Youth prospects u23 or u18 squad?

[Sayersi]

Im just looking for some advance on my youth setup, i have two options but not sure which one i should be doing?

- When my youth prospects turn 17 move them to my u23 squad, when they turn 18 then loan them out or give them a chance in the first team

or

-Keep my youth players in the u18 squad until they turn 18 then give them a chance in the first team or loan them out.

Baring in mind my youth facilities are 5 star with good coaches, and tutoring etc will be used in both methods. Im just wondering if games in the u23 squad will grow my players better than keeping them in my u18s until 18.

Thanks in advance

[alanschu14]

Unless you actively tweak things, my experience is that kids on the U18/U19 team will also get called up for U23/Second team matches.  I don't have an issue with this and my development seems fine.  I have a U19 team which has me sometimes take 18 year olds and loan them out early, but when I was in England with a U18 team I kept kids there until they outgrew it at which point I'd evaluate where they fit into my long term plans (loans, sell, first team).  Sounds like you have amazing youth facilities and coaches and I think they'd benefit getting as much out of those as they can before moving on to U23/Loans.

[Sayersi]

I've just realised that my players are sometimes playing for the u23 aswell so best of both worlds, I'm going to leave them in my youth and get the best of the facilities, thanks for the reply!

[jcp1417]

On 10/08/2017 at 15:33, Sayersi said:

Im just looking for some advance on my youth setup, i have two options but not sure which one i should be doing?

- When my youth prospects turn 17 move them to my u23 squad, when they turn 18 then loan them out or give them a chance in the first team

or

-Keep my youth players in the u18 squad until they turn 18 then give them a chance in the first team or loan them out.

Baring in mind my youth facilities are 5 star with good coaches, and tutoring etc will be used in both methods. Im just wondering if games in the u23 squad will grow my players better than keeping them in my u18s until 18.

Thanks in advance

Sorry for dragging this out of the grave but my question is the same and since I actively manage my U18 and U23 squads, I'm not sure if it's beneficial for my high CA 16/17 year olds to play with U23

[Snorks]

If you are now on FM19 (this thread was originally an earlier version) the youth development has been altered a little in the game in terms of mentoring and squad influence.

If your youth are high CA then there's a solid argument to play them at the u23 team - playing at an appropriate level is what;s important. I usually have one or two 16/17yr olds in the U23 squad but available for U18s as well. 

The U23s use the same facilities as the first team so there are (usually) better coaches and facilities available to them as well.

[jcp1417]

2 hours ago, Snorks said:

If you are now on FM19 (this thread was originally an earlier version) the youth development has been altered a little in the game in terms of mentoring and squad influence.

If your youth are high CA then there's a solid argument to play them at the u23 team - playing at an appropriate level is what;s important. I usually have one or two 16/17yr olds in the U23 squad but available for U18s as well. 

The U23s use the same facilities as the first team so there are (usually) better coaches and facilities available to them as well.

I am using FM 19. I thought U18 also used the main facilities? I was under the impression that youth facilities just affected the quality of newgens. What would you consider an appropriate CA for U23? anything above gray stars?

[Snorks]

An U18 with 2 stars would probably get put into the u23s for me. Under that would stay in u18s. As a general rule though, promising players are treated on a case-by-case basis (there are only three or four per intake) mid- low-PA and they are kind of left to their own devices .

I think (I may be wrong) the U18s train under their own coaches and separate. The u23s train under the same coaches as the first team. The U23s staff are there to focus on individual work with their payers. At least that's how I understand it.

The Junior facilities I think impact the newgen quality. The Youth impacts the age-group teams.

I am open to be corrected though.

 

 

 

[yolixeya]

8 minutes ago, jcp1417 said:

I am using FM 19. I thought U18 also used the main facilities? I was under the impression that youth facilities just affected the quality of newgens. What would you consider an appropriate CA for U23? anything above gray stars?

That is correct. All squads use your training facilities. Youth facilities affect the quality of newgens.

Also keep in mind when you keep the player in the U18, he will be also available for U20. 

 

[jcp1417]

3 minutes ago, Snorks said:

An U18 with 2 stars would probably get put into the u23s for me. Under that would stay in u18s. As a general rule though, promising players are treated on a case-by-case basis (there are only three or four per intake) mid- low-PA and they are kind of left to their own devices .

I think (I may be wrong) the U18s train under their own coaches and separate. The u23s train under the same coaches as the first team. The U23s staff are there to focus on individual work with their payers. At least that's how I understand it.

The Junior facilities I think impact the newgen quality. The Youth impacts the age-group teams.

I am open to be corrected though.

 

 

 

You are probably right. when i go to my facilities and click on my youth stadium, it only lists the U18 team as tenants. It does raise some more questions though (I know i'm full of them the last few days). like would having too many players on my U23 team affect the workload of the coaches? The thought is why not just move everyone in U18 to U23 since the main facilities are better? Of course I'd make them available to play U18. Also, does having too many players on my first squad affect anything? Currently, I have 33 in the first team, 3 for every position. All of my 3rd strings are U23 players that are made available for U23 games. Would they be better served being placed in U23 and called up only when needed or does it not matter since they all share the same coaches and facilities anyway?

[Snorks]

Coach workload is impacted yes. They will become less effective and you lose the benefit of having a great coaching team.

I can only explain my approach, and I tend to prefer a less cluttered first-team page so won't clog it with youngsters although there are benefits for mentoring and things.

So, assuming I am at a 'big club' with decent facilities across the board:

Initially, all players are sorted into squads by age. 

In general if under 18 they stay in the u18s. (I may be advised that Billy Bigboots could do a job for the u23s in which case I would look at the individual and the need for him in the u23s) they are there for AT LEAST one full season. Higher PA here and  I will manually select them in the tactics window to make sure they are getting games - the U18s manager will pick by CA otherwise.

Once they outgrow the u18s, they get a season or two in the U23s - again I make sure they get a decent number of games manually selecting them. This is purely until they get home-grown status. I then decide if they are worth working with or just leave them alone as 'squad' players. If I am working with them, I will look at their training and work on individual and traits training until they are ready for a loan spell somewhere. Full season loan to a club who promises at least First Team playing time in the position (and preferably) the role I want him to develop in. Always have Scout Reports as ON, and comment on his progress regularly whilst away. Review again for the following season.

I will have maybe up to four players who, based on their CA, who will be used as bench or backups for my own first team. This means a CA of 2.5-ish. One season with 15 plus games and they may be at 3 stars in which case I look at them becoming 2nd choice and selling the first team 2nd choice guy.

In an ideal world, their final season on loan will be in the same division as me.

Whether they play for U18s, U23s, loan club or first team, they get a developmental 'boost' to the attributes used for the role they play the game in. The lower the standard the smaller the boost however, being thrown in to a Prem game when only performing at Vanarama Regional level can do more harm than good - hence the game time at an APPROPRIATE level. This is why it is important to keep some control over the loan conditions. Competitive first team games (loan or otherwise) carry  the biggest weighting for this attribute 'boost'. (When I say boost, attributes are calculated to two decimal places so it can be hard to appreciate a 0.01 improvement after half a game. Especially if it is an attribute he doesn't need when fitting in to your tactic.

So, TL:DR:

U18s are pretty much left to their own devices. I employ the best coaches and staff as I can and invest in the facilities/recruitment etc

19-23 - achieve Home-Grown status, then either loan or keep as 'squad' players for the U23s.

2-2.5 star CA will be considered as one of the players who gets first team action with me for the season as long as they have good PA. Or I loan them out again.

So pretty much, every intake,  I will get up to four kids who are worth tracking and working with. The rest are kind of handled by the staff and left to their own devices. Each of those four will be handled on a case-by-case basis until they are full members of the first team but I will take an active interest in their development. The 2-3 star PA kids are kind of there to support the four top kids development.

Every season I select two-four and try and work first team game time in for them myself.

For lower league management - it's pot-luck lol. My focus is one the first team and pretty much the first team only.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It is never an exact science, and results can be painfully thin. There was a great article somewhere the Ajax approach, where the goal was something like two first team regulars every three years from the academy. If you can achieve that rate you are doing pretty well.

 

 

 

[yolixeya]

8 hours ago, Snorks said:

The Junior facilities I think impact the newgen quality. The Youth impacts the age-group teams.

I am open to be corrected though.

There is no junior facilities. There is junior coaching and youth facilities. 

"Youth Facilities and Junior Coaching then simulate and determine how that Junior progresses in the Club’s Junior system until a Newgen is produced and appears in game. It is at this point that the Current Ability (CA) and Potential Ability (PA) of the youth players are decided."

 

 

[Snorks]

12 hours ago, yolixeya said:

There is no junior facilities. There is junior coaching and youth facilities. 

"Youth Facilities and Junior Coaching then simulate and determine how that Junior progresses in the Club’s Junior system until a Newgen is produced and appears in game. It is at this point that the Current Ability (CA) and Potential Ability (PA) of the youth players are decided."

 

 

Thanks for clarifying. I did mean that 'Junior' refers to pre-intake and 'youth' to post.