Taipan

I have two youth players who can slot into my LL senior team straight away, but my coaches advise both players "do not enjoy big matches". Does playing these guys in important matches and gain experience actually help or are they stuck with this trait for life? Is there anyway I can "train" this negative trait out of player by mentoring?

Can't you just utilize the "create note" function in the game and set reminders? For example I have a monthly reminder to check my squads training on the 1st of each month. Works a treat. Also I set reminders to revise player contacts plus a number of other reminders.

I too suddenly had this problem today. On load of a new/saved game all the names (mine/staff/players) were random names. Save the game, reload and the names changed each time. I did a Verify Integrity of Game Cache though Steam and it fixed the problem.

Thanks mate for your thoughts. You mention that you don't train PPMs during pre-season. What do you do with players that haven't fully learnt their PPM from the previous season and are carrying the instruction over to the new pre-season training? I have kept them training their PPM as I feel it would be a waste to remove the PPM instructions from them considering the time already invested. Do you do the same?

Wow, is it time?!....Good luck to you and your wife Since you have sooo much time on your hands right now , I'd appreciate you thoughts on this. As I play LL I find the majority of my youngsters need training in a number of key areas regardless of what role they have. Rashidi in this scenario, do you find concentrating on critical attributes one at a time through a three month rotation system is better than giving the youngster a training role where he might train all those key attributes all at the same time. For example I have a youngest who needs work on tackling, marking & passing. Is it wiser to spend nine months rotating through marking/tackling/passing or is it more beneficial to give him nine months on a role where all these three of those key attributes (plus others) are trained. I feel from my own experiences that there is no real black & white rules regarding this and it is again it's a horses for courses situation, but I would be interested in what your experiences have been in this situation.

Jambo can I just add my thanks to this statement. I was having the same problems and put it down to my LL side's poor decision making stats. So obvious now that I think of it, but I couldn't see the woods for the trees .

Much too modest rashidi. If this is your first sticky, it is well well well overdue. Great thread and one I have enjoyed reading very much

This is what I do with any new tactic. Unless you have a very good understanding of mentalities & TI’s and also know what the knock-on effect of combining TI’s can be, it is much wiser to build your tactic from the ground up. With any new tactic I always have an vision of what I am trying to achieve on the pitch, be it Short Passing/Long Passing, Possession/Long Game ect. I then look at my players and ask myself, can these players play my vision successfully on the pitch? I then create my new tactic with no TI's/PI’s as my starting point. Too many people rush through pre-season, trying to get to the first game.. In pre-season there are no points up for grabs, so pre-season is the golden time where you experiment and find out strengths/weaknesses of your new tactic and modify/react accordingly. By the end of the third friendly you should of realised your created chances were low and done some changes/experimentation there and then. Waiting until there are league points on offer means you have missed the bus and now you find yourself right behind the eight ball. I always all my friendlies for the full 90 minutes to get an idea of what is happening with the tactic, jotting down notes as I go through the games. I find watching your tactic totally bare bones with no TI's or PI's in your first friendly gives you a greater understanding of what the base tactic can/can't do. From there you start adding TI's one layer per game, and again watch for the full 90 minutes jotting down notes on what needs to be changed or added for game three. Add another TI layer, do some player role tweaking, play another friendly. In this way you are building the tactic from the ground up, having a much much better understanding of your tactic's strengths and weaknesses and the players you are trying to shoehorn into it. You can usually squeeze 12 games in between season unless you have a very short player roster, and by the end of twelve games you will have built your tactic , and be close to being fluid in most areas and be confident of the players playing the roles within your tactic. LLM training restrictions will mean all areas might not be at the fluid level, but you will be pretty close.

Yeah in his case he is on a marking attribute training regime at the moment. When/if he gets to my PPM attribute benchmark for the tight marking PPM he will learn that. My training digs are not anywhere near Hilton Hotel standard being more the room above the pub shared bathroom standard, but regardless it's very enjoyable to see my youth coming through the ranks. Your FM13 version of this thread started me looking much closer at my youth, and I must thank-you so much for that. For me especially of late, the developing youth side of the game is more enjoyable/interesting than actually playing FM out of the tin and I find myself watching the youth games for the full match, just so I can have a better understanding of each youths individual traits. Make for a pretty long season though especially with my RL commitments, which is sometimes in itself frustrating as I want to sprint to the next season to see what my new season intake looks like

Yeah just logical stuff eh, and I'm doing pretty well what you say with a horses for courses attitude when it comes with the young players. Thanks for your thoughts

Thanks Cleon. That just confirms my thoughts. I've set up a training template for each of the above PPM's within the training area of the game showing those key attributes you list above. If a player has an attribute value below my acceptable limit, I just won't train him in the PPM. In the case of my spotty faced 15y DC, he is will have to train up his marking ability quite a bit before he can learn that PPM. The templates works a treat as I already know what PPM's I want for my clubs DNA, and so it is just a matter of displaying the relevant PPM template and immediately I can see who in my squad can/can't be trained in the PPM in question.

My printer will be awaiting It's interesting how you and rashidi have different approaches to the training schedule through I'm sure the end results are pretty similar. I chucked the below question to rashidi. I'm not trying to double pump the question, but as you and him approach training from different angles, I'd love your thoughts on it as well: Are the PPM's that you initially teach your youngsters influenced by their current stats or do you have a "must" have list of PPM's that these youngsters must learn per position, regardless of their stats, based on the DNA/style of your club? For example a fresh faced 15y DC with a marking stat of 2. Would you still immediately start training him in the PPM "marks opponents tightly" or initially concentrate 100% on getting that marking stat up before commencing the PPM? Sadly yes I do have a young 15y DC with a two in marking.

Holy Necro Batman!!...., but yeah got to agree that this is one of the classics and doesn't deserve to be off the front page. Lucky I have a printout

rashidi, in your other quite involved guide to training youngsters you mentioned that between the ages of 15-17 you keep them in the youth squad and in that time they learn their PPM's. Are the PPM's that you initially teach your youngsters influenced by their stats or do you have a "must" have list of PPM's that these youngster must learn per position, regardless of their stats, based on the DNA/style of your club? I'm not after a list, just curious on how you approach it. For example a fresh faced 15y DC with a marking stat of 2. Would you still immediately start training him in the PPM "marks opponents tightly" or initially concentrate 100% on getting that marking stat up before commencing the PPM? Some players learn their PPM faster than others. Do low "vital" stats for the PPM being learned actually have any influence in the time the player takes to learn the PPM or is it the influence/stats of the coach and/or professionalism of the players, or is it as hotpot mixture of all of these things?

I recently had the same problem with a club in 3rd Div France. I replaced my club ID in the file for another club and started a new game with that new club and the ads would show up. I then changed the club ID back to my original club and start a new game with my original club. Ads boards didn't work. I also double checked the club ID against the game editor. Never found a fix for it.