Youth players how many games do you give them.

[Tsubodai]

I'm interested in what people think is the right balance of first team appearances compared to loaning out the youngster. At the moment i try and get players 15-18 10-15 games a season mostly from the bench for 30mins then full games in the COP if i can't do this i will loan them out to teams with high quality youth training facilities.

18-21 if i can't give them regular first team football i loan them out to other PL teams if i can again with high quality youth training facilities.

Was just wondering what other people do to try and maximize a players potential.

[ragnarokflame]

I'm interested in what people think is the right balance of first team appearances compared to loaning out the youngster. At the moment i try and get players 15-18 10-15 games a season mostly from the bench for 30mins then full games in the COP if i can't do this i will loan them out to teams with high quality youth training facilities.

18-21 if i can't give them regular first team football i loan them out to other PL teams if i can again with high quality youth training facilities.

Was just wondering what other people do to try and maximize a players potential.

my top under 18s i usually end up giving them about 35-50 appearences over a season (most subs, and bearing in mind i play around 65 games a season if i stay in all competitions to the later stages)

after they get to 18 (or 2 star ability) i try and give them 25-30 spaced out starts, taking them off as soon as they get to about 75% condition and try to avoid burnout by giving them only 1 game a week (although for example if i have wigan in the league then a cup game against a poor club i may stick em in for both).

the rule i use for avoiding overplaying them is that i only start them when they have 100% condition before a game.

not sure if its the most efficient method but i very rarely get players not meeting at least close to their potential. the first youngster i used this method on was a 15 year old striker, who is now 22 and has ridiculous ability (20 finishing composure and off the ball, 18 technique and pace, 19 accelleration, 17 dribbling, 17 agility, 16 balance, 15 strength, 15 stamina, 17 creativity and workrate, 15 teamwork, 14 passing. got 72 goals in 53 games last season, as well as 34 assists)

[BiggusD]

At the top level (Premier League etc) players of Championship or lower quality will not necessarily perform well. Players need to perform well in order to get the max out of their development. Thus, I tend to not give youngsters that many chances in the first eleven (or eighteen) until they are good enough to perform respectably on their own. Sub appearances tend to give 6.6 as rating because there is no time to actually make an impact, so that won't maximize the development rate as much as a starting 11 apperance where he plays 7.0 or better.

Usually, 15-17 year-olds develop well in the youth team without much 1st team experience. From that point and onwards, match experience becomes more and more important. An 18-year old should, like both me and you do, play 10-20 matches a year, most as starters.

Edit: what I mean in a nutshell is don't play them if they aren't good enough. If they are, play them as much as you can, without exhausting them. I recon that 15-year-old mentioned in the post above -was- good enough at 15, judging by the end result