How To Give U23 First Squad Playing Time

[LyghtWayve]

Greetings.

Is there a way to give U23 squad members playing time without promoting them to the senior squad?  Or do I have to promote them to the senior squad first to give them some playing time?  I have a promising U23 and I want to see them play with the first team a few times - especially in preseason - to see how they do.

Thanks.

[s0ni42]

Put him with first team but keep available for U23 games

[LyghtWayve]

14 minutes ago, s0ni42 said:

Put him with first team but keep available for U23 games

Thanks.

[saintrainhard]

Show U23 squad in filters so they appear in first team squad, and you can select him, but if the match for U23 happen before first team match he will probably on rest and vice versa

[Snorks]

Yes, you can keep them in the u23 squad, just set the filters in the tactic window to show the u23s and select him as usual.

Alternatively, if he is ready, promote him into first team squad and set as available for u23s. That way he joins all the first team training groups but still gets game time with u23s.

[Hazpro]

On 16/02/2020 at 19:12, Snorks said:

Yes, you can keep them in the u23 squad, just set the filters in the tactic window to show the u23s and select him as usual.

Alternatively, if he is ready, promote him into first team squad and set as available for u23s. That way he joins all the first team training groups but still gets game time with u23s.

Warning !!!

Do not ignore this mans advice, His knowledge of FM is excellent and concise.

Even if he does look like Solskjaer.

[drizzlynewt]

If you've got a really promising youngster who's decent enough to be getting game time (even if only occasionally), you should probably have him promoted to your first team squad anyway so that you can put him in a mentoring group.

[Snorks]

3 hours ago, Hazpro said:

Warning !!!

Do not ignore this mans advice, His knowledge of FM is excellent and concise.

Even if he does look like Solskjaer.

Mum! What are you doing here! 

[Snorks]

Developing youngsters can be a hugely rewarding and frustrating project at the same time. The decision to loan out for first team minutes or keep at home is always a tricky one. For me, the player has to have a 'pathway' to the first team already, which means only one or two players ahead of him in the selection hierarchy for his position. If not, he probably won't get enough minutes staying at home.

The alternative is to loan him out, to a suitable club. Loans can be a risk, you need to check the receiving club's facilities and coaching quality as well as the playing time agreed - there is no point him dropping down a level or two to play in the reserves. Will the amount of game time plus coaching he will receive be more or less beneficial that staying at home?

The important thing is to loan to a club at the appropriate level - you can see this from the coach report - 'Performing at a Championship level' and I would only loan to a Championship club (or similar level in an another country).If you decide to keep him, then give him minutes, regardless. If you have him on the bench and are planning to  give him 30 mins as a sub, then whatever the score, give him those minutes. He won't improve if he doesn't play. Which does put some pressure on you and your team BUT with a pathway planned and a route onto the first team then it is manageable.

 

[Snorks]

45 minutes ago, drizzlynewt said:

If you've got a really promising youngster who's decent enough to be getting game time (even if only occasionally), you should probably have him promoted to your first team squad anyway so that you can put him in a mentoring group.

Good point - but Mentoring groups are also available in the u23s I think, so if there are suitable mentors it can be done there as well. 

[drizzlynewt]

10 minutes ago, Snorks said:

Good point - but Mentoring groups are also available in the u23s I think, so if there are suitable mentors it can be done there as well. 

Unless I'm mistaken in order to be used as a mentor you want a player who's at least 24 and who has played 100 games, otherwise they run the risk of having their own stats lowered by the people they're mentoring... I wouldn't have thought it'd be very common for you to have players who fit that description in your U23 squad.

By all means, let me know if I'm wrong though, I find it's difficult to find definitive information on these things. Anecdotally I used Alisson as a mentor for a bunch of goalkeepers last year as Liverpool and he hadn't played 100  games right at the start of the game and I saw him drop a point of determination before he reached 100, I never saw it happen again with other players who fit the above criteria.

[Snorks]

I guess it depends how you approach the mentoring now - I used to stick fairly rigidly to that formula when you were mentoring one to one. Admittedly I haven't used it that much since it became groups, but I look at the Influence the player would have in the group rather than the age/status (although granted, there are far fewer available in the u23s but one or two older guys who are tailing off a bit) , and set each group up based on what I am looking to achieve, so currently, my groups are named "Aggression" "Determination" etc. If there are no obvious Influential players then it does fall down.  I have one group in the u23s, which was set up to mentor Determination and it seems to be working although still early days for the group.

I'm not a fan of promoting kids to the senior squad until they are at least fringe players, so as much of the development as I can gets implemented in the u23s and u18s. If there is a big enough gap' between the influential player and the rest of he group, and the group isn't too large, I think the stronger character wins overall for he group. I haven;t tried it in this situation, but a Leadership Course might be worth looking at to aid mentoring as well.

 

[drizzlynewt]

4 hours ago, Snorks said:

I guess it depends how you approach the mentoring now - I used to stick fairly rigidly to that formula when you were mentoring one to one. Admittedly I haven't used it that much since it became groups, but I look at the Influence the player would have in the group rather than the age/status (although granted, there are far fewer available in the u23s but one or two older guys who are tailing off a bit) , and set each group up based on what I am looking to achieve, so currently, my groups are named "Aggression" "Determination" etc. If there are no obvious Influential players then it does fall down.  I have one group in the u23s, which was set up to mentor Determination and it seems to be working although still early days for the group.

I'm not a fan of promoting kids to the senior squad until they are at least fringe players, so as much of the development as I can gets implemented in the u23s and u18s. If there is a big enough gap' between the influential player and the rest of he group, and the group isn't too large, I think the stronger character wins overall for he group. I haven;t tried it in this situation, but a Leadership Course might be worth looking at to aid mentoring as well.

 

Have you ever seen aggression actually increase through a mentoring group? I've always been under the impression that a players aggression stat can't really be increased... I've seen it lower if they're being told off or fined for bookings/red cards, but I don't recall ever having seen it increase at all. Similar situation with bravery, although I've seen bravery recover after initially having been lost as a result of an injury.

I've seen significant determination and professionalism attribute gains from players like Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold by putting them in a mentoring group with James Milner, indicating to me that as long as the age is below 24 and the appearances is under 100 even established first team players are malleable when it comes to mentoring. You might want to keep an eye on that in future, see if you find players who don't match those criteria that you put in as the most influential member of a mentoring group losing key attributes.