Youngsters - whom to keep, sell, mentor - youth intake and beyond

[danej]

As the title implies - as a rather inexperienced Football Manager I feel like I have still so many questions and so few answers. Which youngsters to keep, to sell, to mentor?

 

I would greatly appreciate any input from you experienced and knowledgeable managers out there.

 

My ideas so far (I might abort some of these ideas in the future when proven wrong):

1. Keep anyone who is good enough to be in your first team squad (your best 20-22 players depending on how many matches you play in a season). A no-brainer really.
2. Keep anyone with Premier League potential. Probably also the ones with Championship potential because they can also often be sold for a decent fee if/when they will obviously never become first team players.
3. Probably keep anyone where the PA in the coach report says: "Can improve a lot", no matter how poor their PA star rating. Because those players are a bit like lottery tickets, sometimes they develop tremendously and the PA star rating can improve over time. This probably also mean: Keep anyone at age 16 or 17 since their PA is often or always very uncertain at that age, they could come good.
4. Sell anyone with PA 2.5* or lower (however this partially conflicts with point no. 3, I am uncertain which is better)
5. Keep any youth intake player that the ass man suggest that you keep because you just never know, any one of them could come good (like no. 3).
6. Keep anyone with a good personality, anything better than balanced. At least untill they are older and have League One coach report PA or lower. Like point 3 + 5.
7. Keep anyone where the coach report says that they are consistent and/or like big matches. Like no. 6.
8. Regarding youngster with sell on value: Keep them untill they have had at least one season out on loan. To see if they develop well. To judge whether or not you can grow their value sufficiently by subsequent loans in the following seasons.
9. Regarding mentoring: Whom to mentor?
   1. Anyone your keep around, arguing that it might grow their CA, PA or sell on value?
   2. Only the best ones? Perhaps it is a more complex decision, it also depends how many decent mentoring older players you have available? I guess it is important to ensure that the best youngster get good mentoring, if necessary then sacrifice mentoring for second rate youngsters.

Edited June 30, 2022 by danej

[herne79]

Don't over think it .  For your youth intake, keep everyone (budget allowing).  Your staff's initial impression of each youngster's potential is very often wrong and may well change over time.  After a year or so your staff should have a much better impression of which players do actually have potential.  At that point anyone with a potential of 2.5 - 3 stars is of roughly similar potential to first team players.  4 stars = potentially better than other players; 5 stars potential = potentially much better.  Note this can still change over time as your senior squad improves).

At that point I'd start to get rid of 2 star players and below so as to keep your youth team a manageable size.

Mentoring only tends to work if mentoring young players with senior players.  That means having them in the same squad.  Clearly you don't want to put your entire youth squad into the senior squad, so pick and choose those who you consider to be your best prospects and who are need of personality changes to move to the senior squad.  Those you do move make them available for one of your youth teams and (if good enough) start to give them match time with your senior squad, such as bring them on as substitutes in games you are winning and/or give them a start in "easy" games such as cup matches vs lower league opposition.

There is no need to mentor young players if they don't need it (you can still move them to the senior squad if you think they are good enough to play).

[danej]

50 minutes ago, herne79 said:

Mentoring only tends to work if mentoring young players with senior players.  That means having them in the same squad.  Clearly you don't want to put your entire youth squad into the senior squad, so pick and choose those who you consider to be your best prospects and who are need of personality changes to move to the senior squad.  Those you do move make them available for one of your youth teams and (if good enough) start to give them match time with your senior squad, such as bring them on as substitutes in games you are winning and/or give them a start in "easy" games such as cup matches vs lower league opposition.

There is no need to mentor young players if they don't need it (you can still move them to the senior squad if you think they are good enough to play).

The entire post is interesting, thanks.

 

Regarding mentoring: Does this mean that the mentoring screen is all wrong? Accoring to that screen, pretty much everyone who TRAINS with the first team benefits greatly from mentoring ("significant" or "average" benefit to almost anyone).

[herne79]

14 minutes ago, danej said:

The entire post is interesting, thanks.

 

Regarding mentoring: Does this mean that the mentoring screen is all wrong? Accoring to that screen, pretty much everyone who TRAINS with the first team benefits greatly from mentoring ("significant" or "average" benefit to almost anyone).

To train with the first team you have to be in the first team squad.  Different players will get different benefits from mentoring - young players are much more likely to be influenced by older more established players.

It may also refer to the issue where players can be influenced (personality wise) by other players in the same squad even if no mentoring groups have been set up.

[danej]

7 minutes ago, herne79 said:

To train with the first team you have to be in the first team squad.  Different players will get different benefits from mentoring - young players are much more likely to be influenced by older more established players.

It may also refer to the issue where players can be influenced (personality wise) by other players in the same squad even if no mentoring groups have been set up.

Yeah I was wrong I think. What I meant was - on the mentoring screen there is a "Units" section. There you can move players into mentoring. But I guess what you say is that that doesn't work even though the mentoring screen says it works? You seem to say that it actually only works when the player is moved to the senior squad. And that moving him to mentoring via the "Units" function actually doesn't work even if the mentoring page says that the player has for example "significant" or "average" effect from his mentoring group.

Edited June 30, 2022 by danej

[Freakiie]

I think things are getting confused here.

You can add a player from a youth/reserve team to your senior squad training units. However, you can't add a player from a different squad to a mentoring unit (even if he's training with that squad). So, to add someone to your senior team mentoring units, he has to be moved to the senior team first.

[herne79]

32 minutes ago, Freakiie said:

I think things are getting confused here.

You can add a player from a youth/reserve team to your senior squad training units. However, you can't add a player from a different squad to a mentoring unit (even if he's training with that squad). So, to add someone to your senior team mentoring units, he has to be moved to the senior team first.

Yes.  Sorry I was talking purely about squads and setting training programs accordingly rather than “training units” 👍.

[04texag]

One thing that has served me well is always hiring the best head of youth development you can. There are all of the obvious reasons (intakes), then here are a few more:

Often can find them with good judging player ability/potential.

This is like a hack, as it's like having a scout who is on the coaching staff, not scouting staff. 

Use the HoYD for the whole team's coaching and training reports. This gets you hopefully as accurate as info as possible about the player. 

Bonus points when you can get one that matches your preferred formation and attacking/defending styles. 

 

[Freakiie]

Don't forget about personality of the HoYD, that has a direct impact on your youth intakes as well. Preferably you'd want all your youth coaching staff to have good personalities, but HoYD is the one you really want to make sure his personality is good.

[Argonaut]

I'd just like to add a caveat to lower league management. I'd mostly scrap the youth setup, have no coaches or managers or players in those teams at all. Still have a HOYD for the youth intake, and if there's any good players bring them into the 1st team.

It's just not worth it financially to pay all of the player and staff wages for youth teams when your facilities are bad. And you want to be moving up the leagues to afford better players, not develop them. The odd time you'll get a great player in the intake which you can rotate into your team right away or look to sell. I swear your first intake is hardcoded to have at least one good player.

Some people like to do an all-youth challenge though, in which case they would disregard the above.

[smeagoltonez]

3 hours ago, Argonaut said:

I'd just like to add a caveat to lower league management. I'd mostly scrap the youth setup, have no coaches or managers or players in those teams at all. Still have a HOYD for the youth intake, and if there's any good players bring them into the 1st team.

It's just not worth it financially to pay all of the player and staff wages for youth teams when your facilities are bad. And you want to be moving up the leagues to afford better players, not develop them. The odd time you'll get a great player in the intake which you can rotate into your team right away or look to sell. I swear your first intake is hardcoded to have at least one good player.

Some people like to do an all-youth challenge though, in which case they would disregard the above.

I often wonder this exact thing, why bother? And why do clubs bother IRL? It's often argued that it's so that clubs can become self-sufficient but when you consider how much money is spent on youth programmmes & how rarely it pays off, is it really worth it? Is it simply that clubs are all chasing the dream of getting one gem that pays for the entire youth programme for years? Is this a realistic dream? Maybe someone with a better knowledge of club finances can answer that?

[Feddo]

7 hours ago, Freakiie said:

However, you can't add a player from a different squad to a mentoring unit (even if he's training with that squad). 

I can do this in FMT, so there's a difference in how these versions work

[Freakiie]

40 minutes ago, smeagoltonez said:

I often wonder this exact thing, why bother? And why do clubs bother IRL? It's often argued that it's so that clubs can become self-sufficient but when you consider how much money is spent on youth programmmes & how rarely it pays off, is it really worth it? Is it simply that clubs are all chasing the dream of getting one gem that pays for the entire youth programme for years? Is this a realistic dream? Maybe someone with a better knowledge of club finances can answer that?

Because in reality clubs don't skyrocket up the football pyramid at the rate of 2 promotions a season and thus longer term vision like a youth academy might make much more sense. Even finding a couple youngsters over a decade that find their way upwards can see some amazing returns due to sell on clauses and youth development fees on every consequent transfer. Of course it depends how far down the pyramid you go, but the English 4th level still has pretty big clubs, Germany 3rd level a bunch of big clubs and those will often have the finances to afford this and some of the set up might be a sheer remainder from better days as well. Here in the Netherlands some clubs in the second tier (which are really small clubs mind you) are now managing to sell some of their youth products for a couple millions. Those are transfers that by themselves pretty much equal their yearly budget!

2 minutes ago, Feddo said:

I can do this in FMT, so there's a difference in how these versions work

That's pretty curious, not sure why that would be different on FMT.

[smeagoltonez]

13 hours ago, Freakiie said:

Because in reality clubs don't skyrocket up the football pyramid at the rate of 2 promotions a season and thus longer term vision like a youth academy might make much more sense. Even finding a couple youngsters over a decade that find their way upwards can see some amazing returns due to sell on clauses and youth development fees on every consequent transfer. Of course it depends how far down the pyramid you go, but the English 4th level still has pretty big clubs, Germany 3rd level a bunch of big clubs and those will often have the finances to afford this and some of the set up might be a sheer remainder from better days as well. Here in the Netherlands some clubs in the second tier (which are really small clubs mind you) are now managing to sell some of their youth products for a couple millions. Those are transfers that by themselves pretty much equal their yearly budget!

Yeah, I'm just wondering whether anyone has some figures to show whether clubs do indeed making a profit (or at least break even) over a 10 year period or something. I know that Brentford are planning to reintroduce their academy after previously doing away with it but I read that's more to do with Brexit & the PL planning to make academies compulsory. I suspect that most clubs don't make a profit.

[danej]

17 hours ago, smeagoltonez said:

I often wonder this exact thing, why bother? And why do clubs bother IRL? It's often argued that it's so that clubs can become self-sufficient but when you consider how much money is spent on youth programmmes & how rarely it pays off, is it really worth it? Is it simply that clubs are all chasing the dream of getting one gem that pays for the entire youth programme for years? Is this a realistic dream? Maybe someone with a better knowledge of club finances can answer that?

IRL I also think the Brentford model is better for most clubs, ditching the youth system entirely, signing outcasts of other clubs instead. But FM might be another matter.

Edited July 1, 2022 by danej

[danej]

3 hours ago, smeagoltonez said:

Yeah, I'm just wondering whether anyone has some figures to show whether clubs do indeed making a profit (or at least break even) over a 10 year period or something. I know that Brentford are planning to reintroduce their academy after previously doing away with it but I read that's more to do with Brexit & the PL planning to make academies compulsory. I suspect that most clubs don't make a profit.

Interesting, I didn't know that Brentford plans to reopen their academy. But yeah it makes sense that they are incentiviced to do so because of Brexit.

[CowShedBarmyArmy]

7 hours ago, danej said:

Interesting, I didn't know that Brentford plans to reopen their academy. But yeah it makes sense that they are incentiviced to do so because of Brexit.

It's also required to take part in European competition I believe.

[danej]

On 30/06/2022 at 13:31, herne79 said:

For your youth intake, keep everyone (budget allowing).  Your staff's initial impression of each youngster's potential is very often wrong and may well change over time.  After a year or so your staff should have a much better impression of which players do actually have potential.

At that point anyone with a potential of 2.5 - 3 stars is of roughly similar potential to first team players.  4 stars = potentially better than other players; 5 stars potential = potentially much better.  Note this can still change over time as your senior squad improves).

At that point I'd start to get rid of 2 star players and below so as to keep your youth team a manageable size.

 

So far, my experience is different from the first part of this advice (the rest is great). I have never seen a youth player with PA 2 stars or lower develop into anything remotely useful (neither a useful first team backup player, nor a asset that can be sold for decent money). Now, I assume this is probably different if you manage in some of the biggest leagues, since if might be worth keeping around anyone with possible Premier League PA or the like. But when I manage second rate clubs, like my current AaB/Aalborg BK in Denmark, I am pretty sure that I should never give contracts to youth intake players with PA 2 and below. Possibly even scrap those with PA 2.5-3, but less clear cut.

Any additional thoughts about this topic @herne79 and others?

 

I still find it a highly complex and intriguing dilemma which youth intake players to keep and whom to get rid off. The same goes for players in general, this isn't really limited to the youth intake. I feel like this dilemma is the part of the game where I am still the most uncertain about what strategy I might want to opt for. Unlike most other aspects of the game, I still feel like I haven't landed on a half way useful strategy on this one.

 

Btw, I have never managed in the very low leagues like non-league in England. But pretty much scrapping the youth setup at very low levels makes a lot of intuitive sense like what people suggested above. That is probably also what I would do when managing such teams.

 

But that is a side note. My primary uncertainty regards what to do with mediocre teams like Aalborg BK. Teams that aren't the best and aren't the worst. Teams with mediocre facilities and economic ressources.

[herne79]

10 hours ago, danej said:

Any additional thoughts about this topic @herne79 and others?

Tbh all we can really do is trust our coach opinions and our own gut instincts.

When new players appear on intake day, star ratings for potential are based (amongst other things) on how a player’s actual ability looks at that moment in time in comparison to other young players and are kind of like how a real life conversation might go - “hey boss this 16 year old kid looks better than rest, he might be a decent prospect and could develop well”.

And then as they do start to develop they may or may not match up to that earlier prediction - “hey boss, remember that decent prospect I mentioned?  He’s not looking too good now so probably won’t amount to much”.

Players who start off with less than 2 stars I’d agree are probably not worth pursuing too much, but plenty of 2 stars and up could be fine and if they don’t develop they may fetch a bob or two when sold.

[hehehemann]

I usually play this game to develop teams and specifically to create squads of academy players as much as I can.

Presently playing FM21 and in Ligue 1 with Nice. I've spent the majority of available funds over the last 4 seasons on improving my youth set up so money poured into Youth recruitment, Youth Facilities and Youth coaching as I try to become the Rivieras top club for youth development battling the likes of Marseille and Monaco. 

I mostly agree with the majority and 2-star PA or below youngsters won't develop into much for ligue 1 standards, but I do keep them around until the youth contracts expire and let them go on frees just in case they have a developmental spur. Those initial PA ratings from the coaches are usually just guides for me. I've had players of 4.5-star potential come through and they just didn't improve in development and over time their rating would drop to 2.5/3 stars at best. I've had 3-star PA players change to 4/5-star players after a season or two when they are getting some first team matches.

Personality of the youth player is vital; I've had some really good-looking players but are unambitious and no matter how I tried mentoring they just didn't shake their laziness or show any ambition to be a better player. Now I don't bother with unambitious personalities and stick to developing players with the right mindset from the off.   

I have a wonderkid CD and wonderkid DM in my present squad. Both developed differently too. One is from my youth set up, he was a 3 star player at first but has now developed to a 5 star wonderkid, the other was a purchase after PSG decided he wasnt going to make the grade and didnt offer him a new contract. I also was wondering why I bought him at one point but I threw him into a match as a sub and hes just improved match after match to now become a wonderkid DM after initial scout reports said he was a 3 star at best player for CA and PA. (My scouts are good too mostly have 18 JCA and JPA)

Early youth development seems to have a nice random element so you never really know how they will progress but just have an idea and hope they will be the next big thing. Overall, I think its playing time that radically improves their development and its then the coach reports start becoming more accurate for giving you a better idea how they develop and handle competitive matches. (kind of like me irl.. a street legend in my neighbourhood but never good enough to play competitive probably because I'm unambitious and lazy hahaha)

[danej]

On 25/09/2022 at 18:43, herne79 said:

Tbh all we can really do is trust our coach opinions and our own gut instincts.

When new players appear on intake day, star ratings for potential are based (amongst other things) on how a player’s actual ability looks at that moment in time in comparison to other young players and are kind of like how a real life conversation might go - “hey boss this 16 year old kid looks better than rest, he might be a decent prospect and could develop well”.

And then as they do start to develop they may or may not match up to that earlier prediction - “hey boss, remember that decent prospect I mentioned?  He’s not looking too good now so probably won’t amount to much”.

Players who start off with less than 2 stars I’d agree are probably not worth pursuing too much, but plenty of 2 stars and up could be fine and if they don’t develop they may fetch a bob or two when sold.

Perhaps keeping 2 star PA youngsters makes economical sense if you have all round world class facilities. But I don't feel like it objectively makes sense at most clubs, including my current Aalborg BK.

This is also due to mye subjective basic attitudes. I don't want to hoard players. I don't want to be perfectionist. I don't want to act according to fear of missing out on developing a decent youngster.

I only want to keep a given type of youngers (for example those with 2 star PA, no more, no less), if it is overall a benefit to the club. In other words, that enough of those players will eventually become first team players or can be sold for money than all the wages I would want to pay the group of players over the years in order to keep them at the club and develop them.

 

Regarding 2 star PA youngsters at Aalborg BK: I am pretty sure that I should hand out contracts to any of them. in my four seasons at the club, not one of those players have developed into anything useful. I have essentially tossed hundreds of thousands of £ down the drain by retaining such players.

 

Regarding 2,5 star PA youngsters at Aalborg BK: Similar story as the 2 star PA players, but not as clear cut. I think I sold one player for 100k or something. Otherwise pure waste like above. So it still seems like those players might not be worth keeping.

 

Another interesting aspect to consider is whether you want to have the same threshold regarding internal and external recruitment. I generally won't consider recruiting youngsters from other clubs unless they have at least 4 star PA. Because a lower threshold it would flood my club with youngsters with mostly useless, ressource draining youngsters.

Perhaps another way of doing it is just picking the best ones, not having much more than 16 players in each youth squad (in Denmark there are two such squads, U19 and Reserves, similar to U18 and U23 in England). I suspect that having big youth squads also at least to a mild extent hampers the development of the individual players, since they can't all get a decent amount of playing time.

 

Further input is greatly appreciated.

[danej]

On 26/09/2022 at 21:25, hehehemann said:

I mostly agree with the majority and 2-star PA or below youngsters won't develop into much for ligue 1 standards, but I do keep them around until the youth contracts expire and let them go on frees just in case they have a developmental spur. Those initial PA ratings from the coaches are usually just guides for me. I've had players of 4.5-star potential come through and they just didn't improve in development and over time their rating would drop to 2.5/3 stars at best. I've had 3-star PA players change to 4/5-star players after a season or two when they are getting some first team matches.

Personality of the youth player is vital; I've had some really good-looking players but are unambitious and no matter how I tried mentoring they just didn't shake their laziness or show any ambition to be a better player. Now I don't bother with unambitious personalities and stick to developing players with the right mindset from the off.   

I have a wonderkid CD and wonderkid DM in my present squad. Both developed differently too. One is from my youth set up, he was a 3 star player at first but has now developed to a 5 star wonderkid, the other was a purchase after PSG decided he wasnt going to make the grade and didnt offer him a new contract. I also was wondering why I bought him at one point but I threw him into a match as a sub and hes just improved match after match to now become a wonderkid DM after initial scout reports said he was a 3 star at best player for CA and PA. (My scouts are good too mostly have 18 JCA and JPA)

Early youth development seems to have a nice random element so you never really know how they will progress but just have an idea and hope they will be the next big thing. Overall, I think its playing time that radically improves their development and its then the coach reports start becoming more accurate for giving you a better idea how they develop and handle competitive matches. (kind of like me irl.. a street legend in my neighbourhood but never good enough to play competitive probably because I'm unambitious and lazy hahaha)

Isn't it better to always give players full time contracts if possible? I always do that. I am certainly no expert at the game and this is possibly a bad habit of mine. But logically I would think that it hampers the development of a player if he is not on a full time contract. I imagine that for relatively poor youngster that I want to keep, it would be better to give them a one year full time contract to take a look at them, with an optional extension if possible.

 

Yeah, the PA drop over time happens all the time to me. I guess that is normal. PA is what is achievable if everything pans out perfectly which it usually doesn't. I would think. At least that is what it's like for me, and I am fine with that. It would also be boring if many youngster reached their full 4.5-5 stars PA, the game would be very easy then.

 

I have never seen the opposite, like a play drastically increasing his PA. But I trust you on that. Perhaps this comes down to my not being very experienced. I have probably only played around 15 seasons of FM in total so I am quite the noob I think. I also deliberately don't optimize player development, like I deliberately makes suboptimal strategic choices in most aspects of the game. Because I want a challenge, I want the game to be realistic and not too easy. The game is very easy if you know the game anx exploit it. Even a noob like me can easily do that. But it doesn't give me anything, just bores me.

 

Speaking of which, I love my current Aalborg BK challenge. The 3rd season is drawing to a close. A have sort of stagnated. Will probably be the 3rd consecutive 2nd place finish in the league, behind dominant FC Copenhagen (København). I like that it is not that easy to dismantle FCK. In any case, I think that I will start to win regular league titles within a couple of seasons. My club has a developed economically well, I have improved facilities and have a lot of decent youngsters coming through. They are not great first team players now and won't be within the next year either, but eventually some of them will be great and/or can be sold for good money. Similar to external recruitment which has also given me some great young players. Think the average age of the first team squad is 23 and with plenty of good talents in the reserve sides or on loan as well.

 

Interesting what you write about personalities. Perhaps I should have at least a 0.5-1 star higher PA threshold to take on youngsters with poor personalities. I have the same experience, they rarely if ever come good.

 

My experience is also that playing time seems important, also for players aged 17 and below. The players that I field regurarly in my first team (could be mostly sub appearances) ususually develop much better.

Edited October 8, 2022 by danej

[danej]

As mentioned above: I am currently contemplating to also take into consideration squad size when deciding which youngsters to keep. Perhaps limiting the total number of players to as close to 16-ish as possible for each squad (not including loaned out players who aren't playing at the club). Based on the assumption that having much bigger squads might hamper the development of the players since competition for playing time is too fierce, too many players around for the limited amount of available playing time.

 

Any input on this anyone?

[danej]

Update, I just looked through my reserve sides. The "Reserves" side (roughly similar to U23 in England although no age limit) is ok, a 17 player squad.

But the U19 squad is terrible. 37 players in it at the moment. A few will be sold, loaned out or released when possible. But still far too many.

In order to have a U19 squad below 25-ish players I would need to have at least a 3 star PA limit at the moment, plus probably get rid of a few with a poor personality.

I guess this highlights the idea that squad size should perhaps play a role. The bigger the squad, the more I suspect that player development is hamperede. Even 15-17 olds would be better off with a bit of game time I assume. Not least when they don't practice on match days etc. anyways.

 

But I am no expert and know very little. Any input is appreciated.

Edited October 8, 2022 by danej

[herne79]

3 hours ago, danej said:

The bigger the squad, the more I suspect that player development is hamperede

It can be yes.  The more players there are, the more workload that puts onto coaches and thus the less time individual players can get with coaching staff.  It can also limit match time that players get.  I’d suggest 37 in the U19s is too many for those reasons.  

Whilst Training for players aged under 18 takes precedence for player development, match time remains relevant.  For players aged 18 and over, match time becomes more relevant (although training remains important).

[danej]

7 hours ago, herne79 said:

It can be yes.  The more players there are, the more workload that puts onto coaches and thus the less time individual players can get with coaching staff.  It can also limit match time that players get.  I’d suggest 37 in the U19s is too many for those reasons.  

Whilst Training for players aged under 18 takes precedence for player development, match time remains relevant.  For players aged 18 and over, match time becomes more relevant (although training remains important).

What would you suggest would be an ideal U18 squad size?

Edited October 8, 2022 by danej