Sell or keep?

[IbrahimAliMaher]

Bayern Munich have a major one on for one of my youth prospects, who just agreed a pro deal. What would you do?

[Draakon]

Sell.

Unambitious is a big turn-off for me, although I realize that it can be improved via mentoring.

[mrw072]

I'd keep him - i'd be thinking to myself that if Bayern have bid he's probably going to be pretty good.  Only 15 too so has plenty of time to improve.  I'd only sell if you really needed the money for a signing.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

His determination started out at 3 actually when he was part of my youth intake last season. I think it's from warnings/fines for his abject match performances that I've managed to increase his det, tutoring has had no effect so far possibly because I have no senior player with a good personality in his position. 

[Andros]

I would completely agree with @mrw072 here, he is only 15 and already Bayern are looking at him so there must be something there.  Unless the kid wanted to leave, i would keep him. Many of his flaws can be ironed out by tutoring, and even if you have nobody good to tutor him right now, there is time.  

[IbrahimAliMaher]

Looks like they're prepared to give me £8.35m for him with 50% profit on next sale plus add-ons...

[Andros]

how much do you need the money? I mean if you don't really need it right now, then he would be worth keeping and either using him later or selling for more in the future.  8.25 mil is not a game breaking amount.

[Spanner]

From looking at his stats i would say my only major concern is his Natural Fitness level. Currently i see it stands at 8.
He is only 15 years old and there is a positive green arrown next to it which is good.

The reason to monitor it is because a low natural fitness stat will really affect his contribution during a season.
Injuries will take longer to get over, re-hab is sometimes twice as long and when playing in more difficult weather conditions  the player will struggle.

Thats all from experience with a young, very talented player (Lee Kang-In) who had a low natural fitness stat.

At 15 years old, you don't need to sell him and the money is not life-changing. If you monitor his progess and develop him correctly, then you can cash-in for a lot more in the next 3-4 years.

[Norfair]

Selling my own youth prospects goes against everything I believe in in FM, and it's rare you get any sort of life-changing money for them. I would definitely keep him. As others have said, Bayern want him for a good reason. Keep him and watch him turn into something real good somewhere down the line. Hopefully.

[sporadicsmiles]

Looking at him, I would sell. He does not look all that special as a prospect. I'd negotiate the deal as absolutely high as I can possibly get it though. For me the low determination, team work and work rate just do not make him seem to be a future star at a high level. Especially as a BWM where you want a player to have graft and determination. If Bayern want to pay money, let them. Reinvest in some other youth players, or use the money to upgrade further your own youth setup. 

[yolixeya]

I would not sell at this age. His personality can improve as well as attributes. The game sees him as a BWM now but with attribute growth he might end up being DLP. It's just too early to judge. If you decide to sell I would definetely include percentage of profit/sale clause or buy back clause in his contract.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

8 hours ago, Andros said:

how much do you need the money? I mean if you don't really need it right now, then he would be worth keeping and either using him later or selling for more in the future.  8.25 mil is not a game breaking amount.

Not massively tbh. Following a pretty active summer transfer window I'm being pretty restrained in this January window, apart from a big splurge on an 18 year old Czech winger with massive potential.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

23 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Looking at him, I would sell. He does not look all that special as a prospect. I'd negotiate the deal as absolutely high as I can possibly get it though. For me the low determination, team work and work rate just do not make him seem to be a future star at a high level. Especially as a BWM where you want a player to have graft and determination. If Bayern want to pay money, let them. Reinvest in some other youth players, or use the money to upgrade further your own youth setup. 

I think I can address the low work rate via regularly disciplining for poor performance, which should also boost his det.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

2 hours ago, Norfair said:

Selling my own youth prospects goes against everything I believe in in FM, and it's rare you get any sort of life-changing money for them. I would definitely keep him. As others have said, Bayern want him for a good reason. Keep him and watch him turn into something real good somewhere down the line. Hopefully.

He plays in a position where I don't have a lot of other good prospects atm, so I'm inclined to keep him. I agree with you, selling my best youth prospects to a team who ultimately I expect to become my biggest rivals is not a great idea.

I think I will hold out and keep him for another year at least, and see how much I can develop him in that time. If he makes little or no progress then I may be more inclined to cash out further down the line.

Thanks for all the comments, some good points made!

[Spanner]

6 hours ago, IbrahimAliMaher said:

I think I can address the low work rate via regularly disciplining for poor performance, which should also boost his det.

If I understand correctly, your going to discipline him to boost his stats... can I ask if you have had success with this before? I find it hard to believe that a 'hard line' approach would have such an effect.

Depending on the harshness of your approach, I would estimate a negative response would happen at some point.

I could be completely wrong but I don't see how your theory is going to work on improving specific stats.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

2 hours ago, Spanner said:

If I understand correctly, your going to discipline him to boost his stats... can I ask if you have had success with this before? I find it hard to believe that a 'hard line' approach would have such an effect.

Depending on the harshness of your approach, I would estimate a negative response would happen at some point.

I could be completely wrong but I don't see how your theory is going to work on improving specific stats.

Yup. If you use the option for 'discipline for poor performance' when he gets a match rating of 6.4 or below, then he either:

(a) Is shocked to be warned, but nothing happens

(b) Accepts the warning but says nothing

(c) Accepts the warning and vows to improve, resulting in det increases and/or work rate

If you fine too often then players can get upset, but stick to mainly just issuing formal warnings and watch the stats rise

[Justin Tomlinson]

10 hours ago, IbrahimAliMaher said:

He plays in a position where I don't have a lot of other good prospects atm, so I'm inclined to keep him. I agree with you, selling my best youth prospects to a team who ultimately I expect to become my biggest rivals is not a great idea.

I think I will hold out and keep him for another year at least, and see how much I can develop him in that time. If he makes little or no progress then I may be more inclined to cash out further down the line.

Thanks for all the comments, some good points made!

So potentially some early run outs in cup matches etc?

[IbrahimAliMaher]

33 minutes ago, Justin Tomlinson said:

So potentially some early run outs in cup matches etc?

Er no actually, since players under 17 are not allowed to play in the German cup!

[Justin Tomlinson]

23 hours ago, IbrahimAliMaher said:

Er no actually, since players under 17 are not allowed to play in the German cup!

Ahh, sub optimal!

[Gee_Simpson]

On 19/08/2020 at 21:04, IbrahimAliMaher said:

Yup. If you use the option for 'discipline for poor performance' when he gets a match rating of 6.4 or below, then he either:

(a) Is shocked to be warned, but nothing happens

(b) Accepts the warning but says nothing

(c) Accepts the warning and vows to improve, resulting in det increases and/or work rate

If you fine too often then players can get upset, but stick to mainly just issuing formal warnings and watch the stats rise

So this actually works? Interesting. I seen someone say that a few months back too, so it must be a thing

[Balahara]

9 minutes ago, Gee_Simpson said:

So this actually works? Interesting. I seen someone say that a few months back too, so it must be a thing

Yeah, means it is beneficial to have a barebones youth squad. More opportunity for those precious 6.4 ratings to appear. 

As for the player in the OP, I'd say sell. Got a lot of work to improve on his personality and determination. Unimpressive jumping reach + natural fitness also. Just too many strikes against him to be worth developing. 

[IbrahimAliMaher]

17 hours ago, Balahara said:

Yeah, means it is beneficial to have a barebones youth squad. More opportunity for those precious 6.4 ratings to appear. 

As for the player in the OP, I'd say sell. Got a lot of work to improve on his personality and determination. Unimpressive jumping reach + natural fitness also. Just too many strikes against him to be worth developing. 

Why does he need jumping reach as a DCM? I agree he's not ideal but I like a challenge, if I can turn young Marvin Stadelmann into a superstar then I'll be better than Pep and the Ajax youth academy rolled into one 

I switched him to a different mentor, if he doesn't respond to that then will definitely look to sell at the next opportunity. Will update once a bit of time has passed... 

[CaptCanuck]

18 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

So this actually works? Interesting. I seen someone say that a few months back too, so it must be a thing

After reading a thread on it, I use a 1-day's wage fine and have never seen a negative impact from it. You either get - player accepts fine - or - player accepts fine and admits they need to do better and will strive to do so - or something to that effect.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

2 hours ago, CaptCanuck said:

After reading a thread on it, I use a 1-day's wage fine and have never seen a negative impact from it. You either get - player accepts fine - or - player accepts fine and admits they need to do better and will strive to do so - or something to that effect.

I presume you mean a one week fine? No I've definitely had negative reactions sometimes, you get a message saying the player is 'losing trust with the management' and they get properly grumpy. After fining one player a couple of times he got really peed off, to the point where he started skipping training. Eventually he put in a transfer request and I ended up flogging him to Derby, where he's since struggled to breakout of their U23 side.

Edited August 21, 2020 by IbrahimAliMaher

[CaptCanuck]

13 minutes ago, IbrahimAliMaher said:

I presume you mean a one week fine? No I've definitely had negative reactions sometimes, you get a message saying the player is 'losing trust with the management' and they get properly grumpy. After fining one player a couple of times he got really peed off, to the point where he started skipping training. Eventually he put in a transfer request and I ended up flogging him to Derby, where he's since struggled to breakout of their U23 side.

No literally a day's wage. I though a full week could be seen as excessive by the player - as you point out can occur. And I read that talking to them about it gives an opportunity for a messy chat to occur, so I've found this one day thing works well.

[IbrahimAliMaher]

2 hours ago, CaptCanuck said:

No literally a day's wage. I though a full week could be seen as excessive by the player - as you point out can occur. And I read that talking to them about it gives an opportunity for a messy chat to occur, so I've found this one day thing works well.

Ah this must be one of those new fangled FM20 things...a single day's wage sounds distinctly less controversial, which is presumably why it was added

[Xavier Lukhas]

On 17/08/2020 at 21:08, IbrahimAliMaher said:

Bayern Munich have a major one on for one of my youth prospects, who just agreed a pro deal. What would you do?

Unambitious can hide very good Professionalism, so it's not a definitive factor for selling. His horrible Determination is a lot more worrying, and he doesn't seem to like the training. However his attribute distribution is great for a DM bar his mediocre Marking, he's good on the ball and he's only 15. he can play as a CM as well, but his Off The Ball prevents him from playing higher up the pitch or on the wings; his Flair is bland as well. I'd have him Mentored ASAP, and I definitively wouldn't sell before a couple years.

 I rarely if ever sell Youth contract players, generally they're snatched away and I don't care too much because the real truth to youth development is scouting and buying youth that you can shape into the players you want... which is exactly what Bayern is trying to do to you. That being said, the AI rarely knows what they're doing when raising youngsters, moreso at bigger clubs where they can just try out as many kids as possible and who cares if a dozen of them fail. You can sit on that 50% of next sale, you're likely not going to see it. The biggest problem is that you don't have a good tutor for him, because he badly needs it.

You're doing well warning and fining him. Gotta beat him up into shape one way or another!

Edited August 22, 2020 by Xavier Lukhas