Youth Prospects

[SMV90]

Hey, guys. So, I feel like we should have a thread dedicated to letting the community see who your best youth players are (whether from an intake or someone you've bought) and how they go during their career. It's a nice change from the topics I'm seeing at the moment and something I think we can all enjoy. I'll get the ball rolling with a couple of mine.

First off, I'll start off with what I think is my best prospect - Ben Nightingale

This guy was involved in a lot of transfer activity over August and the board even went over me and accepted bids because they were 'too good to turn down'. Had (not massive but still big) teams like WBA, Sheffield United, Leicester and similar-level clubs going in for him. Anyway, he decided to stay and I was so delighted because if he's leaving, I'm getting more than the £1.8 million that my board accepted. I was so happy, in fact, that I gave him a massive pay-rise and immediately promoted him to my starting 11. This guy can develop a lot and playing first team football will only help that. I'll post another picture of him in a season or two and we can see how he's developing.

Next up, we have Daniel Emmanuel

This is the other gem from one of my recent intakes. I was surprised that this guy didn't have any interest or bids during the window. He's clearly talented and will only become better over time, The only thing I dislike about him is his average Teamwork and Work Rate stats, but I'm hoping they grow in the coming years. Not sure whether I'll retrain him as my coaches have said he could be trained successfully as a CB. His low Heading puts me off that and I think for now at least he'll stay as a CM. May put some individual training on him to improve his passing. If that can reach maybe 11/12 in a couple of years I'll be happy. As with Nightingale, I'll post another picture in a season or two.

[dewhirst]

I'd be interested to know whether or not you'll end up getting more than 1.8 million for him. Seems like a good amount of money for a team in league one/league two.

[SMV90]

I’ll let you know if he does leave and what the value is. I’ve put in a minimum fee release of £20,000,000. I never expect to get that much but it’s more something to put the hopefully put the AI off.

I’m in League One at the moment. I had a 15-y-o winger go to Leicester for £1.9m and he didn’t look anything special on current ability, so either of these two guys should go for more than he did.

[Rooneye]

How well do players develop at teams with terrible training/youth facilities? Is it possible for them to reach full potential?

[KlaaZ]

1 hour ago, Rooneye said:

How well do players develop at teams with terrible training/youth facilities? Is it possible for them to reach full potential?

Unlikely, also because those teams tend to play in lower leagues and players need to play at a higher level in order to fully develop. 

[Rooneye]

14 hours ago, KlaaZ said:

Unlikely, also because those teams tend to play in lower leagues and players need to play at a higher level in order to fully develop. 

Yeah that's kinda what I was thinking Still though I can't seem to let myself get rid of my 5-star potential kids  

[Andywafc]

Couldn't wait to show this little beauty - playing FM 2017 for so long I never got any prospects to really shout about. Playing FM 2018 for one week and bang this fella turns up.

[Rooneye]

He looks really good, I was thinking his jumping reach is oddly low considering his heading is 15, but then I realised he's only 15yr old so he'll obviously grow and this will get much higher  But yeah he looks an awesome prospect. How good is Crewe's youth setup in game? I know it's quite famous IRL for producing good youngsters.

[Andywafc]

Hi mate,

 

Average youth facilities Level 2 at start. Have an obsession with picking this little team and selling on the gems. With a small stadium, no room for expansion or large fanbase down the line your stuck with your lot unless you get to the Premiership where the payments look after themselves.

 

George Cooper is usually a decent bet - always gets a Championship move but never kicks on afterwards. I don't have much knowledge on regens etc but this is my first season and I managed to persuade "The Beast" Julio Baptista to sign a 1 year deal. Good stats and I'm top of the table with 3 games left! Keeps getting injured but I do wonder whether having a great player at that level influenced the coming along of this 15 year old?

 

I hope to be posting more on this lads development by taking screenshots perhaps at 6 monthly intervals. Not long before the big clubs come offering his market valuation instead of realising the huge potential and offering big - something for FM to sort out. Had plenty prospects I've had to barter a good deal because the bigger clubs always seem to offer his actual market value i.e £13.25k as above.

 

[SMV90]

That guy does look supremely promising. The new Ronaldo maybe (if he grows a little more).

In response to what you said, Klaaz, is it higher level football in general or higher level in comparison to what they would usually be playing?

E.g. League One football is a higher standard than under-18’s football, so technically, he is playing ‘higher level’ football.

News update: my CB broke his foot so was/is out for 3 months.

[Andywafc]

Forced to sell! Had much lower offers over a period of time which wasn't acceptable and haggled to a large cash sum. The minute he turned 16 the big dogs came calling.

[Rooneye]

4 hours ago, Andywafc said:

Forced to sell! Had much lower offers over a period of time which wasn't acceptable and haggled to a large cash sum. The minute he turned 16 the big dogs came calling.

Wow. Are you in debt? Otherwise Crewe saying £700k is too much to turn down for an amazing young prospect is ridiculous and maybe SI should look into adjusting the numbers slightly. For example if it's based on the fact he's only valued at £13k and they've accepted because they've received an offer of like 50 times that, that sounds like a great deal in principle, but really it's not. If the algorithm to control this cannot be more realistic they should just remove it IMO

[Flashman]

19 minutes ago, Rooneye said:

Wow. Are you in debt? Otherwise Crewe saying £700k is too much to turn down for an amazing young prospect is ridiculous and maybe SI should look into adjusting the numbers slightly. For example if it's based on the fact he's only valued at £13k and they've accepted because they've received an offer of like 50 times that, that sounds like a great deal in principle, but really it's not. If the algorithm to control this cannot be more realistic they should just remove it IMO

 

I'm speculating here, but in my experience and from what other users have reported: if the user had tried to sign this player from an AI team, then the AI team would have asked for much more than the amount paid here.  The AI working 'with' the user here has allowed another AI team to sign a player with great potential for a good price.

 

Is this fair?  Should the user just get on with it..?

[SMV90]

Just about to start the new season, so I thought I would update you on my two prospects.

First up is Nightingale:

This is him October last season

This is him 10 months later

He's developed fairly decently, most noticeably on his physicals, but their is small improvements here and there. He's actually just been made vice-captain and with 15 Leadership and 17 Determination, I feel he should perform well in that role. Again, I had offers coming in but I have just been rejecting them. He has a £20m release clause, but realistically, I'd accept between £3.8m-£5m for him. Will either do a January update or an end-of-season update.

Lastly, we have a progress report on Emmanuel:

This is him last October

This is him 10 months later

Like with Nightingale, his progress has been steady and decent. Whilst some stats haven't necessarily jumped up by 2 or 3 etc... a lot of stats have gone up by 1 and it just makes him that little better all-round.

Just for those interested in how they performed last season (I'll do League stats only):

Nightingale played 25 league games, scoring 1 goal and getting 1 assist, at an average rating of 6.90. 

Emmanuel played 34 league games, scoring 4 goals and getting 1 assist, at an average rating of 7.05. It's also worth noting he averaged 85% passing over his 34 games.

[Dagenham_Dave]

10 hours ago, Rooneye said:

Wow. Are you in debt? Otherwise Crewe saying £700k is too much to turn down for an amazing young prospect is ridiculous and maybe SI should look into adjusting the numbers slightly. For example if it's based on the fact he's only valued at £13k and they've accepted because they've received an offer of like 50 times that, that sounds like a great deal in principle, but really it's not. If the algorithm to control this cannot be more realistic they should just remove it IMO

It was clearly £4.7 million he sold him for. The 700k is the amount added to his transfer budget. 

[JordanMilly]

11 hours ago, Rooneye said:

Wow. Are you in debt? Otherwise Crewe saying £700k is too much to turn down for an amazing young prospect is ridiculous and maybe SI should look into adjusting the numbers slightly. For example if it's based on the fact he's only valued at £13k and they've accepted because they've received an offer of like 50 times that, that sounds like a great deal in principle, but really it's not. If the algorithm to control this cannot be more realistic they should just remove it IMO

As it said, the fee was £4.7m, but he only got £700k of that for the transfer budget.

[Rooneye]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

It was clearly £4.7 million he sold him for. The 700k is the amount added to his transfer budget. 

Ohh my bad nevermind

[Andywafc]

1 hour ago, Rooneye said:

Ohh my bad nevermind

Haha! The principle still exists that the AI offer very low sums whereas when you approach the AI you get a silly figure in return.

To get the best deal on this player is where it got really interesting. The board kept accepting 850k with a truck load of add-ons and it wasn't right for the club of this size. Anyway I got to protest the transfer only once where it was effective but successive offers of the same kept coming in (same figures) and the board readily accepting them. It took another club to offer a cash sum for me to barter this and negotiate at 5 million which saw no clubs agreeing - actually only getting to around 3 million. I left this and realised it was going to be 850k with add-ons but once a few days passed the cash sum offers came flying in for £4.7 million. The fear with this is the player will accept the clubs offering 850k when really you want the guy joining a club for £4.7 million. I went to Transfers and noticed a chronological system where if 5 clubs offer the £4.7 million, the earlier bid of 850k (regardless of board accepting) can be cancelled by clicking the red cross.

First time problem for me now is FFP - never ever had this issue and all of a sudden I need to lose £12,500 pm off the bill. Not feasible at all I dunno how I managed to get here! Cannot renew expiring contracts I'm gonna take a hit on a decent CB I'll lose on a free.

I'll follow the progress of Graham Bartle-Barnes and keep you all posted. I suspect I won't get anything like this potential for a long time!

 

 

 

[XaW]

This kid is my most talented at the moment. It's my first season in the Premier League and he is doing quite well for us. He came through the intake last season, and are already being rotated into the first team. Now, if I only had decent facilities...

[SMV90]

@XaW He looks a good prospect. Keep us updated on him. Will be good to see if he becomes a goal-scoring machine 

[Andywafc]

Another! Scout came back saying he's available for 275k and I got it down to 200k with 40% sell-on that I couldn't influence. Hope I can keep this one!

 

That Dom Bolton above looks promising - whoa that's far in to the game :-)

[XaW]

14 minutes ago, Andywafc said:

That Dom Bolton above looks promising - whoa that's far in to the game :-)

Yeah, I've played a couple of seasons already. Didn't take that long to get Marine into the Premier League!

1 hour ago, SMV90 said:

@XaW He looks a good prospect. Keep us updated on him. Will be good to see if he becomes a goal-scoring machine 

I will post every once in a while. Hopefully he will shoot us to glory!

[SMV90]

@XaW What tactic are you using with them?

If points were award for bottling leads and conceding immediately after scoring, I’d have the won the PL already. As it turns out, I don’t get points for that.

May give your tactic a go and see how it does

[XaW]

8 hours ago, SMV90 said:

@XaW What tactic are you using with them?

If points were award for bottling leads and conceding immediately after scoring, I’d have the won the PL already. As it turns out, I don’t get points for that.

May give your tactic a go and see how it does

It's not one tactic, I use a 4-3-3 formation and tweak roles and instructions for each game to suit my needs. I can give you the basics, but since I don't think I've used the same instructions two matches in a row, I don't know how much it would help. I'll see if I can get it uploaded when I get home later.

If you are looking to avoid bottling leads then I would advise you to look another place. I'm the master of it! My last session ended when after losing when I conceded 3 goals after the 87th minute to go from 3-1 to 3-4... I think I need to stop trying to protect leads. I know the theoretical ways to do it, but I can't master the art of actually doing it.

[SMV90]

@XaW I might check out some 4-3-3 tactics and see what I find.

I’m in a massive dilemma now - we are leaking money because, although I’m spending within my wage allowance - it’s still a lot. We are down to like £22,000 balance.

It’s January and I know some clubs are looking at Nightingale and my striker Watts (who’s come on leaps and bounds this season).

Might have to put the clubs financial security ahead of my love for my youth prospects.

[XaW]

1 hour ago, SMV90 said:

@XaW I might check out some 4-3-3 tactics and see what I find.

I’m in a massive dilemma now - we are leaking money because, although I’m spending within my wage allowance - it’s still a lot. We are down to like £22,000 balance.

It’s January and I know some clubs are looking at Nightingale and my striker Watts (who’s come on leaps and bounds this season).

Might have to put the clubs financial security ahead of my love for my youth prospects.

Welcome to lower league management!

You are most likely doomed to lose money unless your board are shoveling cash into the incinerator. Unless you get an away draw to a premier team, of course.

[SMV90]

@XaW I’ve played as Shrews on the last 5 FM’s, but usually I get promoted quick enough to not run in to money problems.

This FM though I’m struggling to get out of League One. Definitely have a squad good enough to make play-offs, just trying to find *the* tactic that is consistent

[XaW]

7 hours ago, SMV90 said:

@XaW I’ve played as Shrews on the last 5 FM’s, but usually I get promoted quick enough to not run in to money problems.

This FM though I’m struggling to get out of League One. Definitely have a squad good enough to make play-offs, just trying to find *the* tactic that is consistent

Yeah, I've had success with my narrow 4-3-3 hoofball. Just punt the ball up to the attackers and hope they can do something, and a bit of support from a couple of the midfielders. Other than that my defense sit back and try to soak up pressure and punt it back up. It's working quite well, though I sometimes get destroyed. If I get the first goal, I usually win, since then they have to send more players upfield and it's fewer bodies back defending. Then my players can counter with ease.

The former days of "Diablo"-tactics are long gone and constant tinkering is what makes for success I feel.

[tajj7]

This is the best youth academy prospect I've had so far, came in the first season's intake and is now pushing for a first team place -

I've also rarely seen a player able to comfortably play so many roles. Sadly the one I am developing him for isn't in that list yet! 

He also started with 7 passing, so it's taken him a while to get to that 13

Not a youth academy product, but this has to be one of the best 17 year older keeper regens I have ever seen -

Attributes are a little weird but I think I can improve some of the weaknesses, passing of 15 and vision of 15 on a GK! 

[SMV90]

@tajj7 I wonder if it’s possible to retrain him in another position. Improve a few things on him and he could be a promising CM with that passion and vision.

[tajj7]

24 minutes ago, SMV90 said:

@tajj7 I wonder if it’s possible to retrain him in another position. Improve a few things on him and he could be a promising CM with that passion and vision.

Has anyone ever done that? Some big deficiencies there though with his technique of 5 and off the ball of 1. 

But once I get him I am going to see what can be done to take advantage of those unique stats, he might be able to start some attacks from the back and I might be able to train some PPMS

[SMV90]

@tajj7 Ball-Playing Sweeper Keeper confirmed.

In other news, the inevitable has happened.

Whilst this is a devastating blow and I'm upset to lose such a quality CB, there is silver lining to be found. I just hope Newcastle actually play him, develop him further and then a bigger team comes in for him at a later date.

[SMV90]

When I first got this guy in my youth intake, he didn't look that good. But, a few years later and he's actually starting to look very promising. Possibly on for a 7.0+ average rating for 3 seasons. Hopefully he'll continue to develop.

We're doing fairly well in the Championship, considering we are expected to go back down. If he can continue his good form, hopefully we can get a decent mid-table finish and build from there.

[XaW]

I just got to follow this up with the kid I just got now.

Probably the best goalkeeping talent I've seen in FM for some time!

[Deisler26]

My two best youth players

[DazRTaylor]

This chap may not look like much, but considering I was in the ninth tier when he arrived in the intake and it is now two and a half years later, he is developing nicely.  He has made sixty six first team appearances for us since then and the potential to be a League One player in the future.  I am currently fighting for promotion from the seventh tier.

[DazRTaylor]

This is my best ever regen, like ever, in the history of playing this game (since 1992/93).  I have not doctored him at all and the name is genuine.  Neil Brock.  He scored over 700 goals for me at Bashley and this is him at his peak.  He arrived in FM17.

[Gribster]

1 hour ago, DazRTaylor said:

This is my best ever regen, like ever, in the history of playing this game (since 1992/93).  I have not doctored him at all and the name is genuine.  Neil Brock.  He scored over 700 goals for me at Bashley and this is him at his peak.  He arrived in FM17.

He accepted a new 5 year deal of £75.00 a week, he's obviously not the sharpest tool in the box

[Gribster]

I've had some luck (thankfully) with my Aberdeen save, unfortunately a lot of them are coming through strong in positions I don't or rarely use (wide midfielders/wingers/amc)

My first intake included two fellas, Baxter and Cummings

Baxter I have high hopes for he's naturally a CM but I'm looking to have him as an optional roaming forward. He's already played a few games due to an injury crisis and done well, will hopefully go on loan to a decent English Championship side this year

Cummings hasn't had any chances yet, he is currently being trained as a RWB a position I am weak at and lack cover. Once he is more accomplished here I hope to loan him

 

In my second intake I got another gem, Shankland. Unfortunately he got injured at the end of last season, I hope this wont hamper his development too bad. Before that he had already broken into the rotation doing most of his good work from the bench. Despite his poor finishing he has been great when filling in upfront during the injury crisis. I'm currently training him to play as an offensive CM, he will be staying at the club unless a cracking loan offer comes in with the right manager, right league and the best training facilities (mine are woeful at senior level and the board don't care) 

[Gribster]

This season I got my intake and was quoted something along the lines of 'whisper it quietly but this years intake is being touted as a golden generation'

DAMN

Potentially FIVE players with potential of 3.5(possibly 4.5) to 4(possibly 5) stars. A one has a poor attitude and another couple might have work to do with their CA but we'll see...

Black is useless to me positional wise and his current stats aren't doing him any favours. He'll be retrained as a RWB

 

Watt is a CB, a position I need new blood in eventually but he has a stinking attitude and terrible determination, I'll work on this, he has  a shot given his position

 

Gauld will be a CM, a bit lacking technically he isn't likely to get a look in at all with my strength and depth even with a 3 man midfield, but he does have great mental and would fit in well with my team that has overachieved (reaching the second knock out in Europa league this year only to lose to a strong Valencia side) with his hard work and togetherness

 

Angus has a great chance of making something of himself here, he couldn't defend himself against a 90 year old granny with two glass eyes. He has it were it counts though and could end up getting games sooner rather than later

 

and the star of the show

Blanchard, will be retrained as a ST and should expect a handful of games

[steakfaced]

23 hours ago, DazRTaylor said:

This is my best ever regen, like ever, in the history of playing this game (since 1992/93).  I have not doctored him at all and the name is genuine.  Neil Brock.  He scored over 700 goals for me at Bashley and this is him at his peak.  He arrived in FM17.

0 caps!!!