Very basic youth questions.

[tyler16]

I'm going to be making a new save later which an aim to have a very organized and strong youth system. I've read around and watched some guides, but I still have a few questions.

1. What's the main difference between your U18 and U21's?

I assumed that the U21's was basically a reserve team for fringe players, players needing match fitness, etc. However, the more I think about it, it's a higher level of competition than the U18's, right? Am I better off putting, say, a talented 17-year-old on the U21's where he can play at a higher level or keeping him on the U18's? Can someone be eligible for both? Any insight on how you guys organize this would be helpful.

2. When to loan?

Is a player with a 3* report, for example, who is 18-years-old, better going out on loan or staying in the U21/U18's at his parent club? I know this has tons of additional factors but there's probably some rules of thumb you guys follow. I'm normally hesitant to loan in case of injuries to my senior players.

3. Compensation fee.

I like being low level teams which goes hand in hand with having almost no money to spend. When I only have 2k pounds in my available wage budget, signing a 3* report 16-year-old to a pro contract (to avoid other teams from approaching him) might be a waste of 100/200 pounds, as small as that seems. Is there a way to view your own player's compensation fees? (that other teams would have to pay). Obviously, if that same player had a 500k compensation, I wouldn't mind letting other teams have a look, haha.

[mark1985]

Here's my opinion:

1) I would say U-21s is a higher standard, and when a player is too old for the U-18s but not good enough for the first team, U-21s is a good place for him. I would personally send an 18 year old on loan if he isn't quite ready for the first team, unless the U-21 is the '2nd team' (like it is in Germany) and they're in the 3rd league.

2) Like I said above, any 18 year old who is not ready for first team football I would send out on loan rather than play in the U-21s. The only exceptions to this would be either if they wouldn't be getting 1st team football at the loan club, or if they were playing in cup games/easy league games but could play for the U-21s other than this to ensure game time/keep their fitness up. It also depends on the training facilities. If you have brilliant training facilities, it may be better to keep them in the U-21s for a season or so rather than sending them on loan to a lower league club with poor taining facilities.

3) As far as I know, there's no way to see it, but I personally always sign 3* or above players from my youth team, especially if I have top youth/training facilities as if they don't progress, you can flog them later on.

Hope that helps

[genesimmons]

There is a thread on youth developement by Cleon on Tactics subforum. Check it out!

[Smac]

3. Compensation fee.

I like being low level teams which goes hand in hand with having almost no money to spend. When I only have 2k pounds in my available wage budget, signing a 3* report 16-year-old to a pro contract (to avoid other teams from approaching him) might be a waste of 100/200 pounds, as small as that seems. Is there a way to view your own player's compensation fees? (that other teams would have to pay). Obviously, if that same player had a 500k compensation, I wouldn't mind letting other teams have a look, haha.

Add another manager and try to sign the player. AFAIK that's the only way to check something like that.