Victim of my own depth? How to give players enough starts to keep them happy?

[vjcsmoke]

So I've made sure that my team is deep and talented. I have 34 footballers. But they all want to get 1st team starts. That's kind of impossible to accommodate them all. But I have the best trainers and facilities, I'm afraid to send my extras out on loan because they probably won't develop as well as at my own club. What to do, what to do? About 1/3 through the season and approaching the winter transfer window. Here's my roster:

ST: Suarez, Benteke, Mitrovic, Berardi, Crawford (regen)
AML: Insigne, Bernard, Sterling
AMR: Lamela, Rodrigo Gomez
AMC: Quintero, Rafinha
MC: Verratti, Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Lucas Romero, Will Hughes, Stringfellow (regen/loan)
DM: Reyes, Youngjohns (regen)
DL: Shaw, Jonathan Silva, Vance (regen)
DC: Balanta, Caulker, Zouma, Josh White (regen), Birch (regen), Riley (regen)
DR: Danilo, Clyne, Bonatti (regen/loan)
GK: Koval, Masullo (regen/loan)

I've arranged to sell Benteke to PSG for 36.5m in the winter window so that should help alleviate some of the logjam. Any other moves I should make? I usually play the 4-2-3-1 at home. And the 4-3-3 away. So I'm finding it hard to find enough starts for both Quintero and Rafinha. Also, I've tried using Silk & Steel away but it doesn't score well and takes away my wingers and amc, leaving even less starts available! My young strikers are also finding it difficult to find starts. Also note that Suarez sometimes eats up starts on the wings when he's not at ST. Is there a good away tactic that uses 2 strikers or a striker and amc? Also I'm curious, how many starts does it take for a player to properly develop over a full season. Is 20 each enough?

 

[wkdsoul]

keep the best player and best potential for each position, shift the rest on cash loans.

 

[Devians]

Send the young players to a club that has good facilities or make them available for the reserve team.
do not sell the player which have mixed well in the club.
Sell those players also who are approaching 30 or losing their attributes or injury-plagued.
A team of 25-27 should do the job.
Use this tactics(4-2-4 version) 14.3 Zero Sea's Rage--343 4231 424 V6 - Downloads - Football Manager 2014 Tactics, Wonderkids & Cheats

 

[wkdsoul]

Send the young players to a club that has good facilities or make them available for the reserve team.
do not sell the player which have mixed well in the club.
Sell those players also who are approaching 30 or losing their attributes or injury-plagued.
A team of 25-27 should do the job.
Use this tactics(4-2-4 version) 14.3 Zero Sea's Rage--343 4231 424 V6 - Downloads - Football Manager 2014 Tactics, Wonderkids & Cheats

Ignore this.

 

[Logorex]

Send the young players to a club that has good facilities or make them available for the reserve team.
do not sell the player which have mixed well in the club.
Sell those players also who are approaching 30 or losing their attributes or injury-plagued.
A team of 25-27 should do the job.
Use this tactics(4-2-4 version) 14.3 Zero Sea's Rage--343 4231 424 V6 - Downloads - Football Manager 2014 Tactics, Wonderkids & Cheats

LOL this isn't FIFA, you know. Players over 30 can still play a major part in your club, even if you ARE pushing for titles and whatnot.
They can still be great tutors to the regens.

 

[wkdsoul]

Approaching, makes me think he's looking to sell at 28/29.. most players prime lol.

 

[Devians]

LOL this isn't FIFA, you know. Players over 30 can still play a major part in your club, even if you ARE pushing for titles and whatnot. They can still be great tutors to the regens.

I was only talking about which players to sell in order to trim the squad. Not a philosophy to equip.

Ignore this.

the whole or only the part you have highlighted

 

[wkdsoul]

The highlighted. When you start getting the 'showing signs of decline' look to offload. not pre 30

 

[Devians]

Rather of selling (cause i have lots of $$$$) i downgrade them to reserves whenever the end of season report says they are degrading as a footballer and encourage them to be a coach so that they retire in the club itself cause fans dont like a devoted or good player leaving
But for his case i advised to sell

 

[silversurfie]

I would suggest a heavy rotation if your rotation and backup players are good enough to play in the league. I have 3 different squads saved, Best Player Squad for important matches or against big sides, and then split my best squad up into 2 rotations trying to keep both of them balanced talent wise. That should get your best 11 lots of gametime while getting your backup/rotation 11 some gametime.

Also you shouldn't be afraid to sell players, unless they are a Top 5 player in the world at their position (ala Messi etc) you should always be open to selling them if the return is good and there are suitable alternatives on your team or available on the market. Unless they are top 5 there is always going to be equivalent players that can be acquired cheaper then current player's sale fee. For example in the first year of my Southampton save my best striker Osvaldo scored 38 goals across all competitions and won EPL player of the year. I sold him 2014 preseason for 21.2m pounds. Replaced him with younger and almost equivalent current ability in Insigne and Paloski for 13.2m combined. Paloski who is age 23 I am probably going to sell in 1-2 years time once Insigne passes him in current ability and around that time the 3 4.5-5 star wonderkid regens I have will be good enough to rotate into my first team. Also currently have Vydra (21) on the team and Barbosa (18) coming in during the Winter transfer. Vydra I already envision selling within a year or two as he will be blocking the development of my 4.5-5 star talents. Barbosa when he gets in and will be in my rotation. Eventually I'm probably going to sell him in 3-4 years since my developing wonderkids will blow past him. Eventually my wonderkids will be replacing Gaston Ramirez and/or Insigne within 5 years, I might even sell them sooner if they can be replaced with equivalent lesser valued players.

Eventually it will get to the point where my best 11 will be filled by 180+PA under age 28 players with my backups developing wonderkids. Once they hit 28 or 29 I will look to move them as their value will be at its peak and then move up the next man into the starting 11. If you have a great tactic you can just plug in new players without much dropoff in performance.

 

[vjcsmoke]

Thanks for the suggestions. It's really tough to juggle the talent and get them enough starts. The problem is that the premier division race is very tight. I'm usually only 1-3 points in the lead and sometimes fall behind, although I have games in hand. So there is a LOT of pressure to keep winning! Thus I find it hard to play the kids because it gives me less of a chance to win. Right now I'm tied with Man U for 1st place with only 8 games left to play!

League Table: http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab312/goraiden/EnglishPremierDivision_OverviewStages-7.png

I've already sold Benteke to help with the logjam at ST and Verratti to help with the logjam at the CM position. I got 36.5m for Benteke to PSG and 40m for Veratti to Real Madrid.

Great signings there after your sale btw. Insigne has been an absolute beast for me. I got him in the 1st season for 15m and IMO he has turned into a world class player by age 25. He currently leads my scoring charts and when he plays well, generally my team wins. He already has 10 Man of the Match awards!

Insigne pic: http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab312/goraiden/LorenzoInsigne_OverviewProfile-4.png

I have a bit of a dilemma with the wingers as they are complaining that they have too much competition at the position. Because I forgot that Rodrigo Gomez was in my reserves suffering from long term injury. Now he is back fully healthy and wants starts. But he isn't going to pull many starts away from Lamela. Not to mention that Raheem Sterling has been RED HOT for me lately and has already banged in double digit goals. He is also demanding more 1st team starts!

I love the potential of Bernard, but how can i bench Insigne when the guy is so critical to my offense and set pieces? A real dilemma!

BTW with the DC situation, the regen, White is a 5 star potential player who is rated 4.5/5 stars now at age 21. Incredible. He is so good Balanta and Zouma sometimes are not seeing enough starts. but I don't want to go too young on defense. I prefer to have at least a few 'veteran' players. The other bonus with White is that his nationality is USA and I suspect I am generating a LOT of revenue overseas by getting the USA fans attracted to Liverpool football with an American as one of our featured stars.

White pic: http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab312/goraiden/JoshWhite_OverviewProfile-3.png

The problem now is that although I've loaned a few kids and sold a couple of contenders for starting time, I've also added a couple players and gotten a couple back from injury. And now the winter window has passed, so I can't sell more players, nor are most teams interested in taking on loans at this time.

Plus a lot of this upcoming talent feel that they are 'too good' to be loaned out. LOL. Not to mention Raheem Sterling came up to me the other day and demanded that his competitors at his position be sold!! What brass for a 22 year old kid to come up to his boss and ask that?!

Sterling pic: http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab312/goraiden/RaheemSterling_OverviewProfile.png

I Will probably have to do the final trimming in the offseason before the summer window! Will update more later.

 

[silversurfie]

Yeah totally understand where you're coming from, first season as Southampton I loathed to take Osvaldo off the field as he was bagging lots of goals the first half for me. Even when he went a 7 game stretch of bad form I still played him hoping he regained his form. He was always complacent second half of season and has crappy hidden attributes which is one of the reasons I sold him.

In regards to rotating players, its not too bad as long as your backups are competent. Your B team should be better then the lowest premier team so 2 balanced rotations should be able to overcome anyone in the bottom half of the table. If your tactics are good the rotation squads should even be able to beat top table teams. A half star dropoff in 5 positions shouldn't be too troubling as long as your man management and teamtalks are good. High morale and good teamtalks are far more important then that small dropoff in ability. Also getting your backups gametime will increase their value and increase bids if you're looking to sell. Lallana value rose from 5m to 8m and I didnt even play him the second half of the season, not even a single bid at 1.8m. Dont get stuck like that.

During the summer window suggest you should do a full evaluation of your team and sort they by key players to keep and players you can replace. **** if your backup is almost as good as your starter I would sell the starter if the price was right.

 

[MANUMAD]

Dont do anything drastic. 34 players are not that many for a team wanting to go after all possible trophies.

ST: Suarez, Benteke, Mitrovic, Berardi, Crawford (regen)

Suarez-Berardi and Benteke -Mitrovic (alternate each match and use Crawford against weaker teams as well - Im assuming he's not yet as good as the others) - Unless your tactics only have one attacker in which case why did you buy so many cfs?

AML: Insigne, Bernard, Sterling

Give them all starts with the other(s) on bench by rotating them (one after the other so you go by 3 matches)

AMR: Lamela, Rodrigo Gomez

As for AML

AMC: Quintero, Rafinha

Alternate and sometimes use one of the AML/Rs here as well

MC: Verratti, Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Lucas Romero, Will Hughes, Stringfellow (regen/loan)

Wanyama and Romero are more suited in defensive positions (or at least BWM).

DM: Reyes, Youngjohns (regen)

See above

DL: Shaw, Jonathan Silva, Vance (regen)
DC: Balanta, Caulker, Zouma, Josh White (regen), Birch (regen), Riley (regen)

Loan out one of the regens or sell Caulker.

DR: Danilo, Clyne, Bonatti (regen/loan)

GK: Koval, Masullo (regen/loan)

 

[ILSATS]

LOL this isn't FIFA, you know. Players over 30 can still play a major part in your club, even if you ARE pushing for titles and whatnot.
They can still be great tutors to the regens.

If you are playing a big club with a lot of money like OP, there's no need for players over 30. Sure they can still do some stuff, but players at the age of 25-28 can do a lot better.

And to the OP : 34 players are too many. About 28-30 is good (including young players who does not need to be registered). You better loan/sell players whose abilities will not be that good in the future.