Becoming a "natural" in a new position

[cherryman71]

I'm mainly enquiring regarding youth team prospects, as I realise older players are not going to achieve this, but lets say for example you have a 15 or 16 yr old in your youth team who is a natural midfield centre but accomplished left winger. If you train him individually from day one in your team at left wing and have him play in that position, as far as the game is concerned what are the statistical chances of him becoming a "natural" left winger

[FrazT]

If he is young with significant improvement available in his PA, to my knowledge he can become natural with retraining and game time in the new position.

[Prepper_Jack]

Depends a bit on hidden stats, but I find you can usually retrain an average player from completely unskilled in a position to natural in about 40-50 matches. In about 10 matches they should become "accomplished" in the position, which means there's little downside to using them there. So, it can take 30-40 matches beyond that point before they fully master the position. Be aware that adding too many positions to a players repertoire can significantly reduce their potential, at the expense of their multi function use. One extra position known doesn't usually hurt, particularly if you picked him up where he was already accomplished in those other roles.