How bad is the youth development bug right now?

[backpocket]

I’m feeling iffy about having a long term save right now, simply cause youth players barely develop now or worse just regress.

If you’re a few seasons deep just how bad is it, and did you find a workaround? 

Im seriously thinking of just having a golden oldies save until this is patched which might be months from now. 

[Prepper_Jack]

Not really sure what bug you are referring to. I've had a number of mine develop fine. Others did stagnate, but only after it mentioned they started slacking off after they got their contract. To remedy that I just had a chat with those particular individuals about how they'd be removed from the team if they didn't start working hard.

[Dagenham_Dave]

41 minutes ago, backpocket said:

I’m feeling iffy about having a long term save right now, simply cause youth players barely develop now or worse just regress.

 

Have you actually experienced this, or have you just read about it on here? 

[wicksyFM]

43 minutes ago, backpocket said:

I’m feeling iffy about having a long term save right now, simply cause youth players barely develop now or worse just regress.

If you’re a few seasons deep just how bad is it, and did you find a workaround? 

Im seriously thinking of just having a golden oldies save until this is patched which might be months from now. 

I wouldn't say its a bug. Yet. To me It looks like it could be something to do with facilities. My youth players in my save with good facilities seem to be doing ok. But my save where youth players have poor facilities, the players are showing little to no inprovement. 

[Prepper_Jack]

I mean, I personally had one guy on loan regress, but the team he played for was pretty trash. Players can regress at your own club too, if you mismanage them, so I really didn't think much of it.

[wicksyFM]

Development with poor facilities is definitely slower than in previous FMs. 

[Prepper_Jack]

2 minutes ago, wicksyFM said:

I wouldn't say its a bug. Yet. To me It looks like it could be something to do with facilities. My youth players in my save with good facilities seem to be doing ok. But my save where youth players have poor facilities, the players are showing little to no inprovement. 

Basic to poor facilities has meant horrible development for a while, though. Can often take a year or two to see any noticeable improvement in a player under those conditions. And I means 1 point a year in a given stat noticeable. I don't think that's particularly realistic, as some of the best players in the world didn't have access to all the niceties the big clubs do, and still they exist. But it's not really a new thing as far as FM is concerned.

[backpocket]

My previous saves were with Bayern and Arsenal tho, so I’m not sure poor facilities is it 😅

[backpocket]

38 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Have you actually experienced this, or have you just read about it on here? 

My youth players seem to be improving slower than FM21, some are just red arrows. I didn’t think about it too much and just thought it was a failure and loaned/sold most of them.

Then I saw the posts here and I thought, Oh wait is that it?

Haven’t started a long term save yet as I’m still trying the mechanics now with bigger teams.

But judging from the responses could be mismanagement from my side, or development speed is slower.

I did read through the bug reports and felt a bit concerned cause I only have around 60ish hours and these are observations from beta and full saves.

But if you guys think it’s okay, give me another 100 hours and I’ll get back on it.

Edited November 11, 2021 by backpocket

[backpocket]

Can you close this mods? I'll come back with a new thread after another 100 hours or so 

[wicksyFM]

15 minutes ago, backpocket said:

My youth players seem to be improving slower than FM21, some are just red arrows. I didn’t think about it too much and just thought it was a failure and loaned/sold most of them.

Then I saw the posts here and I thought, Oh wait is that it?

Haven’t started a long term save yet as I’m still trying the mechanics now with bigger teams.

But judging from the responses could be mismanagement from my side, or development speed is slower.

I did read through the bug reports and felt a bit concerned cause I only have around 60ish hours and these are observations from beta and full saves.

But if you guys think it’s okay, give me another 100 hours and I’ll get back on it.

I think its ok. I just looked at my youth team with an editor and the CA of a decent amount of the players were going up. Some had even gone up by 5 or 6 points in 6 months 

[backpocket]

3 minutes ago, wicksyFM said:

I think its ok. I just looked at my youth team with an editor and the CA of a decent amount of the players were going up. Some had even gone up by 5 or 6 points in 6 months 

Yeah I looked back at my saves and I *think* I'm hyper-fixating on the fact that my 3/4 star youth players seem to stagnant mentally and technically, even if their physicals have improved. 

But I'm only half season in full release, so I probably shouldn't have worried so fast. Will check how it goes in 4-5 seasons before stupidly making a thread again.

[Domoboy23]

It actually looks to me that finally facilities and coaching matter more.

Hopefully the number of wonderkids will now reduce. Previously had to use mods to reduce the game being swamped by wonderkids and then diluting how special it is to have one

[evilpimp972]

I've noticed since the beta I had De la fuente not improving much at 20 yrs old but had a breakthrough at 22 and basically became a beast.

It looks like it's much slower now and some 23 yrs old can have big boosts compared to before when you were done improving at 21 lol

I kinda love it

[Daveincid]

This is actually a huge step forward compared to FM21. We now finally have lost wonderkids! It's not a bug, it's a feature  

[Icy]

If it's just slowed down and not a bug, I'm so happy about it, as in past versions it was so easy and good strategy to just field a team with 18-20 years old beasts who had developed too fast.

[FrazT]

The feeling from those that have gone deeper into the game is that the quality of coaches and training facilities is having more impact in this version and if you dont have reasonable numbers on those 2 areas, you do run the risk of some of the youths not developing as you might have hoped.   There appears to be no real evidence yet that, if you have good coaches and facilities, your youth prospects will not develop normally 

[Marinho]

Just to name another possible reason: How many games are they playing ? I was puzzled about the best 2 prospects from my first youth intake regressing. Then i noticed that due to me having a very small U23 Squad they were pulling essentially double duty and were on track to 60 games or sth crazy like that (so obviously were not training much and if they did then often at half intensity as per my settings). Went out of my way to sign some scrubs for the U23, promoted some U18 players who won't ever amount to much and only then did the U23 Coach stop selecting them* . Without enough U18 at the Club the U18 will use greyed out players. But with too few U23 players in the squad, the game will first grab U18 players it seems. Anyway, since i filled up the U23 and the 2 only played U18 football they started improving.

Isn't much of a problem at big clubs after the first year or two once you had a couple youth intakes to fill the ranks (just keep the less talented youth intake youngsters that won't ever play for you around for a few years just to fill out the squad), but at smaller clubs or in the first year or two where you might not have 40+ guys in U23/U18, especially if you loan out quite a few suited for first team football already at decent level (but i don't like to loan 16 year olds immediately) ...

* which we imo should be able to set better and more conveniently than now. I might be getting sth wrong on memory now (don't have the game available right now), but iirc: We can for some reason not designate U18 players as unavailable for the U23 ?

Edited November 12, 2021 by Marinho

[Yer Maw]

Another Brutal game breaking bug, please get it sorted quickly.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Yer Maw

[Dagenham_Dave]

32 minutes ago, Yer Maw said:

Another Brutal game breaking bug, please get it sorted quickly.

There is no evidence there is a bug. The quality of your facilities and coaches seem to be having an impact on the development of younger players. If this is true, then it's working better than it has been before. 

[zindrinho]

I used to have all my talents that were still in the u19s develop like crazy just by getting proper amount of u19 playing time, really glad if this is changed so that a big talent actually can stall development like IRL! A very welcome change IMO!

[Trucce]

Players like Freddy Adu comes to mind.. Things can happen, talents can be "lost". More realistic imo.

[Domathon]

This thread is quite fantastic I came to to hear about this bug more, I’m fairly convinced after reading that there is no bug and si have made some decent tweaks to youth development here 👍 

[Dagenham_Dave]

This thread is also a stark example of how bug rumours snowball into 'facts' by certain people. It happens every single year. 

If users genuinely think this is a bug, they need to report it. I'm not far enough into my save to make any assertions on the subject one way or another, but I'd like to think that SI have implemented something in the code that slows down the development of young players based on external factors. I suppose time will tell. 

[frog-kvfb]

Anyone else notice regens with poor stats but doing great. At barca I have a 5* potential lb who looks pretty woeful. But he is bossing the u19 leagues and racking up assists an motms regularly 

[kertiek]

i played 1 season and a half with arsenal and just by the progress of 4 players i can tell that there is some changes on development, for example odegaard, saka, martinelli and smith rowe, those 4 were part of my starting eleven.

odegaard and saka grew a lot in attributes with no much problem, but martinelli and rowe only had real improvements when they got benched, (mostly rotations and/or injuries, not because i had a problem with performance) almost every time i let both of them rest, they get a small grow in attributes, its weird at least not was it was in previous years.

[Yer Maw]

5 seasons in and no national new players in an AI national team 🙃

[ftblmanager]

I'm having this issue. No matter how much game time or 5 star coaching they get worse. 

[Pompeyboyz]

I've burned through a Holiday game the last couple of days to look at this issue and see if I could notice an issue.  I went from the game start date of the 5th July 2021 through to 1st of June 2036, so nearly 15 years.

My plan was to pick three 17 yr old players from teams of varying facilities quality (Liverpool, Portsmouth and Dover) at the start and then three players from the same teams first youth intake.  I actually picked two from Dover in the youth intake but will explain why.  I only had England active down to level 6 with a fairly big active player base of about 36k

The first column shows the players starting attributes at the 5th July 2021 for the starting players and 1st June 2022 for regens and I have included at the bottom an average of the attributes. There are also numbers at the bottom to indicate the number of first team appearance only (not non-competitive) and in amber, any relevant transfer news. In the following columns, green indicates an increase and red a decrease.  The final column covers a 2 year period.

Player 1: Mateusz Musialowski - Liverpool

As we can see here, Mateusz Musialowski starts with a decent CA of 75 and very good PA of 155.   He has a very strong first seasons 15 points increase in CA before being more gradual over the next few seasons. By the time it had reached 2031 I thought he might have peaked, but then he started to climb again in 2033 and was still climbing by 2036.  I did run it on a further season that's not shown here and at the age of 33 he was still improving.

Regen 1: Dave Reeve - Liverpool

This guy looked like the star of the first Liverpool intake with a CA of 81 and PA of 168.  I'd have to say I was disappointed with his progress as he never made it with Liverpool, but he did do well once he left for Wolves.  He was another I thought might have peaked by 2030, but then he had a bit of a burst in 2031 and continued to improve as time went on.

Player 2 : Harry Jewitt-White - Portsmouth

If I was to pick one player that shows there is no actual bug, this would be it.  His CA is 34 and PA 75 at the start and is not expected to make it at Portsmouth who have decent enough facilities.  After a season he is released by Portsmouth and is picked up by Barry Town who are Semi-Pro and have basic facilities at best.  Now most of the bug claims have been around poor and basic facilities and part time teams.  Harry spent 14 seasons under these conditions and as you can see, his progress was steady if not spectacular for his expectations. I will state that the Welsh league was not active, so that might effect his progress compared to the English based players.  By 2030 we see signs of deterioration and he steadily drops off before the end.

Regen 2 : Paul Muir - Portsmouth

This guy was quite a standout for the first Portsmouth intake as they were a League 1 side with ok Youth Recruitment stats.  I did think he would have a bit of a better career than he ended up with as he was a bit of a peripheral member of the Portsmouth squad but never making it big there. Like others, by 2031 I thought he was in decline, but he then had a late surge especially after joining Crawley Town and at the age of 30 when this ended, he was improving still.

Player 3 : Alex Green - Dover

This is a short one as after 2 dud season with Dover, he went to Hendon where he was equally as dud and then left the game at just 20 years old. Made absolutely no progress at all with a poor start and steady decline.

Regen 3 : Rio White - Dover

 

This is another that shows the bugs not there and probably confirms the belief that facilities and training are more impactful now more then ever.  He was not the star of the Dover intake, but he was one I felt would last the full testing period.  His Ca of 40 and PA of 112 was respectable for level 5 football.  His first season was with Dover and his stats went down and I thought there was going to be a repeat of Alex Green but he was then plucked by Crewe, who have great training facilities, and immediately sent on loan to Stafford Rangers. in his second season, he started to climb back up and in season 3 he was better than his starting point in terms of average attributes.  After a couple of season at Crewe where he barely played, he went to Level 6 Slough who have basic facilities and he was non-contract.  He played almost as a first choice for 4 seasons before starting to fade.  Although with his time at Slough from 2028 to 2034 his average attributes were a bit up and down but only by a small margin while his CA was pretty stuck. He then left for 1 decent season at Halifax and in the 2 year final column, you can see his technicals actually improved even though his mental and physicals dropped off, and the last season he was a free agent too 

Regen 4 : Ade Atkinson - Dover

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, the star of the show and the reason Dover gave us two regens.  He was a once in a save type of regen with a stonking CA of 77 and PA of 156 .  I knew he would not be at Dover for long, but I was interested to see how he went. Unlike Rio White, who was in the same intake, Ade Atkinson was thrust into the first team from the start and you can see he had already played 8 times between joining dover and the 2 or so months before I discovered him.  He then spent a season and a half at Dover before being snapped up by Notts County. you can see in his full season with Dover he did jump up by 18 CA points and by nearly a full point on average attributes . After a year with Notts County he was off to Brighton, but spent most of his time on loan elsewhere.  His progress in the first 4 years was fast, and then he went into a settled slow rise before once more in 2030, I mistakenly thought he was peaked.  Then he joined Bournemouth and had a career resurgence which lead to QPR taking him back to the Premier League where he is now probably at his peak. 

 

Now I know this is only a small section of players but I do think this ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to variety of teams and facilities used throughout. 

My belief is that this proves there is no bug and it is other aspects of the game that is affecting players more this version. 

[Zemahh]

4 minutes ago, Pompeyboyz said:

I've burned through a Holiday game the last couple of days to look at this issue and see if I could notice an issue.  I went from the game start date of the 5th July 2021 through to 1st of June 2036, so nearly 15 years.

Thanks for this, fantastic effort. 

[FrazT]

@Pompeyboyz- Terrific post

[Rikulec]

33 minutes ago, Pompeyboyz said:

I've burned through a Holiday game the last couple of days to look at this issue and see if I could notice an issue.  I went from the game start date of the 5th July 2021 through to 1st of June 2036, so nearly 15 years.

My plan was to pick three 17 yr old players from teams of varying facilities quality (Liverpool, Portsmouth and Dover) at the start and then three players from the same teams first youth intake.  I actually picked two from Dover in the youth intake but will explain why.  I only had England active down to level 6 with a fairly big active player base of about 36k

The first column shows the players starting attributes at the 5th July 2021 for the starting players and 1st June 2022 for regens and I have included at the bottom an average of the attributes. There are also numbers at the bottom to indicate the number of first team appearance only (not non-competitive) and in amber, any relevant transfer news. In the following columns, green indicates an increase and red a decrease.  The final column covers a 2 year period.

Player 1: Mateusz Musialowski - Liverpool

As we can see here, Mateusz Musialowski starts with a decent CA of 75 and very good PA of 155.   He has a very strong first seasons 15 points increase in CA before being more gradual over the next few seasons. By the time it had reached 2031 I thought he might have peaked, but then he started to climb again in 2033 and was still climbing by 2036.  I did run it on a further season that's not shown here and at the age of 33 he was still improving.

Regen 1: Dave Reeve - Liverpool

This guy looked like the star of the first Liverpool intake with a CA of 81 and PA of 168.  I'd have to say I was disappointed with his progress as he never made it with Liverpool, but he did do well once he left for Wolves.  He was another I thought might have peaked by 2030, but then he had a bit of a burst in 2031 and continued to improve as time went on.

Player 2 : Harry Jewitt-White - Portsmouth

If I was to pick one player that shows there is no actual bug, this would be it.  His CA is 34 and PA 75 at the start and is not expected to make it at Portsmouth who have decent enough facilities.  After a season he is released by Portsmouth and is picked up by Barry Town who are Semi-Pro and have basic facilities at best.  Now most of the bug claims have been around poor and basic facilities and part time teams.  Harry spent 14 seasons under these conditions and as you can see, his progress was steady if not spectacular for his expectations. I will state that the Welsh league was not active, so that might effect his progress compared to the English based players.  By 2030 we see signs of deterioration and he steadily drops off before the end.

Regen 2 : Paul Muir - Portsmouth

This guy was quite a standout for the first Portsmouth intake as they were a League 1 side with ok Youth Recruitment stats.  I did think he would have a bit of a better career than he ended up with as he was a bit of a peripheral member of the Portsmouth squad but never making it big there. Like others, by 2031 I thought he was in decline, but he then had a late surge especially after joining Crawley Town and at the age of 30 when this ended, he was improving still.

Player 3 : Alex Green - Dover

This is a short one as after 2 dud season with Dover, he went to Hendon where he was equally as dud and then left the game at just 20 years old. Made absolutely no progress at all with a poor start and steady decline.

Regen 3 : Rio White - Dover

 

This is another that shows the bugs not there and probably confirms the belief that facilities and training are more impactful now more then ever.  He was not the star of the Dover intake, but he was one I felt would last the full testing period.  His Ca of 40 and PA of 112 was respectable for level 5 football.  His first season was with Dover and his stats went down and I thought there was going to be a repeat of Alex Green but he was then plucked by Crewe, who have great training facilities, and immediately sent on loan to Stafford Rangers. in his second season, he started to climb back up and in season 3 he was better than his starting point in terms of average attributes.  After a couple of season at Crewe where he barely played, he went to Level 6 Slough who have basic facilities and he was non-contract.  He played almost as a first choice for 4 seasons before starting to fade.  Although with his time at Slough from 2028 to 2034 his average attributes were a bit up and down but only by a small margin while his CA was pretty stuck. He then left for 1 decent season at Halifax and in the 2 year final column, you can see his technicals actually improved even though his mental and physicals dropped off, and the last season he was a free agent too 

Regen 4 : Ade Atkinson - Dover

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, the star of the show and the reason Dover gave us two regens.  He was a once in a save type of regen with a stonking CA of 77 and PA of 156 .  I knew he would not be at Dover for long, but I was interested to see how he went. Unlike Rio White, who was in the same intake, Ade Atkinson was thrust into the first team from the start and you can see he had already played 8 times between joining dover and the 2 or so months before I discovered him.  He then spent a season and a half at Dover before being snapped up by Notts County. you can see in his full season with Dover he did jump up by 18 CA points and by nearly a full point on average attributes . After a year with Notts County he was off to Brighton, but spent most of his time on loan elsewhere.  His progress in the first 4 years was fast, and then he went into a settled slow rise before once more in 2030, I mistakenly thought he was peaked.  Then he joined Bournemouth and had a career resurgence which lead to QPR taking him back to the Premier League where he is now probably at his peak. 

 

Now I know this is only a small section of players but I do think this ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to variety of teams and facilities used throughout. 

My belief is that this proves there is no bug and it is other aspects of the game that is affecting players more this version. 

This has to be shared, like, everywhere. Top work there mate.

[Pompeyboyz]

I am sure some of the more seasoned Youth Challenge players will be able to look at the attributes and other details to try and figure things out. 

[Icy]

You know what could help in cases like this (besides the awesome study work done by @Pompeyboyz) ? SI stepping up and saying that is what a design decision rather than a bug instead of leaving us with the doubt, then thread could be closed and we could move on to another rumour.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Icy

[Dagenham_Dave]

Top effort @Pompeyboyz, I hope this puts this perceived issue to bed now. 

[Neil Brock]

42 minutes ago, Icy said:

You know what could help in cases like this (besides the awesome study work done by @Pompeyboyz) ? SI stepping up and saying that is what a design decision rather than a bug instead of leaving us with the doubt, then thread could be closed and we could move on to another rumour.

Yeah has been said elsewhere that the progression rates were too quick in previous versions so has been intentionally tweaked to try and make it more realistic. There is still work ongoing in this area, but it should be more balanced and true to real life than before. 

[Deisler26]

I love it tbh. I’m stuck in 3.Liga with one player in 4 years progressing and it’s a lot truer to life

[Pompeyboyz]

10 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

Yeah has been said elsewhere that the progression rates were too quick in previous versions so has been intentionally tweaked to try and make it more realistic. There is still work ongoing in this area, but it should be more balanced and true to real life than before. 

Thanks for a bit of a confirmation

Quick question from me as I am running another test right now, but how much impact does the coaching team have on a players progression in FM22 compared to FM21?  Has that been tweaked or is it more of a general balancing of progression as a whole?

[Neil Brock]

57 minutes ago, Pompeyboyz said:

Thanks for a bit of a confirmation

Quick question from me as I am running another test right now, but how much impact does the coaching team have on a players progression in FM22 compared to FM21?  Has that been tweaked or is it more of a general balancing of progression as a whole?

As Miles would say, we can't give away all the trade secrets  

Everything you would think influences, but we can't really go into specific details on stuff like that. Apologies. 

[Mars_Blackmon]

2 hours ago, Icy said:

You know what could help in cases like this (besides the awesome study work done by @Pompeyboyz) ? SI stepping up and saying that is what a design decision rather than a bug instead of leaving us with the doubt, then thread could be closed and we could move on to another rumour.

Yea that’s one thing I don’t  enjoy about leaving tweaks and features discoverable in game instead of mentioned by the devs. Nothing really comes good from it unless it’s some Easter egg, otherwise people just think something is a bug if they aren’t used to the new tweaks.

[phnompenhandy]

I want to state clearly from the outset that I see this as an excellent development in terms of realism. I do wonder if the news has reached the Academy Challenge crew. I myself am doing my own version with FM18 since Steam won't activate the game in my country; the challenge is to use only graduates from the club's youth intake, and be with a club at the lowest possible level. I'm actually at Level 22. So in FM22 it seems that it would be impossible for players under such circumstances to ever improve enough to rise up the leagues together. Shame, but fair enough.

[Pompeyboyz]

8 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

I do wonder if the news has reached the Academy Challenge crew.

They know as I shared my results 

[kandersson]

23 hours ago, Trucce said:

Players like Freddy Adu comes to mind.. Things can happen, talents can be "lost". More realistic imo.

I doubt it had any relation to coaches or facilities (he was at Benfica and Monaco at 18-20). Freddy Adu in FM terms should have probably been a low PA prospect with relatively high CA from the start, and maybe a less than ideal personality. I don't know about this 'bug' as I'm very early in my Brazilian save but ample playing time in decent leagues should always have more impact than coaches or facilities imho.

[Mars_Blackmon]

38 minutes ago, kandersson said:

I doubt it had any relation to coaches or facilities (he was at Benfica and Monaco at 18-20). Freddy Adu in FM terms should have probably been a low PA prospect with relatively high CA from the start, and maybe a less than ideal personality. I don't know about this 'bug' as I'm very early in my Brazilian save but ample playing time in decent leagues should always have more impact than coaches or facilities imho.

Just because you have the potential, playing time isn't enough to reach that. You need the right coaching and high end facilities to reach that potential IMO.

[zindrinho]

...and maybe 1 day off the media-circus that kept touting a 15yr old unknown as the next Pele before he barely even had kicked a ball?

Maybe shielding young talents from too much media hype would be a good new feat? 

[WhiteCat33]

1 hour ago, phnompenhandy said:

I want to state clearly from the outset that I see this as an excellent development in terms of realism. I do wonder if the news has reached the Academy Challenge crew. I myself am doing my own version with FM18 since Steam won't activate the game in my country; the challenge is to use only graduates from the club's youth intake, and be with a club at the lowest possible level. I'm actually at Level 22. So in FM22 it seems that it would be impossible for players under such circumstances to ever improve enough to rise up the leagues together. Shame, but fair enough.

Oh yes it’s the main topic of conversation on that thread competing with yearly updates.

I’m 12 seasons deep in Belgium 🇧🇪 with a reasonable setup (good facilities, 4-5* coaching in all categories, light workloads, 8.0+ weekly training avg, high morale) and can say in my experience playing time is paramount.

If I can’t play my 16 year old prospects 20+ games they go on loan to the best club where they can be a regular starter. It doesn’t mater what league, professional status, facilities or even if it has coaches. Anything seems to work better than those who stay at the club.

Now I’d personally like to keep youngsters below 18 at the club to mentor away bad personalities and train into preferred positions they don’t develop nearly as well that way in my save. I just like seeing a youth rise the ranks always being with us and never having left. But is that actually ‘realistic’? 

And here’s where I’m  not actually complaining about it, it’s just different than what I’ve experienced before and honestly expected. IMO It adds to the realism. Because if you’re managing a mid table Pro-A side and have a 16 year old Slovenian who plays u-21 football for country wouldn’t you send him down to the 3rd tier to be the star playmaker and bring a relegation favorite into the playoff hunt rather than sit him in your U-18s and maybe bring him on against bad teams and cup matches?

[Pompeyboyz]

Just been running a further experiment to test a theory based upon what I asked @Neil Brock earlier. I took Alex Green at Dover once more, who was the only failure in my first run as he went after 3 years. 

I tweaked the facilities at Dover to maximum from the start and no other changes to see what impact that would have, and as the bar at the top shows, in the 2 years he was there, he made progress but slow going.  Season 3 he was signed by Basingstoke and he another quick bump before stagnating from season 4 onwards.

Things I noticed from this that I didn't quite look at as much detail before.

In season 1 for the first 9 months or so, there was a dedicated U18 coach at Dover as well as U18 Manager and AssMan.  The U18 left about March when the Senior Man and AssMan left to a new club taking him with them.  From that point onwards, there was no dedicated U18 coach and the Senior team at no point had a dedicated coach but did have a dedicated GK coach.

In season 3 when he joins Basingstoke, they are in the National League South and he moves to the senior squad who have a Manager, AssMan and dedicated coach.  As you can see, the facilities are much worse than they were at Dover, but he progresses with a 5 point CA increase, which is the same as his first season at Dover.  He also starts to play a lot of matches too.

From season 4 onwards, Basingstoke have been relegated to an unplayable league and all the senior staff apart from the Manager are released.  He continues to play matches (sorry not added the last 3 seasons but he played about 35 matches each), but his progress has halted.

It is interesting to me, that the times when he had a dedicated coach training him, there was progress, but as soon as there wasn't, it halted.  Might just be coincidence, but it is intriguing. 

[Domathon]

21 hours ago, FrazT said:

@Pompeyboyz- Terrific post

Get this man on the test team for next year 👌 

[Pompeyboyz]

3 minutes ago, Domathon said:

Get this man on the test team for next year 👌 

Unless they can pay me more than £26k a year for my current data analysis job, I'll be ok 

[Prepper_Jack]

Now, one thing I have noticed that irked me was that the head coach of my under 19s was consistently playing people in wrong positions. I checked a hot prospect of a CD in the youth team to see how well he was progressing, and surprise, he wasn't, but he did have little red dots all over the play map where the coach had played him. This kind of thing is pretty damaging to player development, considering how costly learning a new position of play is in terms of ability points, and there is no justifiable reason for the coach to put him in as an AM(R), and a striker into the D(C) role to cover for him. Yet this kind of thing seems to be a regular occurrence now.