How much attention do you pay your reserves team?

[Vossenoren]

I had not been giving it much thought, honestly, because I would set my assistant to loan out every player under 24 and watched as the fans of my reserves teams went from heartache to heartache because it was usually all grayed out players and the odd veteran that couldn't hack it in the first team which I hadn't managed to give away yet. Another problem was that this way, a lot of my players went on unproductive loans to teams who loaned half a dozen players in their position. Sometimes all from me.

 

In my current save, however, I gave it some thought and realized, if your youngsters play in the first team and do badly, they don't gain experience according to the training summary page, so I thought, perhaps the same was true of my reserves team. So once I got my first team together, I started to focus on the reserves. I set my assistant to not offer anyone for loan, and started filling holes in the reserves team with decent veterans, who could in turn mentor the youngsters. Then, if my assistant recommended someone be loaned out, I'd offer them up myself. This has the added benefit that (since I keep a pretty lean first team) my youngsters can go up to the first team for a match here and there to cover injuries and such.

 

One downside is that I have a boatload of young goalies who are not getting any action, but realistically I only really need one of them to flourish, so it's not all bad I guess.

[ElliottMS]

My reserves team is where my backups go to get game time. I tend to have about 21 players in my first team squad - 2 players for each position except I only tend to have 1 spare centre back as that's normally enough.

If there's several games a week then I may promote more players from first team for some rotation and allow some players to rest.

I try to loan out young players but those I can't loan out get game time in the reserves. I couldn't care less about the results of the reserve team although of course one hopes the players play well so they can improve. 

As a result my reserve team tends to be a mix of veteran players who aren't good enough for my first team but are either stuck on a contract and/or are good mentors, young players and the odd out of favour player I haven't shifted yet. Then greyed out players will fill in the gaps.

[Hummingbird Saltalamacchia]

I pay a lot of attention to my reserve team, I would say I check it a lot of the time. Strange though how it constantly changes though, players highlighted in grey vanish if you ain't offered  them a contract and new ones appear and the ones you have offered a contract to obviously don't vanish. I check on the progress of the youngsters who I have offered a contract to and I also look a lot in the hope of finding one or two youngsters in there with good potential, most have no potential lol but some can have good potential, I have a player called Borja Calvo who could be a really good player, he should be my main defensive midfielder but I'm keeping him in the reserves lol. I also do what ElliottMS does and put in some older players in the reserve team who are past it and who I feel offer nothing, at least they get some game time albeit reserve football. I have two 16 year olds called Garcia Castillo and Parada who I might call up to the first team for next season and just hope they grow although I have just loaned out a youngster called Rafa Palao who did play a lot in the first team but he somehow got worse so hence why I have loaned him out. I'm really not fussed if my reserve team win, lose or draw lol. 

[StephenFMT17]

I pay massive attention to my reserves. I micro manage a lot of my team matters (except training, I know I know!) and loan out only players who are one or two seasons away from a first team shout. 15/16/17 year olds I keep for reserves unless assistant recommends a loan.

[PigeonStrangler]

How do you set your assistant to loan out all players below a certain age?

I sign a lot of players and the ones that don't work out I relegate to the B-team.  I also get a lot of players with no 'work permit' and so they must be loaned out for years as I struggle to get one. 

[Marc Vaughan]

2 hours ago, PigeonStrangler said:

How do you set your assistant to loan out all players below a certain age?

I sign a lot of players and the ones that don't work out I relegate to the B-team.  I also get a lot of players with no 'work permit' and so they must be loaned out for years as I struggle to get one. 

It's under manager options (in the reserve team section).

[PigeonStrangler]

2 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

It's under manager options (in the reserve team section).

Excellent, I've overlooked this since the games release for some reason.  This will save me a lot of time.  I've been individually managing all thee loans thus far.

[Zoot]

I love the B teams but unfortunetly i play leagues qhere B teams participate in senior leagues (spain) and for many many years the game is bugged for those leagues as the players dont progress in it.

Hopefully it will be fixed in next year game coz its a bit silly that for 3-4 years the bug is there and nobody do anything about it