Reserve/U-19 team question regarding youth development

[Danyul]

The title may not have made much sense, but anyway what I wanted to know was whether youth players (generally 19 and under) would benefit better from playing reserve football or U19 football.

With most of my teams I pull my reserve team out of the league, as I figured that if a player becomes too old for the U19 squad (or U18 in some countries, making him age 19/20) and he's not good enough to atleast be a squad player in my senior team, then he probably won't make the cut anyway and i'd be better off selling him.

However now i'm managing in portugal and wanted to take advantage of signing alot of south americans. But none of them are able to join until they turn 18 due to south american regulations, which means they'll only get about 1 season in my U19 team before being moved up.

I know I could enter both leagues, but i'd rather have them playing just 1 league so I can use heavier training schedules without more risk of injury (and also because I like all my youth players to be consolidated into 1 team).

So my question is, would it be a bad idea to pull my U19 squad out of the league and have my youngsters just play reserve team football instead?

 

[The Shots]

It would be a good idea. But if you have a good youth team, you will have players not playing football. I keep a reserve league as if you are Man Utd and you sing e.g. Lukaku. he will not be able to play yet, as you have Rooney, ect. So I would put him in reserves to get some games in Hope this makes sence.

 

[Darth South]

development? I advice feeder clubs. But they shouldn't all be in premier league, so if you have a 15 year old player, he will have a place to play regular football. Better than reserves, if you ask me.

 

[Mike.]

Sfraser has done a really good piece on player development, this thread is worth reading:
http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=122234