Youth intake

[Georgik]

So i'm managing Liverpool, i'm in 2020-2021 season, and so far, my youth players coming through my yearly intake are really really poor in terms of quality. I don't understand why this happens because i have top quality facilities, it is a blessing that i have a very powerful squad so i don't rely too much on the youth products, but it would have been nice if i had the chance to get some talents from the academy up in my lineup. An example of this year's intake :

And my facilities :

[Cougar2010]

You have bids on a few of your candidates there, are they from you or someone else?

Basically though if you have a really strong squad then a 3* player for you will be 180+ PA, essentially a world class player.

It does look a little low but several of those 2* players could be 160-180 PA which would basically be an International quality player.

You also have to consider that your staff will probably be wrong with several of those players and they could be better or worse than the stars in the picture above. I've had a 4.5* PA player drop to 2.5* within six months before.

[Georgik]

The bid are from me ... i don't think they have too much potential to be honest, i've thought about what you're saying too ...

[Cougar2010]

The bid are from me ... i don't think they have too much potential to be honest, i've thought about what you're saying too ...

What do the staff reports say for the better players in terms of quality?

[Georgik]

What do the staff reports say for the better players in terms of quality?

Potential to be a good PL player in the future.

[Cougar2010]

Potential to be a good PL player in the future.

Hmmm, a little lower than I thought it would be.

I do think you've been unlucky with the intake above, I've certainly seen better but its really just luck of the draw.

[thomit]

You won't really have a good idea of how good your newgens' potential are untill you've had them for a while. A 2.5 star potential player now, could be evaluated as 4.5 star next week, or next month, or in 6 months. Happened to me several times. Playing as manager of Arsenal. A 2.5 potential youngster that I only gave a contract to fill up all the positions in the youth team, is now pushing Özil out of the first team, and my assistant now rates him between 4.5 and 5 stars (it varies).

Like wise, a 4 star regen can drop considerably a few weeks later. Nothing wrong with that; it's realism.

Or - you use an add-on to cheat and look at their potentials. But that takes some fun out of the game, in my opinion.

[Boiiing]

Yes, it's frustrating, isn't it. The Youth Intake is my favourite part of the season, in a way, but the quality of the players who come through is almost always disappointing.

[dllu]

It does seem like a bad / unlucky intake, but bear in mind two very important points cf. star ratings that may have already been touched upon:

1) They are relative to your current squad, so strong first team = lower ratings on youth players.

2) They are judged by your assman, so the higher his JPA and JPP attributes, the more accurate they will be.

[forameuss]

Always remember, having maxed out facilities and being at a big club is never going to guarantee you get super intake after super intake. Think of it like a lottery - by increasing your facilities and the like, you're buying more tickets to that lottery. You still might not win though - in fact, you're probably not going to. But there's a greater chance.

[samdiatmh]

Or - you use an add-on to cheat and look at their potentials. But that takes some fun out of the game, in my opinion.

I opted not to sign a 1.5* rated DM that came through, so ended up releasing him

took a sneak peak at his PA, and it was 185 (horrible CA though)

wanted him back, but because I'd released him he wouldn't talk to me (and ended up at a 2nd tier side on a freebie)

[MECAP]

Potential to be a good PL player in the future.

with 140 CA on average PL players that gives 150 PA at least, you can sell those when they hit 21

[Jimbokav1971]

I am doing a Youth only save so I am interested in stuff like this.

What I would say is.....

1. You are assuming that all you need is good facilities to get an instant return in terms of either CA or PA.

2. We don't know what the JCA or JPA of your Ass Man is.

3. Values can change from Day 1 on the Youth intake. Rather than CA or PA that you might see in a cheat programme, what you see from the Ass Man and other coaches is actually PCA & PPA. That's "Perceived Current Ability" and "Perceived Potential Ability". It's not a bang on 100% CA/PA rating like you would get elsewhere. It's their opinion.

4. It's interesting the scree-shots that you have chosen to give us, (and those that you didn't deem important). You have shown us your facilities, (great), and the Ass Man reports (great), and even half your list of feeder clubs, (great too), but what is missing is info on the Ass Man, and hugely important, info on the HoYD. The HoYD in particular is a HUGE influence on this but you don't think it as important as.... listing half the feeder clubs. This is the bloke who is largely responsible for finding these players.

This does seem to be an area of the game that is still largely misunderstood.

[thomit]

Just had this year's youth intake, and it's the same story: I chose to give youth contracts to all of them, knowing that most of those I allready have will be released at the end of the season. None of my new youths got more than 3 stars initial ratings from my assistant (who has 20/20 judging CA and PA, by the way). Now, at April 1.st, 2 of them have had their rating reassessed to 4.5 stars, while the one youth that initially was rated as 3 stars have had his reduced to 2 stars.

Point: Never take any notice of the initial star ratings your new youths get. You need to watch them over time in order to have any idea of how good their potential will be. And keep in mind that potential to be does not equal going to be. That depends on a whole new set of different factors.

[Fritz13]

Can someone remind me pls how the HOYD links to the Youth Intake.

My current one has 6 months to go on his contract and I wanted to check before either renewing or releasing him.

Cheers

[mark1985]

Always remember, having maxed out facilities and being at a big club is never going to guarantee you get super intake after super intake. Think of it like a lottery - by increasing your facilities and the like, you're buying more tickets to that lottery. You still might not win though - in fact, you're probably not going to. But there's a greater chance.

This pretty much sums it up. But like other people have said, the fact that they have 1 or 2 stars means they're being compared to the current squad, and if it's a strong squad then it will be a lower rating. For example, if a Player X came through at Barcelona and is an attacking player, he would be rated against the likes of Messi, Suarez, Neymar etc and get a lower rating, whereas if he came through at Rochdale, he would be given 5 stars due to the relative strengths of the attacking players/general squad. It also depends on the judging player ability/potential of the person looking at them. If it's 20 then it will be pretty accurate (but not 100% accurate) whereas if it's 1 then it may not be (but remember even someone who knows nothing about footy could see a 16 year old Messi was pretty handy). Obviously players can improve given the right coaches/facilities/game time etc etc and remember, Rickie Lambert was released by Liverpool as a youngster as they thought he wouldn't make the grade, but became a premier league player, an England international and a God at the only team that matters on the South Coast. So it's not an exact science at all. Other than the class of '92, there was not a single year (as far as I know) where a large proportion of the 'youth intake' became very good premier league/world class players. There are very few teams who consistently seem to churn out youth players every few years and even at those clubs, there will be plenty of players who don't make the grade.

[thomit]

Can someone remind me pls how the HOYD links to the Youth Intake.

My current one has 6 months to go on his contract and I wanted to check before either renewing or releasing him.

Cheers

Well, provided you have your HoYD responsible for "bringing youth players into the club, and informs you of their development" (as this responsibility can be delegated to other staff memebers too), he will be more likely to bring in youths that fits his tactical preferences - including his preferred formation, it seems - and his personality. It will be the same if you give this responsibility to any other staff member. It is therefore beneficial to have your HoYD, or the staff member that you delegate this task to, have similar tactical preferences to your own, and if possible to have personality traits that you think it's beneficial for your youths to have too.

From my own experience; if your HoYD has a preference for a e.g. 352 formation. you will see him often bring in youths that has the wing back spot as their "natural" position - even though you yourself predominantly play a e.g. 4231 with no players in the wing back strata. Or if he likes a 442, while you like a 4411, he will be less likely to bring in a player that is "natural" in the AMC spot. So keep that in mind when you hire a HoYD.

[mrdanbartlett]

IMO youth is non-existent most of the time, if I get a gem it's a very rare thing. So i just scout all the u19 leagues and bring in my own youth that way. I still always upgrade the levels/facilities/recreuitment etc as often as possible but in reality youth intake is the last place I'm likely to succeed from in getting good quality youngsters.

[millwalllion]

This pretty much sums it up. But like other people have said, the fact that they have 1 or 2 stars means they're being compared to the current squad, and if it's a strong squad then it will be a lower rating. For example, if a Player X came through at Barcelona and is an attacking player, he would be rated against the likes of Messi, Suarez, Neymar etc and get a lower rating, whereas if he came through at Rochdale, he would be given 5 stars due to the relative strengths of the attacking players/general squad. It also depends on the judging player ability/potential of the person looking at them. If it's 20 then it will be pretty accurate (but not 100% accurate) whereas if it's 1 then it may not be (but remember even someone who knows nothing about footy could see a 16 year old Messi was pretty handy). Obviously players can improve given the right coaches/facilities/game time etc etc and remember, Rickie Lambert was released by Liverpool as a youngster as they thought he wouldn't make the grade, but became a premier league player, an England international and a God at the only team that matters on the South Coast. So it's not an exact science at all. Other than the class of '92, there was not a single year (as far as I know) where a large proportion of the 'youth intake' became very good premier league/world class players. There are very few teams who consistently seem to churn out youth players every few years and even at those clubs, there will be plenty of players who don't make the grade.

The bold is the key bit I think. If you have a world class striker, any strikers will have low star ratings in comparison. If you have an good PL RB, any RBs' star rating will compare quite highly.

I think there needs to be a more uniform star rating system. For example, comparing the youth players to an average player in whatever league your club is in (or average at your club?). This way you will still have the stars relevant for your team (will they be good enough for your team or not), but also they won't be unfairly influenced by your best players.

You basically want the rating to tell you if a player will be better than, same as, or not good enough for your team. At the moment it doesn't do this. It should still be dynamic and change after a period (weekly/monthly) depending on progress.

[thomit]

If we're talking about the ratings you see directly after the youth intake, then these are - in my experience - not "pretty accurate" (as mark1985 said) at all, no matter how good your assistant is at judging potential. His judgement skills won't fully kick in untill the youths have been at your club for a few weeks - typically after you have decided to give them a contract or not. That's why I say that if you give the youths contracts based on their initial star ratings, you may very well be dismissing a future world star whose initial rating is only 1.5 or 2 stars, but later turns into a 4.5 rated player.

Give all the new youths a contract (but not too many playing in the same position), give no importance to their initial star ratings, and delay your decision if they're good to keep or not at the end of next season. Your assistant (or yourself) will then be much more accurate in judging their potential.

[Fritz13]

Well, provided you have your HoYD responsible for "bringing youth players into the club, and informs you of their development" (as this responsibility can be delegated to other staff memebers too), he will be more likely to bring in youths that fits his tactical preferences - including his preferred formation, it seems - and his personality. It will be the same if you give this responsibility to any other staff member. It is therefore beneficial to have your HoYD, or the staff member that you delegate this task to, have similar tactical preferences to your own, and if possible to have personality traits that you think it's beneficial for your youths to have too.

From my own experience; if your HoYD has a preference for a e.g. 352 formation. you will see him often bring in youths that has the wing back spot as their "natural" position - even though you yourself predominantly play a e.g. 4231 with no players in the wing back strata. Or if he likes a 442, while you like a 4411, he will be less likely to bring in a player that is "natural" in the AMC spot. So keep that in mind when you hire a HoYD.

Cheers Thomit mate - the formation is similar but he prefers direct football whereas I play a high pressing possession intense game.

[Georgik]

Thanks alot everyone for the replies, i'll take into consideration your advices I already had a similar experience with a young player i signed from Ajax, the staff rated him poorly and now he is a rotation player, and plays very well everytime he is in the squad.

[Fmfan00]

Since this topic has to do with youth intake i thought i would post my question in here..

My question is, in FM15 if i go to staff then responsbilities and then i believe it's the club tab and then at the bottom it will show brings youth into club. If I have a staff listed here with more then one country as scouting knowledge is that how say my england team would bring in youth intakes not just from england but other countries as well without signing them from other countries?

[BAD-RELIGION]

Hope that you don't mind, but to add someting with value to this topic I will post what I have found in another forum:

One of my greatest passions playing Football Manager and one I'm sure many of you reading this share is developing young talent into star players. That means the youth intake day is one of the more exciting days in the season. We all hope that day brings us that potential superstar that will lead our club to new heights for seasons to come. But why do we or don't we get them?? To answer that question I did a number of simulations ,trying to figure out if any of the conventional wisdom we have of youth intake holds up against hard facts. For most of this I used GNK Dinamo who have 20 in youth intake.

First I checked if the quality of the staff member doing the intake influences the quality of regens. The team’s best player had a CA of 137, top 5 average were 133,8 and squad average was 117,7.

I ran 20 simulations with the HoYD, DoF, AM each, plus 4 other simulations on another save with a HoYD with all 20, 16, 12 or 8 attributes.

Every one of them had basically the same PA production. The average top regen had the PA around the CA of the best player and the average PA of the 5 best regens per generation was usually half a star better than PA than the average squad member had CA.

Afterwards I did 20 simulations with my Diname save in 2022. The top player had 175 CA, top 5 165,8, squad average was 152,6. The results were top prospect average PA of 155, top 5 regens 131. Eventho my squad was significantly better, I wasn’t producing players that were that better on average, leading me to think reputation has something to do with it as well.

Following that idea I did 20 sims with Barcelona . The average CA for a barca player was pretty similar to my future team, just 3 CA higher. But barca produced far better players with the top prospect on average being 175 PA, top 5 being 154,4 . Meaning they produce a world class player every year, with 5 players who could become first team / rotation players for the team.

IN Short, the quality of the staff member doing the intake doesn’t influence the regen PA. Squad CA and club reputation do. Apart from this the country youth rating is the most important factor in getting a high PA player. Reputation doesn’t per say increase the PA but it helps recruit players from countries with better Youth rating than the one you currently manage in.

Another thing I wondered is does staff influence the type of personality your regens are. The anweser to that is both yes and no. The personality of an average regen mimics that of your average squad member. But 2 or 3 of them (those singled out by the staff member) have personality traits more like the staff member doing the intake.

One thing I stumbled in accidentally while doing this is the influence of your selected first 11 on the day of the intake. I was getting pretty weak players ( by weak I mean compared to my top players) eventho I had 3 or 4 world class players. On average the best regen was 151, eventho the average CA of my first 11 players was 162. So I calculated the average for those not selected, surprisingly their average was 152 almost indentical to the top regen PA. After that I did 15 sims with my subs selected as my first 11 and the average PA for the top prospect was 160,2.

The average PA of the top 3 regens created can be split into thirds cuz of the way they related to the squad CA.

1st tier top prospect PA half star more than squad average

2nd tier top prospect PA squad average

3rd tier top prospect PA half star less than squad average

1st tier 2nd best prospect PA squad average

2nd their 2nd best prospect PA half star less than squad average

3rd tier 2nd best prospect PA star less than squad average

1st tier 3rd best prospect PA half star less than squad average

2nd tier 3rd best prospect PA star less than squad average

3rd tier 3rd best prospec PA star and a half less than squad average

Hopefully i will have some free time in the future to see if staff preferences have an influence on the positions your regens play. I did some small sample which is more favorable to club legends dictate positions and not staff preferences.

Summary

To turn your club into a factory for world class players you need:

A strong squad or at least starting 11

A squad full of players with high ratings in determination, ambition and professionalism

A club with high reputation

High youth intake both club and country

On the day of youth intake select your subs as the starting 11.

Then I Replyed this:

I play FM for years and since ever my only purpose ingame is to get the best of my youth ranks

What I have got from my experience is you only start getting results from your youth investment 4 or 5 years after.

There are some strange things that I have seen over the years that made me question:

Some teams tend to get very similar regens, for example I remember a save with Benfica when my best regens were only defenders, but all with great jumping and heading but very slow, dunno if it was because of Luisão influence.

In other saves I only got, for example, great midfields, with different teams I only get great wingers, no good players in the other positions

In FM2015 I'm with Southampton, when I got there they had 2 top midfields with the same exact position DM, M (LC) one have 195 potential and the other one 175, and they were generated in the same year when the team was playing in championship, now that I came to the team they are in Premier League, play in Europa League and the best players I got have only 150 PA

I tried to find pattern in that similar youth players in the team they came from, but I didn't got anything, thats why I think your players are generated with clube information of 4 or 5 years before it (what in real life makes sence)

Other thing is player personality, in every team I managed my HoD have all great personality stats and most of the time my youth players don't have it (its the first thing I do is to find the best DoF and HoD)

In other saves I remember to see for example Rennes getting absolute great players for consecutive years and they didn't had a god HoD or Director and only had avarage youth facilites

So mixing my exprience with yours and your tests, I conclude:

- That youth intake is not completly random!

- What you have today (club,players,reputation,etc) doesn't affect the players you will recieve this season

- Some regens were similar with your ex-players already sold and playing in top Clubs

- Probably your captain or fav person on Club list will influence the youth intake (and youth personality)

- Selling your best player to top teams will increase your change of getting youth players similar with them

- Having players retiring in your team increases the chance of getting similar youth regens

And its all for now

Have to try that experience of having the worst players selected in the day the youth players are genereated

[Fmfan00]

was gonna make this guy my youth development coach and im playing in NL with him being our head of youth coach, do i have a good chance fo getting youth intake players from those countries of my youth intake list?

[samdiatmh]

from what I gather, they all typically come from where you're based (shock horror)

but occasionally some come through from scouting regions (had 2 come from Palestine courtesy of some random scout [or maybe it was Muelensteen] having just started that area), as well as your feeder clubs

[dllu]

It has been suggested before that the nationalities of your staff can have an influence as well. I have seen no concrete evidence to back it up, though...

[Matshit]

In a realistic scenario, shouldn't the youth have higher PA from your assistant than reality, and not lower?

It feels a bit weird that the assistant is saying "I don't really know much about him, so he is most likely rubbish" instead of "I don't really know much about him, so I guess he can be pretty good."

Plus, the players have been at the club for some time, so if anything, the report should stay the same for some time, and not "suddenly" be more precise after a few weeks at the club.

[spankie]

It feels a bit weird that the assistant is saying "I don't really know much about him, so he is most likely rubbish" instead of "I don't really know much about him, so I guess he can be pretty good."

Not really weird as there's tons of players who were released by big clubs because they thought they were rubbish who went into the lower leagues and even non-league and turned their careers round and proved the coaches wrong.

Kevin Phillips comes to mind, released by Southampton and worked his way up to Sunderland where with Niall Quinn he made on of the best striker partnerships in the Premier League.

[Matshit]

Yeah, sure. He is more one of the exceptions though. I will fully accept some 180 PA player getting 1-2 stars from the assistant. In the same way as I can accept some 50 PA players getting 4. What I object to, is the fact that the assistant seems to think "I have never heard of these players before, they must be rubbish." When you sign the player they often get an extra PA star for no good reason at all.

[dllu]

So most of your regens are deemed potential future "good PL players"? Then what is the problem? Surely you don't expect the next Gerrard or Carragher to come through every year...

[mancmalaga]

So most of your regens are deemed potential future "good PL players"? Then what is the problem? Surely you don't expect the next Gerrard or Carragher to come through every year...

Agree with this. Liverpool have a good academy, but the last 2 top class PL players to come from it were Gerrard and Carragher and that was over a decade ago. Even Ibe and Sterling were both bought in from other clubs. Also currently the only one who seems to be getting anywhere near any first team action is probably Rossiter. So not sure what you're expecting there. Bearing in mind each country has average attributes for regens set out, so you probably won't have many great English lads coming through because realistically we don't produce many great players. Just a lot of average ones. Also not always a great idea to listen to the coaches. Last year I had a kid come through at Maribor a RB called Josef Kulcar. The coaches gave him 2.5-3 stars. The lad never scored lower than a 7. Even when we got beat 6-1 at home by Barça in the CL he was still getting a 6.5. It's better to make the decision on the players yourself sometimes

[spankie]

Stars aren't be most reliable way to judge a player, his attributes are a better guide. He might not have a high CA or PA but his attributes might be spread out in such a way to make him effective.

I've got a 2 star rated striker who was top scorer last season and in the last 5 games scored 9 goals to get promotion and he's top scorer this season so far with a goal every game and a half. He's got around 12 Acceleration, Pace, Jumping Reach and Heading and a smattering of other good striker attributes.

[MECAP]

was gonna make this guy my youth development coach and im playing in NL with him being our head of youth coach, do i have a good chance fo getting youth intake players from those countries of my youth intake list?

he is complete junk and will spoil your youth quality, if you want his country knowledge, just sign him for scout, that way you will have those countries added to your knowledge pool.