Football Management is not always about buying the best players, it can also be about identifying and developing the potential of young players for the future of your squad, building a good under 18′s and young reserve side could see benefits in the transfer balance as well as for winning games. Look at the traditional big four and you will see in the squad a spine of home grown players who symbolise the power house and culture of those sides and are a connection with the fans. But on Football Manager 2010 what techniques are available to you in order to develop a good young side?
1. Do your scouting
You should always have a scout in your ranks that has a high attribute for spotting potential, scouting is the best way to find the best players within your game. Scout reserves leagues, under 18 leagues in different countries and the youth international competitions. This will ensure that your scout gets to look at some of the best and brightest around the world on a regular basis, keeping you on informed on new players to stock your own youth side.
2. Improve your academy facilities and coaches
It might be a bit of an obviously one but it does count on the quality and quantity of young players that you get through into the side. If you are a side with little to spend, in the lower reaches of the league structure, producing your own talent could be a real winner, for the squad as well as the bank balance as you look to cash in on investments made. But one thing that you may have not considered is that your young intake can also be affected by your coaches and youth coaches the working with youngsters attribute, although I haven’t tested this one thoroughly.
3. Loaning your players out
When I am looking at feeder sides for my teams I tend to look for clubs that have a quality training ground and coaches, doing the same when I am sorting loan approaches for my young players. This means that when the players are away from my own side that they are indeed getting trained as best as possible, you may even get lucky and find partners that have better training grounds then yourself. But this along with the potential of having your players gain competitive experience can be valuable in improving your players development and reaching their full potential.
4. Slowly bring them into your own side
It works for Arsenal, why shouldn’t it work for yourself? Give the players first team experience in your own side, either in those cup competitions that you don’t choose to take so seriously or as a means to punish another players poor performances by putting his place up for grabs to youngsters. It has really helped me when I have been in times of need that those players with high determination especially young players can really get you through times of trouble. But more importantly you will notice that those players that do have the highest amount of potential will be more likely to reach that potential with high work rates and determinations and the experience will help them develop quicker.
5. Tutoring, Training and Conditioning
Don’t forget the conventional training regimes, but one way to mold your players for the future is to use the TTC method. Firstly tutoring and training are good ways to teach your players preferred moves, these moves can be useful in making tactics work in a particular way or to have a player do more of what you want him to do, maybe cutting inside or Hugging the touchline? Depending on your tactics demand, young players will be more able to adapt and learn then older players so this could be a good way to help mold players, also with positioning training you will make sure you are fully stocked on versatile players for the future. When I say conditioning, what I truly mean is going into the managers options and ensuring that the tactics used for the first team will be used also for other sides within the squad. Although do be aware that tactics should be utilised to around the players within the system, but this could work out useful in allowing an easier transition from the youth side to the full squad.
Have I missed any?
Feel free to add your own tips of training young players, as well as any comments you have about those above. Follow the conversation on twitter @fmpundit
I don’t think you missed any, solid post. I guess that the most important thing, apart from the youngster’s talent, is giving him a few minutes in the first team now and then, that builds up his confidence and he learns much quicker.
.-= Johnny Karp´s last blog ..Five Nice Skins for Football Manager 2010 =-.
Thanks Johnny, yeah I think it is important to give the youth players a chance, the only thing I find sometimes is the ability to take that risk, especially when I am chasing a particular goal like survival or promotion, especially in those leagues where you are still only allowed 5 subs on the bench. I have become less risky as I have got older in FM
Now I’m like, well duh! Truly thafnukl for your help.
Scouting is so overlooked. All my mates just use the player search for U16s and never ever use the scouts. The best thing to do when looking for youths is to build a little team of scouts with good stats for Determination and JPA and just send them into the region looking for U16s.
Good adaptability is always nice to have if a scout is scouting a region he isnt from.
Playing LLM rules and thinking it too easy to use the player searches I think that scouting is much more fun and realistic to use and I think that it is definitely should be looked upon more. I have never really considered what other attributes do for a scout other the the JPA and the JCA. Do other attribute truly effect the results that you get back?
Pingback: What You Need to Look For in an Assistant Manager
Pingback: What Rafa Benitez Can Learn from Football Manager 2010
Pingback: Making money on Football Manager 2010
Pingback: 5 Key points when loaning your Football Manager players
i did the 4th one for man city in my 1st season with jack wilshere. i had yoann gourcuff in amc and played an fa cup match against a crap team so i replaced him with wilshere and he was MOTM. i started playin him more and more and he kept playin good. at one point he scored a 30 yarder
his attributes increased amazingly and once the season finished he was first team material (although credit has to go to good training and coaches,everything is 4 or more stars)
Credit has to go to yourself as well James, don’t forget at the football club you are the manager, the leader and you have to make the decisions on your training and coaches. Sounds like you took the great move with Wiltshire, who is always going to be a good player for any side, but the trick is getting those potential players to great players as quick as possible.
Pingback: Benefits of Football Manager tutoring
Pingback: 6 of The Best Football Manager Pundit Guides
Pingback: » Blog Archive » FM2010 – Ten things you need to know
Pingback: Spotting The Best Football Manager 2010 wonderkids
How much importance do coaches have when developing a young player?
Having 4.5 stars training regimes is a warranty that your youngsters will become good players?
Have you read two other guides that I have produced starting with: http://www.fmpundit.com/2010/staff/coaching-staff-part-1/
Good coaches, good training facilities have there role to play on developing. But I think most importantly is the players mental attributes which will have more of a role to play.
I missed that article, I will have to take a look at it.
Pingback: Football Manager Community Roundup: Are You an FM Fanboy? | Football Manager 2011
The mortality rate for youth players aged 17 is quite high in the real game , and so it should be in the CH’ Manager game world. The first thing to look at here is the cost of developing young players, both in terms of time and money. So an adequate short-cut to success in developing youth players is to look at all the other clubs youth players who have been given pro’ contracts, scout them up and then try to ‘pinch’ them for a small fee in the given hope that they will come through in a shorter length of time and be worth a hell of a lot more cash than the sum you splashed out on the lad!
Yo, that’s what’s up trthuflluy.
Nice article! But I think Player Search is often more efficient than scouting
Yeah player search can be useful, sometimes kills the joy out of the game when you can just stick in a few parameters and get all players that suit your needs in.
Player search is fine but don’t forget that all that takes in is the stats given in the database at the start of the game or randomly produced by the game as the years progress. It’s very black and white in player search, someone with 4.5 stars of potential ability and you think you have found a star. But look at your coaching ratings after signing him and you may find a very different picture.
Yes maybe the player is a good player in terms of ability but what sort of person is he, what are the chances of him fitting in? Does he have the same attributes as the rest of your squad. Good scouting can answer some of these questions, not all of course as developing young players isn’t guaranteed. Even clubs historically having a good reputation in the real world for bringing on youngsters have a low percentage of success. Many youngsters have been released to lower leagues by Arsenal over the years, far more failures than successes. But when those successes are Wilshere, Ramsey etc it makes it worthwhile.
My own club Leeds wouldn’t exist now if it wasn’t for the youth system bringing players like Woodgate, Kewell, Smith, Carson etc but even then far more players were released as not good enough at 18 than the number who became stars. FM has to reflect that, don’t get disheartened if the majority of your highly rated youngsters don’t reach expectations, keep at it and you will find the star! And good scouting is key!
What I do is decide who I think my best scout is and keep him available, maybe scouting next opposition only. I send all my other scouts to scout all the Under 19′s, Under 18′s etc that I can. When an excellent prospect is identified I then use my head scout to get a 3 match report of that youngster. Then you have not only more info due to the matches scouted but you have two scouts opinion including the opinion of your best scout. Use the scouts profile panel to make sure his recruitment rating is high as well as his CA PA ratings.
But remember you will have more failed youngsters than superstars, that’s just life!
Hey guys – this is my first post here, so I hope I won’t violate any protocol.
I have a youth-related question. I’m coaching Cesena & from Season 1 I adoped a long-term strategy. As a result, my 1st & 2nd seasons were not spectacular. However, in those 2 seasons my Youth Team won the league convincingly. In Season 3 I decided to loan out a lot of my Youth guys to Serie C feeder teams. As a result, my Youth team this season are languishing near the bottom. Did I do the right thing? Is it better for youths to win at my youth team or get real experience in Serie C? I’m thinking it’s better to sacrifice the Youth league title since nothing seems to be gained by it….
I would definatey say first team at a lower level is better than youth team football but as I always I guess it depends on the player. I wouldn’t ever send someone under 18 to play elsewhere and I’m careful where to send them. Anywhere with decent or better youth facilities and training facilities are a must. I usually manage in the English leagues and usually go with a rule of two divisions lower than my club only. I wouldn’t normally send someone to the Conference if I was a top half Premiership team for example. Unless I just had too many players and was struggling to keep them match fit.
If you have a real prospect a potential superstar for example he won’t benefit from going to a tiny club with poor facilities playing at a level way below his. But find the right club and youngsters can really develop quickly. As in real life not too long ago with Wilshere, I doubt Wenger would have sent him to Bolton in Allardyce’s era but once Owen Coyle took over and Bolton were playing a better style Wenger knew it would bring Wilshere on.
Wenger also said he wanted Sanchez Watt at Leeds to see if the player had the metal to play in front of big crowds with high expectation. Watt has the talent but Wenger wanted to see how he reacted to playing at a big club. So reasons for loaning players are always different I guess
Sound advice Neil. However, I would add a little adendum to it in regards to Jimmy’s quesion: It’s no good having a brilliant youth team when your first team is struggling for results and languishing in the wrong half of their respective league, of course, as everyone is going to be on your back, which in turn will undermine your youth players and mean your probably going to get the sack anyway. So make sure your house is in full working-order first!