Premiership club signing lower and non league players?

[CMPUNK1]

Hi,

I was wondering whether it was possible to sign lower league and non league players for English Premiership Clubs that will make the grade.

One of my favourite aspects of the game and in real life is the scouting and development of new young talent in hopes that you can nurture them and progress their game until they could potentially reach the heights of Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana.

I'm sure this happens at most clubs but it is however not documented often. This is Premership clubs constantly scouting and giving trials non league and out of contract players. Once in a while signing up these prospects in a hope they can nurture them to the fringes of the first team and beyond.

I find developing youth much more exciting and rewarding than splashing millions in the transfer window.

Take for example my supported club Hull City who in the last season have signed around 6 non league and unsigned players from the likes of the Ryman League with Calaum Jahraldo-Martin, Conor Henderson, Elliott Kebbie and Johan Ter Horst. All non league hot prospects and the latter was chased by many Premiership and Championship clubs.

Higher profile success stories being Hull City's George Boyd and Crystal Palace's Dwight Gayle.

So my question is. Within the game, is it possible to sign players that are good enough to make the grade in the Premiership that are unsigned or from lower leagues like the Ryman league, Skrill Prem, North and South?

If so, what would your recommendations be to find these types of players?

 

[mkempdillon]

On FM these players are very rare, even more so than in reality. Whilst a lot of non-league players could easily make it in L1/L2, this doesn't really happen on FM until regens come through. I've only had these sort of experiences twice on FM. As Carlisle I got a young regen from Hayes and Yeading who went on to play for England as star CM and other time I was doing a Level 11 up career and saw a player from Loughborough Dynamos turn down my own team and joins Huddersfield. He then later played in the Prem as a decent target man. FM will create these players, but the AI always acts first usually so most of them leave their initial club within months of being in the youth intake.

As to how to find them? Other than having scouts on u19, Skrill leagues, looking through the youth intakes of English club through the transfer list is probably the best bet. But you'd get better results just pinching people from League clubs then looking for 1 decent player from hundreds with non-league clubs.

On this note I've always hoped FM would have some form of in built system in which if you signed a player from non / lower league, then, if when they join you, they turn out to be good enough (would be 1/100 chance) all of their stats increase by 2-4 to show the jump up in league quality. For example when Dwight Gayle joined Peterborough from non-league on FM his stats probably would have stayed the same, when in reality he proved himself and they should have increased instantly to show he could play at a higher level, but imagine it would be very difficult to code and would just come down to CA/PA

 

[only1tinoasprilla]

max clayton is prop the best one u could sign for premiership team plays for crewe but i doubt will ever set the world alight