FM17 Youth Academy Challenge - IFK Trelleborg

[mjaferrie]

A controversial twist of events as our rivals Trelleborgs FF offer me the manager position at their club!  Sorry lads, but there's only one team in town for me.

[mjaferrie]

Season Review

We spent most of the season at the top of the table and went into the last few games in the playoff position.  Ran into some poor form though and it wasn't to be, which is probably a good thing as it gives us a bit more time to prepare for moving up the divisions.  To be honest I couldn't believe how "easy" this league is as we only just came up last year, I was expecting a much more difficult year fighting it out for survival but we did really well.

Here's how the table looked at the end of the season:



We're not far off it, and if we can maintain the same kind of form as this year we could realistically go up next season or the one after.  A couple of good intakes will help!  Unsurprisingly Wihlborg was our player of the season with a 7.32 rating, which gives some idea of how we scraped through games at times.



Really happy with some of the guys who came through this year though and we had 17 of our youth prospects getting minutes, a big improvement on last season.  We've got the group stage of the cup to look forward to this year, although we've been drawn against Premier Division team IFK Göteborg and First Division Elite teams Dalkurd FF and Landskrona BolS so I'm not confident of getting anything other than gate receipts from that.  

Expectations for next season?
Well, based on last season's form, I'd like to aim for the top 4 again.  I don't want to go up, a playoff game for some additional gate money would be nice, but I don't think we're ready just yet.  Although, having said that, we blew that theory out of the water so far this season so who knows.  

I'm in two minds about Wihlborg.  He won't sign a new contract and he'll be able to leave for free in 1 year.  Do I risk losing him for nothing altogether, or should I try and shift him now with a nice sell on % given that we have ample backup in Nyberg (YP3a) and Olausson (YP3f)... What do you reckon?

Stats:

 

[mjaferrie]

Pre Season and Cup Roundup

Well, the cup went about as well as I could have expected... at least we were consistent? 



Not ideal, but we at least got a goal and some much needed gate cash.  We're currently -£157k with loan debt of £350k as well so our financial situation is pretty dire, meaning we haven't been able to upgrade our youth or training facilities at all since the beginning of the save.  

Preseason was a bit of a different story, with some big results against teams at a much higher level than ourselves.  I usually like to play a bit safe in preseason, with games against teams around about our level or lower with a focus on building fitness and tactical awareness before the season kicks off, but given our finances the focus so far in this save is how much money can I get, which has meant games against big teams. 

We've got a bit of an injury crisis heading into the first games of the season which isn't ideal - since this screenshot Shala is out for 4 weeks and YP3e for 2 - but at least it will mean some minutes on the field for our best prospects and hopefully we can grab some results anyway. 

 

 

[mjaferrie]

Mid Season Review

We're top of the league and you're no!  1 goal difference separates us and IFK Värnamo after 14 games with our GK Marko Lukic keeping 7 clean sheets so far.



Unsurprisingly Ola Wihlborg is yet again our best player so far with an average rating of 7.24, but Falkenbergs FF, Jönköpings Södra IF, Malmö FF and BK Häcken are all sniffing around.  The best offer we've had has only been £2,600, and given his value is £4,000 and his current ability is "very well-suited to Premier Division football" I'm going to have to keeping rejecting offers.  He's under contract until 30/11/2021, so I might let him go in the winter window.



And an end of an era as the first player to retire moves on to become our Chief Scout - don't really need any scouts in this save at all but it gives a better idea of the CA and PA of our squad (I think?) and I want to move as many players as I can into our backroom team.  Our Assistant Manager, Captain and stalwart D(R,C) Dennis Melander probably isn't long behind him either as he's now 37 and already retired from full-time football.  He's been continuing part-time with us for the last 2 seasons.

[mjaferrie]

Youth Intake Day

Some brilliant additions to the squad, including extra cover at CB with Wihlborg, Nyborg and Olausson all attracting interest.  We like a solid defender on the south coast of Sweden!













In other news, we got through the first round of the cup on penalties after a 0-0 draw with Ängelholms FF - and were rewarded with a home draw to Premier Division team GIF Sundsvall.  We were 1-0 up at half time and I thought we might have a scalp on our hands, before 2 goals in the last 14 minutes saw us knocked out.  A record attendance of 343 (up from 215) and record gate receipts of £4k (up from £1.5k) is a bonus though.

[Ceching You Out]

14 hours ago, mjaferrie said:

I'm in two minds about Wihlborg.  He won't sign a new contract and he'll be able to leave for free in 1 year.  Do I risk losing him for nothing altogether, or should I try and shift him now with a nice sell on % given that we have ample backup in Nyberg (YP3a) and Olausson (YP3f)... What do you reckon?

Stats:

 

Unless the money is going to change the trajectory of your club, may as well hang on to him. If you sneak a promotion he may just re-sign. Otherwise he's got a lot of work to do to before the sell-on would be significant.

[mjaferrie]

9 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

Unless the money is going to change the trajectory of your club, may as well hang on to him. If you sneak a promotion he may just re-sign. Otherwise he's got a lot of work to do to before the sell-on would be significant.

Yeah it's a tricky one - out of interest I just negotiated an offer and clubs will accept an offer of £100k with a 50% sell on aswell...  I rejected it, but I could try and go for even higher.

[mjaferrie]

Season Review

After spending most of the season in 1st or 2nd place, we bottled it towards the end and finished up in 4th with the exact same points total as last season.  Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present to you the Swedish Arsenal!  We scored 7 more and conceded 10 less than last season though, and actually conceded the least amount of goals in the division, so as far as I'm concerned we're making progress.  I think I'll push for promotion next season, we don't have the cup group stage this time to put a massive dent in our morale so I think we might be able to pull it off, and 2 promotions in 4 seasons would be an incredible achievement.

 

Wihlborg was again, unsurprisingly, our best player of the season, and he's actually been playing mostly as a left back.  With the introduction of Nyberg and Olausson to the squad at centre back, I pushed Wihlborg out to accommodate our 3 star players in a 4 defender formation, and have also been using a 5-4-1 when we're up against it. We've had some great progress with some of our players again this year with around 15-20 players getting regular game time.  These guys have been the stand outs:













Aims for next season:

Promotion.  I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that I want to go up this year, I think we've performed well enough the last couple of years but fell off a bit towards the end of the season.  A bit more consistency and I think we can manage it.  I'd also like to get through to the group stage again in the cup as we are in desperate need of the cash - I still haven't been able to upgrade my youth or training facilities, although our junior coaching is now at a good level.  We are currently almost £150k in the red with £600k loan debt as well, so if a club comes in with a good offer for Wihlborg I can see the board overruling and accepting.

Here's some stats going into 2021 (Season tickets and TV money for next season haven't been announced yet):


 

[mjaferrie]

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  A club record sale - GIF Sundsvall offered £1,900 with 40% sell on and a friendly, which I tried to negotiate to £250k with 50% sell on and they refused.  In come Djurgården IF with a £2,600, 40% and friendly offer which I negotiated up to £200k and a 50% sell on fee.  Every player has his price tag!



EDIT:  Jeezo, every single player in my squad has gained 1 star CA and PA.  Mental.  The board and fans are also raging.  Happy days.

[MadCatPT]

I need some Swedish magic/massages/booze to get my players more stars!

What is the trick? 

[ExeChris]

That's some seriously good youth intakes there.  I'm doing similar at Huddinge in Sweden (FM16) and have been lucky to get anyone over 2.5 stars potential in 3 years.

[mjaferrie]

1 hour ago, MadCatPT said:

I need some Swedish magic/massages/booze to get my players more stars!

What is the trick? 

The trick is get rid of your best player The stars are relative to your squad as a whole, so when Wihlborg left the relative ability of the squad increased by a whole star - mental eh!

[mjaferrie]

37 minutes ago, ExeChris said:

That's some seriously good youth intakes there.  I'm doing similar at Huddinge in Sweden (FM16) and have been lucky to get anyone over 2.5 stars potential in 3 years.

I've changed my HOYD almost every year, just keeping an eye on it to see if better options are becoming available.  Seriously need to get the youth facilities up though... even with the extra £200k the board won't agree to it.  How's it going at Huddinge?

[MadCatPT]

9 minutes ago, mjaferrie said:

The trick is get rid of your best player The stars are relative to your squad as a whole, so when Wihlborg left the relative ability of the squad increased by a whole star - mental eh!

Duh! 

[mjaferrie]

4 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

Duh! 

Ah, you mean in the intakes right... I'd recommend the Swedish booze then

[MadCatPT]

Actually was meaning that I don't want the increase by best player leaving.

[mjaferrie]

It's brutal mate, Wihlborg was a 5* and "well suited to Premier Division".  My best player now is 4.5* and "Well suited to Division 2".

Anyway, time for another Preseason Review!

We lost our star man in defence and in the first few games of preseason we definitely felt it.  Our dreams of achieving promotion this year looked to be fading away very rapidly as we shipped 11 goals in 4 games, only scoring once in the process.  Things started to look up though, bar a defeat to lower league team Nybro IF, and we should be in good shape heading into the season.  We yet again have many of our star players out with injury at the beginning of the season though, so I might need to have a rethink about the level of training and/or number of games to try and curb that a bit - the level of medical staff we can get at the moment is pretty dire which doesn't help either.  

[JMA]

I like what you have done so far here mate well done. Looks like this could be a good long term career

[MadCatPT]

Last season no major injuries, this season lost 4 starters adding to 1 more from last season.

The difference was the focus, Balanced last season and Fitness this one.

Which focus are you using?

[mjaferrie]

45 minutes ago, JMA said:

I like what you have done so far here mate well done. Looks like this could be a good long term career

Cheers man!  Not sure how long term it's going to be actually, this season has been an absolute disaster so far!  6 games in, 3 draws and 3 losses.  It's think it's fair to say that selling Wihlborg was a pretty bad idea...

 

28 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

Last season no major injuries, this season lost 4 starters adding to 1 more from last season.

The difference was the focus, Balanced last season and Fitness this one.

Which focus are you using?

Fitness for the first half and then tactics for the second.  I'll try just sticking it on balanced for next preseason and see if that helps, thanks mate! 

[MadCatPT]

That is brutal.

And I was sad for 4 points from 4 games.

Did your expected place changed and teams are playing you differently?

[Jimbokav1971]

On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 09:16, mjaferrie said:

We unearthed a monster! 
Our second youth intake and we're greeted with this:



Actually a pretty poor intake overall, but Wihlborg more than makes up for it.  Our current first team CBs are 33 and 35 so this is a position we were needing reinforcement in.  We got an AMC in this time, but i don't think Östlind is going to be getting much if any game time - YP2j and YP2k can also play in that position.

Properly loving Wihlborg, but also liking the professionalism coming through the intake.

Looking at Wihlborg again, I wonder if your current ageing centre-backs are rated poorly and thats why Wihlborgs CA is so unusually high?

[Jimbokav1971]

4 hours ago, mjaferrie said:

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  A club record sale - GIF Sundsvall offered £1,900 with 40% sell on and a friendly, which I tried to negotiate to £250k with 50% sell on and they refused.  In come Djurgården IF with a £2,600, 40% and friendly offer which I negotiated up to £200k and a 50% sell on fee.  Every player has his price tag!



EDIT:  Jeezo, every single player in my squad has gained 1 star CA and PA.  Mental.  The board and fans are also raging.  Happy days.

Would be good for you to keep us updated on Wihlborgs career, at least until we work out if he is as good as initially thought or just a big fish in a small pond.

[Jimbokav1971]

On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 19:02, mjaferrie said:

Youth Intake Day!

Another fantastic intake, with Nyberg and Olausson more than capable replacements for Wihlborg when he inevitably moves on.  Also a fantastic replacement for Melander (who is now our AssMan as well as winding down his career as our go to DR) in YP3b.  Really happy with this!  Here are some screenshots:

7x 5.0 players in an intake is something I dont think I have ever seen before. 

Are you doing much tutoring?

[Jimbokav1971]

50 minutes ago, mjaferrie said:

Cheers man!  Not sure how long term it's going to be actually, this season has been an absolute disaster so far!  6 games in, 3 draws and 3 losses.  It's think it's fair to say that selling Wihlborg was a pretty bad idea...

 

Fitness for the first half and then tactics for the second.  I'll try just sticking it on balanced for next preseason and see if that helps, thanks mate! 

As someone else suggested, at this stage of the save, its sometimes worth keeping the player and letting him see out his contract. He may leave on a free and you might lose out on the cash and the re-sale value, but that may be the price of promotion or whatever your goals are that season. As was also mentioned previously, promotion also might be enough to make him sign a new contract.

[mjaferrie]

46 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

That is brutal.

And I was sad for 4 points from 4 games.

Did your expected place changed and teams are playing you differently?

The media still predict that we will finish in 14th place, even after 2 seasons of coming 4th.  So nothing new there and the board still expects us to just fight to beat relegation...  
 

26 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Properly loving Wihlborg, but also liking the professionalism coming through the intake.

Looking at Wihlborg again, I wonder if your current ageing centre-backs are rated poorly and thats why Wihlborgs CA is so unusually high?

 

23 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Would be good for you to keep us updated on Wihlborgs career, at least until we work out if he is as good as initially thought or just a big fish in a small pond.

 

16 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

7x 5.0 players in an intake is something I dont think I have ever seen before. 

Are you doing much tutoring?

I've kept him subscribed to aye, so far it looks as though he's played every game in the Premier Division this season, and he's also been capped by the U21s since leaving us.  None of our other players have been called up to the U19s or U21s at all so as far as that goes there's some difference in class.
I was pretty lucky with the personalities of the squad at the beginning, mostly balanced, fairly sporting or fairly professional, my HOYD is currently fairly sporting.  A lot of tutoring yeah, basically whenever possible.

[mjaferrie]

4 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

As someone else suggested, at this stage of the save, its sometimes worth keeping the player and letting him see out his contract. He may leave on a free and you might lose out on the cash and the re-sale value, but that may be the price of promotion or whatever your goals are that season. As was also mentioned previously, promotion also might be enough to make him sign a new contract.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing  To be honest I was hoping the cash would be enough to upgrade my youth facilities and just bit the bullet.  Wasn't to be!

[deltablue]

Good luck turning it around.

[mjaferrie]

Mid Season Report

Well, a bit of an improvement but nothing to write home about to be honest.  We're up to the giddy heights of 9th in the table, with a grand total of 3 wins from 14 games.  Bit of good news in beating Mjällby AIF on penalties in the cup, so we're through to the 2nd round there and still on target for a group stage place.  It's fair to say this season has been absolutely brutal!  Hopefully we can slug it out for the second half and keep our heads above water - we might even get a Wihlborg 2.0 in the intake (said the desperate man...)

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, mjaferrie said:

I was pretty lucky with the personalities of the squad at the beginning, mostly balanced, fairly sporting or fairly professional, my HOYD is currently fairly sporting.  A lot of tutoring yeah, basically whenever possible.

Just a little hint, but Balanced is a rubbish personality. It sort of sounds like it is middle of the road and not too bad, but it is actually poor. The maximum the Pro can be is only 14, and that's all that really counts in Youth Development. Nothing else matters. In terms of on the pitch performances, other factors come in to play, (most notably Determination), but in a save like yours, my advice is Pro all the way until such time as you are successful enough to worry about something else. 

Balanced Pro 1-14, Det 1-14, Amb 1-14, Loy & Spo 1-14

Any level of mentioned Professionalism is good, (the higher the better obviously).

Model Citizen Pro 18-20, Det 18-20, Pre 18-20, Amb 18-20, Loy 18-20, Spo 18-20, Tem 18-20

Model Professional Pro 20, Tem 10-20

Professional Pro 18-19, Tem 10-20

Perfectionist Pro 18-20, Det 18-20, Amb 18-20, Tem 1-9

Resolute Pro 15-20, Det 15-20, Pre 1-16 Spo 5-20

Fairly Professional Pro 15-20, Det 1-14

[Edit]

Basically, you need to have a reason to tutor. If it's to pass on a PPM that you want then great, but ideally it's to improve the hidden attributes, (and determination), of a player. You have to remember that you can just as easily decline a player via tutoring as you can improve him.

[mjaferrie]

2 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Just a little hint, but Balanced is a rubbish personality. It sort of sounds like it is middle of the road and not too bad, but it is actually poor. The maximum the Pro can be is only 14, and that's all that really counts in Youth Development. Nothing else matters. In terms of on the pitch performances, other factors come in to play, (most notably Determination), but in a save like yours, my advice is Pro all the way until such time as you are successful enough to worry about something else. 

Balanced Pro 1-14, Det 1-14, Amb 1-14, Loy & Spo 1-14

Any level of mentioned Professionalism is good, (the higher the better obviously).

Model Citizen Pro 18-20, Det 18-20, Pre 18-20, Amb 18-20, Loy 18-20, Spo 18-20, Tem 18-20

Model Professional Pro 20, Tem 10-20

Professional Pro 18-19, Tem 10-20

Perfectionist Pro 18-20, Det 18-20, Amb 18-20, Tem 1-9

Resolute Pro 15-20, Det 15-20, Pre 1-16 Spo 5-20

Fairly Professional Pro 15-20, Det 1-14

That's great advice mate, thanks a lot.  I remember reading something along those lines around the time of FM12 or 13, but I'd completely forgotten about it until I read through the numbers on your own thread just there.

By the way, I had a thought about the youth intake as well - I don't know if it makes any difference at all, but I make sure that in the run up to the intake day I move all of my players in the U19s up to the U21s.  I seem to remember in an earlier version less players would come through if your U19 squad was pretty bloated.

Having said that as well, I'm going to have to offload a lot of deadweight at the end of this season I think.  I've already let 10 go in the summer window, and I have 26 players out on loan (including our top scorer for the first 2 or 3 seasons Fisnik Shala - he's dropped down to 5th in the pecking order and I play with only one striker usually so he was wanting a new challenge).  

[mjaferrie]

Youth Intake Day

@Jimbokav1971 I'm really disappointed with this one - only SIX 5.0s, what the hell is happening here?!  4 of these guys are going straight into our first team, this is unreal!



A wee look at the best of the bunch:

[MadCatPT]

Your intake has been completely crazy, wouldn't mind it for me. Got a new HOYD, so hopefully I'll get intake like this. 

[mjaferrie]

Just finished the season but I'm travelling from Scotland to Finland today so updates will be pretty slow.  Check this out though - Wihlborg has spent only 1 season at Djurgården IF, when he left us his value was £4k and we sold him for £200k.  He's now worth £100k, and played in 21 Allsvenskan and 4 Cup games this season.  Judging by who is sniffing around after him, we really did have a monster!  Can you believe this guy came in when we were in the bottom division!?

 

[granarian]

Really enjoying this story mjaferrie. How do you get through the seasons so quickly? Do you have just text commentary on?

Your youth intake has been insane, very tempted to do a similar challenge. 

Also whats a HOYD?

[LPQR]

2 minutes ago, granarian said:

Also whats a HOYD?

Head of Youth Development

[granarian]

8 minutes ago, LPQR said:

Head of Youth Development

Thanks.

So are we saying that HOYD influences the quality of youth intake? If so is it any particular attribute?

[LPQR]

1 minute ago, granarian said:

Thanks.

So are we saying that HOYD influences the quality of youth intake? If so is it any particular attribute?

not sure if posting of external links is allowed on this forum, but have a read, it's extremely important if you're into youth development

http://www.passion4fm.com/football-manager-staff-role-head-of-youth-development/

[MadCatPT]

I hired a better HOYD this year, I'm hoping to see a better "crop". 

[Muttley84]

Wouldn't mind myself one of those Youth Intakes also. That's a massive boost to your club, hope you can improve the facilities a bit also to consolidate on that. Good luck!

[mjaferrie]

1 hour ago, granarian said:

Really enjoying this story mjaferrie. How do you get through the seasons so quickly? Do you have just text commentary on?

Your youth intake has been insane, very tempted to do a similar challenge. 

Also whats a HOYD?

 

1 hour ago, granarian said:

Thanks.

So are we saying that HOYD influences the quality of youth intake? If so is it any particular attribute?

Thanks @granarian! My general 'philosophy' is that if I win a game, I let myself holiday the next game.  If I lose or draw, I play the next one and I play in 3D.  So needless to say with the horrific start we had this year it took a bit longer than usual  The link the @LPQR shared is really good - my understanding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong!) is that the level of your Junior Coaching and your HOYD's "Working with Youngsters" value will affect the youth intake's CA, and the level of your Youth Recruitment and the HOYD's scouting credentials (Judging Potential / Ability) will affect the PA.  The personality of the HOYD will result in more players coming through with that personality - which might not directly affect the level of the player when they come in at first but it will affect how they develop over the course of their career (in my experience my players all stop developing at around 25 in game - so it's important to get them as much game time and as good a personality as possible so they develop as quickly as possible).  
 

52 minutes ago, MadCatPT said:

I hired a better HOYD this year, I'm hoping to see a better "crop". 

Good luck mate!

[mjaferrie]

Alright troops!  Here I am in Copenhagen airport with a couple of hours to kill and a pint to keep me company - it's time for a Season Review!

Lots to talk about this time round - we'll start off with a few high profile departures, most notably our top scorer from season 1, Xhemajli.  Xhemajli had made a grand total of 10 appearances over the last 2 seasons, so was surplus to requirements and had fallen considerably down the pecking order.  We also see the retirements of early-save stalwarts Haris Berisha and Tobias Jansson (who together made a grand total of zero appearances in the last 2 years) and I decided against renewing the contract of former player of the season and go-to holding midfielder Fredrik Jönsson.  Again, a total of 6 appearances in 2 years and with the high salaries these guys were on, I just couldn't afford to hold on to them.  









A small update on how Wihlborg is getting on up there in the glamour of the Allsvenskan - PSG have cooled their interest, but Manchester United and Juventus have been joined by Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Liverpool in chasing the signing of our Swedish superstar.  It seems pretty inevitable that he's destined for Champions League and European Championship nights in some way or another.



And the moment you've all been waiting for...!  How did our disastrous season end up?  Am I still chowing down on rotten fish on the bonnie south coast of Sweden or did I get spat out in the unforgiving world of youth-only management?  Well, given our preseason dreams of promotion, this season was by any interpretation a failure - but a 13-game, club-record, unbeaten run saw us climb out of the relegation zone and we finished the season in 7th place!  A major disappointment given our last couple of years, but we hung in there!  We also scraped through the 2nd round of the cup and we've been drawn in the group stage alongside Allsvenskan sides IFK Norrköping and Hammarby IF and Superettan side Ätvidabergs Fotballförening.




 

[mjaferrie]

Haha, no sooner had I made this post than I get a notification that Ola Wilhborg has signed for Juventus in a £850,000 deal.  The big man gets his big move!



He has also just made his debut aged 19 for Sweden in a friendly 3-1 loss to Denmark.

[AFH]

Cool to see one of your own playing for a team like Juve already. Nice start to your career!

[MadCatPT]

50% on sell clause. 

[Jimbokav1971]

6 hours ago, LPQR said:

not sure if posting of external links is allowed on this forum, but have a read, it's extremely important if you're into youth development

http://www.passion4fm.com/football-manager-staff-role-head-of-youth-development/

I don't think the Mods mind as long as it's on-Topic and not advertising, (which I don't think this is at all).

The only thing I would say about this link is that just because someone writes it, and then produces it as tidy and well-presented article in a blog or a magazine, doesn't actually make it true. However well-presented, it's still nothing more than one single person's opinion on the subject at hand. While there is indeed some good stuff in that article, a lot of it is just waffle and it actually contains some glaring inaccuracies too. He is writing about what is commonly "perceived" as being a "best guess" in some situations, but he doesn't actually know. The general consensus is that it must be true because it's written in a neat article and posted online by an SI Affiliate and this is just wrong.  FInd out for yourself and make up your own mind. It should also be mentioned that the article is from FM14, (I think), and the game has progressed a fair bit since then. 

Read a lot. Ask for opinions. Think about it, but make your own mind up. 

[LPQR]

2 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

FInd out for yourself and make up your own mind. It should also be mentioned that the article is from FM14, (I think), and the game has progressed a fair bit since then. 

Read a lot. Ask for opinions. Think about it, but make your own mind up. 

Of course, it's just an opinion  and, of course, everybody's responsible for the conclusions they make for themselves. The article (in my opinion) shows a correlation between stats like JPA, JCA, W/w/Y and personality and the effects they should have on the game according to what the game tells you itself, that's the basic idea. I appreciate you've put a lot of effort in figuring out the maths/mechanics of the game when it comes to these things, and it's actually very interesting reading your perspective. My question is are we supposed to get that deep into pretty much how the game is coded just to make sense of and enjoy this game? Plus, I find it natural and more realistic that there's no clear pattern when it comes to youth recruitment, however I have to say, playing for a few years now, and especially in FM16 and from what I've seen so far in FM17 too, there's a clear equation: the better the HOYD(in his highlighted roles) -  the better the players coming through the intakes. It's not entirely defined by the HOYD, of course, but it makes a big difference, again, from my experience.

[ashton321]

Good stuff in turning it round mate. 

 

Is it bad for me to say i am more excited to see the progress of Whilborg than anything else in this save. 

 

KUTGW

[mjaferrie]

9 hours ago, ashton321 said:

Good stuff in turning it round mate. 

 

Is it bad for me to say i am more excited to see the progress of Whilborg than anything else in this save. 

 

KUTGW

Hahaha, to be honest mate I think I am too  

[mjaferrie]

15 hours ago, Muttley84 said:

Wouldn't mind myself one of those Youth Intakes also. That's a massive boost to your club, hope you can improve the facilities a bit also to consolidate on that. Good luck!

Even with the 200k from Wihlborg, the board pumping 120k in to cover costs and getting 275k and 155k over the next 12 months from Wihlborg's move to Juventus, the board still won't improve youth or training facilities due to the club's financial situation...  I have to say actually, this board are a total nightmare.  There are elections every year and up until now the board have been easily swayed - if I wanted to do a coaching course, improve junior coaching or get an affiliate club then I could usually talk them into it.  This board aren't having any of it!  Although having said that they're the only one's to put any money into the club, the rest have just been taking out loan after loan and putting us more and more in debt.