promise. There is no point sending a player to sit on the bench when they could be playing for your U-23's or pushing for your first team.

Finally the star ratings. Your players ability and potential stars are related to the best player in that posistion in your team, as well as taking some cue from the level you are playing at. If you cheated and stuck De Gea in a Conference South side your 5 star youth prospect would suddenly drop down to half a star. It is all relative, so by all means start to slowly blood some of your promising youngsters and bring them on. At the very worst you can sell them back down the pyramid as they may be poor for you ability wise in the future as you rise up the leagues. Also, a player who has a low ability score isnt always going to be poor. A CA/PA 135 defender with stats in all the right areas is better than a PA/CA 165 one who struggles to do the basics well, the same can be applied into your star rating system.

Hope that helped a little.

Just to clarify one point here - every minute on the pitch counts, whether that is 90, 45 or 1.

Use the average rating as a guide to if the player is playing at the most suitable level for his ability. If that 19 year old is returning a 7.9 average rating over the season then he's probably playing at too easy a level for optimal development. Conversely, if he's constantly struggling to get above 6.5 he's probably playing at too hard a level. Disclaimer - those average ratings are just examples.

[Seb Wassell]

10 hours ago, Snorks said:

Essentially, whatever role/duty you play the youngster in, he will get a developmental boost on those attributes. Training boosts the trained attributes, mentoring boosts the mentals,  game time is specifically the attributes needed for the role/duty. Importantly, game time at an appropriate level. 

The bold section there isn't quite true. Actual match time is not focused on X attributes in the same way that training is.

[Garrlor]

3 hours ago, Seb Wassell said:

Just to clarify one point here - every minute on the pitch counts, whether that is 90, 45 or 1.

Use the average rating as a guide to if the player is playing at the most suitable level for his ability. If that 19 year old is returning a 7.9 average rating over the season then he's probably playing at too easy a level for optimal development. Conversely, if he's constantly struggling to get above 6.5 he's probably playing at too hard a level. Disclaimer - those average ratings are just examples.

Cheers @Seb Wassell. I wasn't aware they had removed the requirment for them to play X number of minutes to get a rating and therefore gain a benefit.

@Snorks cheers mate, feel free to steal my schedule! If it helps, I am still playing FM18 which makes it easier to set these changes up. I would love to have the FM19 training system in FM18 as you could create some amazing young players that way as you have so much control over the types of training weeks they would undergo. Its a shame I hate the match engine and Gegenpress 101 with a passion.

@Shakey One last thing that I didn't mention. As you move up the pyramid, you can start training your young players to have a lot more skills than just the basics. Training as a Centre Back only is fine at League 1, in the Prem you might want to be developing players who can at least pass the ball more than 5 yards accurately so you might look at training them as BPD instead for a few years before giving them a specialised training schedule that focus on thier main attributes.

[Snorks]

8 hours ago, Seb Wassell said:

The bold section there isn't quite true. Actual match time is not focused on X attributes in the same way that training is.

Thanks for that Seb. I was always under the impression that playing a MC as a CM-S for example, worked more on the attributes used as a CM-s.

So, when loaning a player out I don't need to be so specific about his preferred role - just position? That would open up way more opportunities. Would also save time when picking age-group teams!

[Shakey]

Thanks for all the responses - it has definitely answered a few questions, even ones I hadn’t thought of.  I am trying to create a career where it isn’t all about winning, which is hard, but more about developing players and playing attacking football. I always end up creating a hard working, defensively sound team which at times plays quite direct. So trying a long term career game of development while trying to play more attractive/attacking football is going to be a real challenge, but I hope a rewarding one.

One comment above from @Garrlor stated that as I progress up the leagues I could maybe train a central defender to play as a ball playing central defender, am I wrong to be trying to play BPD in league 2? I realise they won’t be technically as good as a championship standard BPD but they are playing against a lower standard of player? Or am I over thinking this? I am trying to create a team that play out from the back, which surely is possible at a lower level, I realise to keep my job if results aren’t going for me I will have to change short term at times, but the long term is to play a short passing style through from the youth team to the first team while keeping my job.

[Garrlor]

3 hours ago, Shakey said:

Thanks for all the responses - it has definitely answered a few questions, even ones I hadn’t thought of.  I am trying to create a career where it isn’t all about winning, which is hard, but more about developing players and playing attacking football. I always end up creating a hard working, defensively sound team which at times plays quite direct. So trying a long term career game of development while trying to play more attractive/attacking football is going to be a real challenge, but I hope a rewarding one.

One comment above from @Garrlor stated that as I progress up the leagues I could maybe train a central defender to play as a ball playing central defender, am I wrong to be trying to play BPD in league 2? I realise they won’t be technically as good as a championship standard BPD but they are playing against a lower standard of player? Or am I over thinking this? I am trying to create a team that play out from the back, which surely is possible at a lower level, I realise to keep my job if results aren’t going for me I will have to change short term at times, but the long term is to play a short passing style through from the youth team to the first team while keeping my job.

@Shakey Wrong? No, not at all. Having a footballing philosphy is a fantastic thing and one which I highly encourage you to do. It is simply a question of balance and juding what your players can do vs what you want them to do.

The only issue with training players at a lower level to do more things is the attribute spread. You have far fewer points to to put into things than you would with a player further up the pyramid who has a high PA. At the end of the day, your youth recruitment and facilites determine what sort of player you will get (and someone like @Seb Wassell could give you a very good insight, which I am sure he has done in other threads in the past) so by waiting to get further up the pyramid you get better facilities ergo better young players coming in with higher potential. This is just generalising, you get players like Delli Ali starting off in League 2, Chris Smalling (for all his many faults) was picked up from Non League by Fulham.

There is no point training a guy who has a passing ability of 1; but a great League 1/2 defender; to be a BPD. It is a waste of your time and his. Just make him into a cracking defender and leave it at that. You can still play out from the back, you just have to find ways tactically of enabling it with lower quality players. Using a DM who drops deep to get the ball combined with defenders who play the simple pass means you can distrubute how you want. PPM's and tactical tweaks will get you what you want without sacrificing the important attributes too much.

If you are interesting in a football philiosophy, I can highly reccomend this thread  by @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!

https://community.sigames.com/topic/440502-caixa-futebol-academy-youth-development-adapting-tactics/

It is a great way to look at a club and develop a philosophy, it is based around FM 18 and the bloke is an absolute genius. You will also find reference to an old old thread from a bloke called Sfraser in there, which is well worth a look.

[Seb Wassell]

11 hours ago, Garrlor said:

(and someone like @Seb Wassell could give you a very good insight, which I am sure he has done in other threads in the past)

Any chance to re-post this -

Training Facilities
The training facilities available for all players at the Club, senior and youth. The quality directly impacts upon player progression and training injuries.

Youth Recruitment
The Club’s recruiting of Juniors, those of home and foreign origin. Impacts upon Newgen quality.

Youth Facilities
The facilities available for Juniors only. Impacts upon Newgen quality. 

Junior Coaching
The quality and quantity of Junior Coaches at the Club. Impacts upon Newgen quality.

“Newgen quality” = both Current Ability (CA) and Potential Ability (PA).

Junior = pre-newgen age players that will become your youth intake.

There are also some factors out of your control here, such as the nation in which your club resides and how that affects the overall pool of newgens.

[saintrainhard]

Check This out

https://www.footballmanager.com/the-byline/creating-youth-pathway-wednesday-wisdom