Hey guys, after much demand I have decided to put a guide together for raising youth. Many of you reading my Newcastle story have been impressed by the rate at which my youngsters have progressed…well today I will share all. To be honest it’s all common sense and simple, but you must combine every tip mentioned to get the right results. The combination of many simple aspects are what makes for a great environment to raise youth. The difficult part is holding the experience to know when a youngster should be played, loaned out or has missed the boat all together. There are many guides out there and it is impossible for me not to repeat some stuff already mentioned, but all I am doing today is talking about how I raise my youth.
Preparing your club
Before you do anything, we need to get the club prepared. Below are some pointers on what you should be doing and the relevant posts to help you build a club with the correct environment to raise youth.
- Coaching staff — You need to hire the right staff in the right areas and also assign them the appropriate training categories. View this post by Excessive to get the perfect back room staff.
- Upgrade your facilities — It is critical that you upgrade your facilities ASAP, the better your training and youth facilities the quicker your players will improve. This is self explanatory, but be sure to request for these upgrades every season in the boardroom, just note that a bad bank balance will see the upgrades fall through. Below are what my facilities look like, it took 4-5 years of bugging my board but we finally got great facilities and if you don’t take the time to do this, you may as well not read on because the other tips will never be fully effective.
Training
Now that you are prepared to invest in the clubs facilities over time and have purchased the best backroom staff, we will assign those coaches their best training categories. Click on each coaches name within training>coaches to see what category they are training, now see which category suits them best going from there attributes (you should buy coaches to suit specific categories such as attacking, defending etc.) You can see how suited a coach is to one category by the star rating and should pick a maximum of one training category per coach unless you don’t have enough coaches. You will notice that selecting more than one training category per coach brings their star rating down. After you have assigned coaches one training category (and if you bought the correct coaches,) your training overview should look similar to mine. To be honest, my training should be a lot better than it is.
You will notice some red rectangles in the image above, these highlight what makes a player improve. You need the best coaches to increase your star rating within each category, you also need great facilities and a workload that gets the players sweating but doesn’t overload them. We have already dealt with the categories and facilities, but we haven’t talked about the training schedules and workload.
Training schedules
There are many training schedules out there and I’m sure many are better than mine…in fact I’m sure you could develop your own with ease. To be completely honest I got lazy when the game first came out and downloaded a set of training schedules. I can’t remember where from or who made them, so I apologise for this but have spent ages trying to find the link on google with no avail. Either way I still felt like you guys should have the opportunity to share in these schedules so have made them all available for download below. The workload is just right and while it trains the players hard it doesn’t push them to injury. Just be aware that some lazier players may say they don’t like the workload, if this happens change to a schedule with less workload.
Full back schedule — click here to download.
Centre back schedule — click here to download.
Central Mid. schedule — click here to download.
Winger schedule — click here to download.
Striker schedule — click here to download.
How to download — Go to, my documents>sports interactive>Football Manager 2011 and create a file called ‘schedule’. After this is done click on each individual download link and save/download it into my documents>sports interactive>Football Manager 2011>schedule. Now load up the game and head over to ‘training’, then click on the ‘schedules’ tab and then click ‘manage schedules near the bottom. This will open up a new screen, at which point you should click ‘import’ and then import each schedule one by one. To find these schedules just take the route path shown above. After all schedules have been imported you should see them alongside the default schedules.
Now you should assign each and every player to the schedule that best suits their position. Some gamers have role specific schedules, pre-season schedules and one specifically for youth but I have always found success in the the five schedules above…and you know what they say, ‘why fix something that isn’t broken’. By the way, any players under the age of 17 will be left training under the default youth schedules and goalkeepers should be left in the default goalkeeper schedule. I have tested other schedules and there just isn’t enough workload to play with at that age.
Individual and position training
Very important to a youngsters development, you very rarely find players that are strong in every area or play in the exact postion you want. If you sign a new player and feel like one particular area could halt his progression, train him individually on that attribute/area. I did this with almost all my players and the results are very beneficial. I will go into more detail on this later but the same applies to players that aren’t ‘natural’ in the specific position you want. If a kid is natural in AMC and you want to use him as a CM, then retrain him in that position until he becomes ‘natural’ in the new role. Just be aware that doing this will take away from their general training level as the workload is spread out across ‘match preparation’, ‘training’, ‘individual training’, and ‘position’. You could even train a player in certain moves but I don’t do this unless my assistant recommends it.
The most important tool — game time!
If you don’t offer a player game time, he will never reach his potential and this must be done early. I recommend offering players from the ages of 17-19 around 15 games or more per season, then as they reach the age of 20 they should be playing double that amount. However, it isn’t just a case of slapping the kid into some random game against Manchester United, you need to pick your matches carefully. A player that gets game time but plays badly will progress far less than one that gets game time and plays well.
If you are a top flight club in England and have European qualification there should be plenty of easy matches to risk these youngsters. The League Cup, FA Cup and in the group stages of Europe can provide some good game time with the chance of a decent performance. Also look to those easy league matches and maybe mix 2-3 youngsters in with more experienced stars as opposed to fielding a squad of 17 year old’s and risk defeat alongside a worthless experience.
So what happens to those players that just can’t make it in your first team, well you need to loan them out. But not to any old team, try and get a club with good training facilities and never ever loan someone out unless the club are providing first team football. My rule of thumb is that once a players reaches 18 years old and isn’t guaranteed 15 matches in your team, he must be loaned out or will risk spending the season gaining next to no experience and every season counts.
Quick overview
OK, this is a lot of information to take in, so let me bullet point the steps you should be taking in the order they should be done.
- Get the right backroom staff and hand pick coaches to train in specific categories.
- Upgrade your facilities at every available opportunity.
- Give each coach one category to train in and make it their best, you want every category (ie shooting, attacking, defending, aerobic etc) to be around 3.5* minimum.
- Download my training schedules and assign each player to their relevant schedule based on their position.
- Look through your top talent to see if they need individual training to improve their game in weak areas.
- Offer 17-19 year old’s a minimum of 15 games per season but upwards of 15 would be better. Then increase this past 20 when they are 20 years old. Be sure to select the matches carefully to guarantee they get the most out of their experience.
- Loan out any player that won’t play and especially players of 18 or older that will fail to make 10 appearances. Don’t loan them out anywhere though, be sure to pick a club with good facilities that will offer first team football.
You didn’t think I was leaving the guide there did you?? So far you have learnt some incredibly simple tips and I’m sure most of you already use some of them. Well now its time to see the results. Go to the next page and see how I developed some of my youth at Newcastle.
Go to the next page and see how I developed some of my youth at Newcastle.
Jack
19 августа, 2011 at 13:52
Awesome guide Darren, I will certainly be applying your principles when I finally get a computer that doesn’t crash when playing FM :p
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:25
Thanks Jack, hope your computer gets sorted and the guide does help.
Mark
19 августа, 2011 at 14:08
Excellent guide. Well written and great examples. Gives me hope for the Ajax save I just started.
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:25
Good to hear Mark, I think if you know where to find the amazing 16 year olds and how to raise them you can run a club off peanuts :)
Nicholas Phipps
19 августа, 2011 at 14:55
Nic guide and very interesting. Thanks for the training schedules btw and I’ll be using them :)
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:24
No problem mate, hope it helped.
Michael Grantham
19 августа, 2011 at 15:06
Hi Darren,
Great guide and i think its really interesting to see how two of your best players have developed. The improvement in Santos’ mental attributes really is outstanding and i think you have proved hundreds of times that these principles work really well. I think you make a really good point about only trying to raise players who have the potential to be world class, and i think concentrating on those wonderkids in particular is the key to making them into surperstars!
Finally, really sad to see your newcastle story come to its conclusion as it was one of my favourite stories ive ever read but i think you have picked a good time to start a new one and i cannot wait to read it!
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:23
Thanks mate, I wanted to talk about Santos because you can see his potential from the first screenshot but I’m sure many of us fail to get those amazing regens to their full capacity. Santos’ mental attributes would never have grown so fast without first team football and that is the underlining key for me. I am sad to see the end of my Toon story too, but lets hope for a great one in the future.
aaron
24 августа, 2011 at 17:53
i have 2 computers i do research on 1 play on the other so how do i look at your tactics
Darren Smith
24 августа, 2011 at 18:50
I would download the tactic on one computer and save it to a memory stick then transfer it into the correct FM file on your other computer.
Johnny Karp
19 августа, 2011 at 16:36
I like how you put this together Darren, especially the second part where you show exactly how you did it at Newcastle. I have to admit that I might have been reluctant to sell Paloschi or Sanogo but such decisions were crucial for your ultimate goal of becoming the richest club in the world.
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:20
Thanks Johnny, there are so many guides on this subject that read the same so I wanted to make this different and more about my personal experience. I agree about Sanogo and Paloschi, any other save would have seen me keep them but as you mentioned my bank balance goal took over. In fact if it weren’t for that goal I would have never realised that no player is indispensable.
Brennan
19 августа, 2011 at 17:49
thank you Darren it was worth reading every word, i hope i can raise some superstars myself, will see how it goes :D
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 18:17
You’re welcome mate, hope you can put this into your game.
Kevin
19 августа, 2011 at 21:52
Darren — flipping brilliant!!!!!!!!!
Now there’s a word (flipping) I haven’t used in years :) Now in my Cambridge game the board refuse to upgrade the facilities…jerks!
Darren Smith
19 августа, 2011 at 22:24
;) Thanks Kevin, I use that work now and then but tend to receive a lot of banter in turn :)
I didn’t start to upgrade my facilities with Newcastle until 2015 after we’d already won three EPL titles. I honestly don’t think you can develop world class youth until you are in Europe. What I did is do anything and everything (including going into debt) to gain European qualification and a title challenging side. Then when the squad was solid I brought in potentially brilliant players and did as you see within the guide….but I didn’t follow my own rules until the squad was good enough to sustain ourselves with the big boys. At the end of the day unless you’re one of the best teams, you may struggle to get the superstar potential players. However you can apply this guide to players who could become ‘good in the EPL’ etc.
Kevin
20 августа, 2011 at 10:03
Thank Darren!!!
I wasn’t expecting a detailed reply — appreciate you taking the time to share some further insight into your game.
Cheers!
Adam D
20 августа, 2011 at 01:19
Hi,
Loved the Newcastle story, got a couple of question related to youth developement.
1 — There’s no mention of older player mentoring young ones. I’ve heard some people saying it’s essential, others saying not that important, what’s you opinion? (going by the lack of mention in this article I’m guessing the latter)
2 — (this one really only applies to UK clubs) Some countries, for example Brazil, have rules in place that under-18s can’t sign for clubs outside the country. If a scout uncovers a good player who is very young (like 14,15 or 16 years old) then chances are they wont get a work permit. Would you suggest:
— making the deal straight away to sign them when they turn 18 and then loaning them out to a work permit feeder club (where the training may not be as good) when they finally arrive.
— Or waiting till their closer to 18, where you get a bit more time to watch them, might be more likely to get a work permit (so they can stay at your good training facilites and get regular games against good opposition), but have a high chance of another club spotting them and getting their signature first. (Not sure, but in the past it has appeared to me like Spanish and Portugese clubs can ignore the «no transfer till 18 rule when it comes to South American players)
— Or something else?
Darren Smith
20 августа, 2011 at 09:16
I’ll try and answer your questions in order mate.
1 — Tutoring does help but mainly for a player to learn a peers style as opposed to raise attributes, but you can control how he develops his style of play anyway. I personally just listen to my assistant in the backroom meetings but don’t touch tutoring unless its recommended. If you pair the wrong players up the kid could reject the opportunity and offend the older star.
2 — To be honest I have never had the opportunity to sign a player without the ability to play him. What usually happens is when they’re 15-16, the deal won’t officially go through until they reach a certain age, meaning they stay with their club and join yours when they turn 18 etc. This is the best way around it as most Brazilian clubs do well in raising youth anyway and that way you can get the player at a knocked down price and avoid him being poached by other clubs.
Nathan
26 августа, 2011 at 19:22
I found that tutoring one of my young players increased his determination a lot (well it jumped by about 2). If it works it could help quite a bit.
Darren Smith
26 августа, 2011 at 20:53
It is certainly a good tool but I haven’t mentioned it specifically as I find it more personal choice due to varying results.
CsAtlantis
20 августа, 2011 at 06:18
Tutoring should get a mention, it’s a good way to try to pass on special moves to the younger generation, should work fine as long as the tutor and the youngster play in the same role
I think it would be easier to get to grips with youth development by starting at a club which has better youth facilities at the start, there are plenty around, even clubs in League 2 like Crewe have great youth facilities
Santos development as been nothing short of epic, what a player he ended up as, a true complete forward in every sense (eh, his tackling is 7, but i don’t think a striker schedule would have much defending training……..)
Darren Smith
20 августа, 2011 at 09:09
Yeah tutoring could have been mentioned but to be honest, I have never used this as a method of aiding youngsters development. I do now and then when its recommended by the assistant but don’t go searching for connections. It would be easier starting at a club with good facilities but to be honest I don’t think a youngster can start really developing until they’re in full time training and playing matches. Luckily that starts at 17 so you shouldn’t lose more than 1-2 years there.
George Dobson
20 августа, 2011 at 11:06
great post Darren it definatly helps me.Santos devolpment has been incredible and its also taught me that you have to make sacrifices in order to make your youngersters the best they can be. I will use eveything in the post.
Darren Smith
20 августа, 2011 at 13:03
Thanks George, hope this will help you develop some players.
Rob
20 августа, 2011 at 19:45
fantastic post yet again Darren, looking forward to using this is my game. With the training schedules would you put a very defensive Def Mid and a very attacking Att Mid both in the Cent Mid training category? thanks a lot
Rob.
Darren Smith
20 августа, 2011 at 22:04
Thanks Rob, I hope this will help. I generally put all midfielders into the cent mid schedule whether they are DMC CM or AMC. There may be a better way around this but that’s the way I went with NUFC.
tom
22 августа, 2011 at 08:12
I was just imagining a strike force of your Paloschi and Sanogo…then i saw Santos…Wow!!!
Thanks for including Sanogo…his improvements are awesome…and so quick! He starts the game with very modest stats…but with potential…but the speed at which he improves is amasing!
Fanatstic read…and I eagerly anticipate your next story…quick question…will you be implementing your youth to gold policy? Or with FM12 on the horizon is it win at any cost? It’ll be interesting to see.
Keep up the good work!
Darren Smith
22 августа, 2011 at 12:51
Thanks Tom, I’m glad you liked it and I agree, Sanogo, Paloschi and Santos is a mouth watering prospect…probably the best strike force I’ve ever managed. As for the new game it will be win at all costs without been daft. I don’t want to drag my team into debt but if I feel we can recuperate the cash because of a certain players ability then I’ll be spending as much as is allowed.
Laxeyman
22 августа, 2011 at 11:16
Good guide Darren, very interesting, and the way you develop youngsters is amazing, Santos and Sanogo improved no end under your tutelage. I need to get my board to upgrade my youth facilities, and after seeing this I’m gonna try straight away :)
Darren Smith
22 августа, 2011 at 12:51
Thanks mate, I hope this applies well to your game and you can get some use out of it.
darren
23 августа, 2011 at 13:28
Hiya Johnny, i cant figure this out and i was hoping you could help me? how do you set individual workloads for youth players? or for just youth players in general?
cheers, Darren
Johnny Karp
23 августа, 2011 at 13:34
Go to your youth team > training > schedules and edit the work load for the schedules that you want (assuming that you have assigned your players to those schedules before that).
Sibo
25 августа, 2011 at 06:00
Firstly, since I forgot to comment (I think), this is a brilliant post and I will find it really helpful for raising Sunderland’s youth prospects! :P
A question, if I may, I currently have Danny Welbeck on loan. He is a natural striker but I am going to play him as an AML with the inside forward role, should I put him on the forwards or wingers schedule?
Also, he has got 9 for passing and crossing, which of those would you say is more important to focus on with individual training? (In case you need to know, I will play Gyan upfornt and he is equally good with his head and his feet.)
Thanks Darren! :D
Darren Smith
25 августа, 2011 at 12:00
Hmmm, that is a difficult one. but my thought process is Welbeck is a natural striker and therefore should be able to improve his finishing faster than passing…so doing the individual training on his finishing would probably have more benefit. I reckon his finishing will be more important in the role you are using as well.
Nathan
26 августа, 2011 at 19:20
Nice guide, nice to see how your players developed. I’m playing a Liverpool game, bought a gk off Genk for next to nothing and gave him a few games, he played amazingly so I sold Reina for 30 mill after 1 season :) Hope I won’t regret that.
Also noticed Robinson and Suso’s potential ability going up with game time (and playing well, including Suso scoring a screamer vs Man U at 17 yrs old). Hope to see them develop well. Oh yeah, I bought Sanogo so I have a bit of a conundrum: who do I develop more out of Sanogo and Lukaku? Quite amazed that his speed increased so much in your game, hope that happens to Lukaku in mine, as he is deadly. Sanogo is more of a Y2G prospect as I got him for less than 10 million.
Interested by the workload of your training schedule, as I got some from this website with a lower workload… I’ll try these out and hope my players don’t get overloaded. I increased the aerobic and strength training of my schedules over the preseason and was pleasantly surprised by the result, so it’s something i’ll probably do a lot.
Darren Smith
26 августа, 2011 at 20:55
Thanks mate, glad you like the guide. You have some excellent players there and my recommendation is to try and raise both Sanogo and Lukaku. You could rotate them in the cup competitions and see who develops best. With regards to the workload, it can cause problems among 5% of the players but just adjust them to training with less workload and you’re sorted.
Nathan
27 августа, 2011 at 01:27
sorry Suarez, you’re gonna have to go… pity though I like him.
Is it normal that all the best Spanish prospects come from Real Madrid? I manually searched for regens in Spain and the only 4-star potentials with high determination are in Real Madrid… the only club no one wants to leave :( (not even Barca’s famed La Masia produced anything good). Guess I’ll wait and see what Brazil has to offer in January… Also got Thiago and Santon on free transfers, that’ll prob be at least 50 million profit when I sell.
Darren Smith
27 августа, 2011 at 12:24
I too found most of the Spanish talent came from Real but keep your eyes peeled as Rayo and Barcelona can provide some quality also. Brazil and Argentina are by far the best for producing young talent on the regeneration day, I usually get at least two regens a season from those two countries.
Carl
31 августа, 2011 at 22:54
An excellent guide Darren. I have also read your financil guides which were detailed and easy to follow and I would really recommend them to everyone.
I want to try and apply this on my game but my main problem is selling players at a good price in order to create room for the younger world class prosepct. For example I have a younger player who is a 4* propsect at Chelsea but I need to get rid of either John Terry, Alex or Ivanovic to make room. How would you do it?
I believe this is a vital part of your philosophy because if you need to provide game time for a youth prospect (sonogo, santos) and sell a world class player (paloschi), then you need to make profits on your purchases to gradualy increase your bank balance. You can then sign young world class prospects cheaply and the cycle continues.
Also, how did you manage to sell Sonogo for almost 60 million?
Darren Smith
1 сентября, 2011 at 18:31
Thanks Carl, selling players is very simple but you must play them regularly. Without first team football no one will be interested and their potential sale value will decrease drastically. So when you have played these guys I suggest offering one out to all clubs at more than double his value. Only do this near the start of the transfer window though as this is when clubs have the most money.
Getting this down to tee and selling players at the right time is tough but will make you rich.
I got £60 mill for Sanogo because I played him all the time and his value eventually rose to £29 million…I then offered him to clubs for £70 million and despite a few crap offers Inter came in with £60mill. That was that. :)
L
2 сентября, 2011 at 10:48
That’s a nice guide, Darren, will be using your training schedules to try to train the youngsters. I’m currently playing Legia in Poland League, been winning the league and consistent qualification for champions league for 6 seasons, the training and youth facilities are the best now, but the youth recruitment ( currently «above average» ) option in the boardroom request is still grayed out. How do you get to improve the youth recruitment network? Thanks.
Darren Smith
2 сентября, 2011 at 11:50
Thanks mate, as for the youth recruitment you just have to wait for the board to open that option in the boardroom. Other than that you could try getting some good youth coaches, signing the best scouts with knowledge all over the world and making links with clubs in foreign countries. All of this would widen your scope.
L
2 сентября, 2011 at 13:09
Been doing as what you’ve suggested, Darren, my scouts are roaming around different regions, and always seem to be the first to find some talented youngsters, for eg. currently, been buying many talented goalkeepers from africa, now many want first team football .
Also, my club is currently renting the stadium at 150k/year since I first started the game, is it recomended to buy the current stadium or build a new stadium? Thanks :) .
Darren Smith
2 сентября, 2011 at 18:39
Good to hear all is going well mate. As for the stadium I am not sure which would be best…I guess it depends on your finances as a new stadium would cost more than buying the current one. If the finances are healthy and your stadium has a capacity of less than 35,000 I’d suggest building a new one.
Nicholas Phipps
24 сентября, 2011 at 06:33
Just a quick question, which schedules do you put your defensive midfielders on? I’m never quite sure whether to put them on the DC or the CM one and I was just wondering what you did
Darren Smith
24 сентября, 2011 at 07:55
Hey Nick, I always put DMC’s in the CM schedule. Mainly because a DMC will have the attributes required defensively and adequate training for them within the CM schedule, but its vital to ensure they get the right amount of technique and passing etc. There’s no point in having a great DMC that wins every challenge but can’t then pick out a pass :)
Nicholas Phipps
24 сентября, 2011 at 10:05
Ok Thanks :)
Josh-Legg
27 сентября, 2011 at 18:30
Hey, absolutely brilliant read, i previewed your financial control post and im hoping it will teach me a thing or two,as my financial control is abismal…..
Anyway, I have just started a game in the french league as Stade Rennais FC…may have heard of them before, and i guess its kind of cheating, but they have state of the art youth facilities and every facility you can think of :D …. so i am hoping with the help of your guide, and a little bit of my own intuition…i can break the top 4 in the french league and become world beaters :D….thanks again mate!
Darren Smith
27 сентября, 2011 at 18:38
Thanks Josh, I hope the guide does help a lot. As for my finance guide, its giving tips while I analyse my finances with Newcastle and as I write I explain where and how I can make drastic improvements. If you can relate that back to your own team it should work wonders.
Josh-Legg
27 сентября, 2011 at 18:47
Yeah :) my wage budget atm is just over 200k which obv isnt too bad….but this sid eis fullof amazing young talents,just got to find the superstars….
Already upset my best centre back :( although tried your trick when he requested a transfer and offered to clubs for double the price….valued at £2m….so i offered to clubs for 8m….and hey presto £7,25m to napoli….should tie me over :p also my fabulous scouts have spotted a strong african 18yr old to replace him so fingers crossed…anyway enough blabbering thanks again bud
joycey360
26 октября, 2011 at 13:06
awesome guide! just a heads up even if you knew already Arsenal, (obviously) Watford (I know, you must be thinking wtf?) and Ajax have the most promising youth prospects in my opinion. Planning for some steals when Watford’s guys turn 19! Hopefully by then my little Burton Albion team will have gone up a few leagues and they might actually want to come!
You can check out my story at: http://burtonalbionfootballmanager.blogspot.com/
Thanks :)
Darren Smith
26 октября, 2011 at 18:27
Thanks mate, all those clubs do have a decent setup and some very nice talent for sure.
Louis
27 октября, 2011 at 09:35
Darren, i’ve always been a sceptic of this Steam malarky. Now, i have new FM12 and have played it few times (I’m Arsenal, and I’m slightly miffed that I’m not struggling!!). Anyway, i can’t play the game as Steam says it is unavailable! It is doing my head in. I only played it yesterday! Steam is working and connected to the net, yet FM wont start! HELP!!!!!!
Louis
27 октября, 2011 at 09:42
Also, when is regen day? and how do i easily search for these??
Darren Smith
27 октября, 2011 at 11:58
OK mate, well I’d suggest you’re trying to play the game using your Internet connection so go into Steam, click the word ‘steam’ in the top left hand side corner and then click ‘go offline’. Now try loading the game again and let me know what happens. As for the regens they shouldn’t be much different form FM11 so check this post https://www.footballmanagerstory.com/2011/05/football-manager-how-to-find-the-best-regens/ Until I’ve done testing I can’t make a post for this info in FM12. Hope this all helps mate.
Barry
6 февраля, 2012 at 20:53
Hi Darren, thanks for the guide, I was just wondering if when you say give them 15 games per season you mean 15 starts or will 15 sub appearances suffice?
Darren Smith
6 февраля, 2012 at 21:02
No it needs to be 15 starts, using them in the easier cup competitions is best as getting them in a match where they can perform well will boost their development too as opposed to playing them in games where they are out of their depth.
Daniel
24 февраля, 2012 at 22:12
Hi Darren, I played Luuk de Jong as the lone striker in a 4-3-3 last season after acquiring him on a free at the end of 2011/2012. I am Tottenham and I tend to play with Modric, Bale, Lennon and Van der Vaart/Eriksen so I could probably play Torres up there and still win the league, which I did anyway in 2012/2013. He scored 14 goals in 28 premier league starts and 1 substitute appearance adding 3 CL goals in 8 starts(and 3 subs). Although these numbers are good, I can’t help but feel the rest of the Tottenham team played a part in this, and I was wondering if I should splash out on a new striker, (I will probably bring enough money in after winning the prem) which will probably mean I’ll be serious Champions League contenders, because De Jong hasn’t advanced greatly in his attributes. He is almost 23, do I stick with him?! His potential is there, but is it too late to reach it?! When I did play Adebayor (I loaned him again in 12/13) he was amazing, (16 goals in 16 starts in all comps) but I was reluctant to play him because I wanted to develop De jong. Thanks in advance!
Darren Smith
25 февраля, 2012 at 12:35
I’d suggest going on for a true wonderkid like Fierro to be honest, and maybe rotate him with De Jong.
Mohammad Sadek
3 марта, 2012 at 17:11
I think you can only play them in the reserves .
Mohammad Sadek
3 марта, 2012 at 17:17
i mean also not only
billy
13 июня, 2012 at 00:25
hey darren nice article, which should i use your training schedules here or Maestro Ugo’s Training Schedules
Darren Smith
13 июня, 2012 at 11:57
Use the Maestro Ugo training for FM12
lotanna
31 июля, 2012 at 16:06
have erick, fierro, kadlec…..but my fierro hasn’t had much playing time over the years..now hes 20 with finishing of 13…and myy youngsters have caught up….is there any hope for him yet???
Darren Smith
31 июля, 2012 at 18:31
No its not too late, but he must play regular soon or it will be a waste.
Rohan
15 сентября, 2012 at 06:45
After Reading Page 2 of this Excellent Post on Youth Devlopment, I Really would like to Read your Newcastle Story from FM 2011 if you can provide me the Link.
After Reading the Scarborough/Charlton Story again while you were on ur Break, I would be very much interested in the Newcastle Story as well…..
Thanks
Darren Smith
15 сентября, 2012 at 09:42
Well here is the link to that category https://www.footballmanagerstory.com/category/newcastle-darren/ You’d have to start from the last page and work forward, but there aren’t any images as they were lost in a problem with our host.