Subject: Youth Monitoring (Season 11)

He already has the minimum requirement defending for a defender so i'd probably go with that. I dont see you having the time to train his passing up for him to be good enough for the midfield and the same goes for forwards when he'd need a lot of technique.
Basically the more he resembles Brunton the better.
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If he's got talent like that I'd be tempted to try and make a supermid out of him. If you had a season each of technique passing and playmaking with some pace thrown in when you could the fomidable defender would be his smallest midfield stat.

It depends what your other trainees need but unless you have someone better ;) I'd make him my training focus.

I'm trying to base my training on this guy -

Christian Colbert, age 20
value: 298 000 €, wage: 2 850 €
excellent form
bookings:
adequate stamina,
adequate pace,
outstanding technique,
good passing,
hopeless keeper
excellent defender
formidable playmaker
weak striker

I figure pace passing and defending over 3 seasons will make him a nice defender. I was tempted to miss out the defending for more offensive stuff but my whole team needs defending
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Do you have something against Defenders? Are you Kevin Keegan?
Foxton may have striking skills but at the moment he's a better defender than a mid. Put it this way, if he's 65 as a defender and 55 as a midfielder, he can maybe add 15 points to his score with training (dont ask me what score, i'm trying to make a point about potential) now you can either have a defender with 80 or a mid with 70.
We need defenders and he's a national team certainty as a defender. As a mid i think he'd be an occasionally used squad player at best. If it werent for his stamina i'd add him to the squad right now as a defender.
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Regarding Colbert, at the moment he's more of a mid than a defender but he's a mid whose passing isnt good enough. I'll be honest, i think that level of playmaking for a defender is a waste. I'd much rather have an out and out defender with reasonable passing and playmaking (Solid in both would be great) than a jack of all trades who wont be able to deal with a top class forward.

he could be also very nice def-mid:) ireland don't play with this position, i don't know why... a good, fast def-mid near to defence could be very usefull to the team.

We play it sometimes with the 5-4-1. I wont use that sort of defensive midfielder though unless it's needed for the opposition, otherwise it's just a waste.

i don't think so. i play in most of games with one (sometimes two) def-mid(s), and it works great as first line of defence. just look on my league games now and in past seasons - very often my rival can't score any goal:)

(except my last game, witch i played with reserve players;))

sure - it's some kind of waste - but only teams with v.good defenders could play without def-mids - as you said, ireland have lot of problems with that formation.

We've been doing pretty well without a defensive mid for 3 seasons. I see no need to defend excessively against teams we can compete with. With the better teams its a different story.
The problems we've got are not due to a lack of defenders but a lack of quality. Adding another adequate defender to the mix only plays to our weaknesses and we're better off playing a more balanced formation when we can.

pretty well... allways could be better.

you think that playing def-mid is wasting a player... but playing with 2 central mids close to each other is also a waste, same as playing symetrical tactic.

pretty well... allways could be better.

Things can always be better but how much better do you think? I'm an over-perfectionist but even i dont think there is much more i can do with this squad as it is.

you think that playing def-mid is wasting a player... but playing with 2 central mids close to each other is also a waste, same as playing symetrical tactic.

It doesn't serve us to sit back and defend. Thats obvious when you see the players we've got. In a game where one team dominates because everyone else precribes to a defensive tactic against them, i've no intention to following that line.
I dont agree with you on the central mids either, if i move them apart, teams will just cut through the centre. Surely you've noticed that in the last 16 games or so no-one has outplayed us in midfield apart from Sweden (i made a mistake in that one which is why it didnt work).
As far as mirrored tactics go, it's a 50-50 thing. What works on one half of the pitch will work on the other and generally i get the placements right. If you dont mirror you're only ever likely to be strong down one half of the pitch. Mirroring helps for organisation purposes as well.

i like my defenders to have technique as well though - generally make less mistakes in defence then

its tough to know what to do. i have stapleton who is only 18 who would probably be the better one to base my training around and some good other young strikers too. hes already probably better than fairclough and just needs pace and stamina. but then i have macguiness who is also looking like a complete defender too! too many good young players!
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we just have different look on tactic. but look on stats of my league - i have week players, only about 45%, and im on second place - so i don't think that my idea is wrong.

William Purcell, age: 19
value: 103 750 €, wage: 1 350 €
club: roderick fc, country: Ireland
excellent form, tragic tactical discipline

poor stamina, tragic keeper
very good pace, poor defender
adequate technique, unsatisfactory playmaker
very good passing, good striker

in formidable :O

and:

Ken Shelton outstanding 1 Reject
Ben Brereten incredible 1 Reject
Luke Holmes adequate 2 Reject
Glen Hegarty outstanding 6 Reject
Adrain Thompson adequate 7 Reject
Jimmy Hollands average 9 Reject
Nigel Broaders adequate 10 Reject
Luke Comeford solid 12 Reject
Tom Christie good 18 Reject
Brent Heaney adequate 28 Reject
Ian Broaders good 30 Reject
Buster Broaders adequate 32 Reject

The 69% territory loss you had today suggests you are, as does the 66% and 61% in your previous league games. At national level that sort of deficit would lead to us getting destroyed.

sure, but my last 3 games are playing with 17 years old player on defence, so look on same older games:)

i don't have team for polish 3 division, so now results aren't important. only traning:)

Joe Sumant Very Good 12 Gyro
Ben Watters Solid 12 Gyro
Simon Stapleton Good 12 Diamond
Lee Zandstra Adequate 12 Decka
Dwayne Foran Adequate 12 Nin
Johan Saha Average 12 Nin