Today’s is about changes and new features regarding youth players and “newgens” which are the players that come into the game over time to ensure that there are a stream of players available for your whole career.

We often talk about how FM 2012 is part evolution for the series, and part revolution. So let’s start out with some revolution…

In previous editions of the Football Manager series, you didn’t have much control over the youth squad. Each year you’d find a bunch of players dumped into your youth squad at the start of the season. Not any more.

With FM 2012, we’ve given you more control over which players make it into your youth squad. Towards the end of the domestic season, you’ll get a news item in your inbox to inform you that your youth candidates are now ready to be assessed. Your coaches will already have assessed them and will be able to give you a scouting report for each one, as well as your assistant making recommendations to you on who you should, or shouldn’t, give a youth contract to.

Your staff will also arrange a match between your current youth squad, and the youth candidates so you can watch them in action, and you can also choose to have a further look at the players by allowing them to play in normal youth team matches for the few weeks when you are making your decisions on who to take on.

They are initially treated as an extra squad, so it’s easy to see who they are and scroll through them using quick flicks. After the youth candidates have played their evaluation match against your current youth team, they will stay on with your youth team as trialists for the following few weeks.

It’s a whole new level of control for those of you who want to micromanage to the lowest level– but as we know that this isn’t something that everyone will want to do, we’ve also made it so that your assistant can look after who to take on if you don’t want to go this in depth alongside the other things that you can ask your assistant to look after, such as team talks and press conferences.

One thing that we always need to balance when we’re adding in new features is that people play the game in different ways.

We know that some people will love the extra control on youth teams. But we also know that some people don’t bother with youth squads at all, just signing ready made players from other teams in the game. There are also many who manage at a lower level, and struggle to balance their finances between having a youth squad and the needs of the first team.

So we have an option for those people too.

So, for them, you can now ask your board to scrap your youth set up entirely. This will mean no new players coming through, and no need to try and get wages together to pay for the youth team. Your board may so no, of course, but if they’re looking to save money too, then it’s likely they’ll say yes.

There have also been improvements in the way that the newgens are generated, with country based positional “traits” now being used. In Brazil, for example, it’s rare that they have natural wingers in real life, with those players more likely to be wing backs, so you’ll see less Brazilian newgen wingers, and more Brazilian newgen wing backs.

The same can also be said of a players mental attributes. Players in Brazil, due to the way they grow up playing the game, are more likely to have flair. Players in Spain are more likely to play a short passing game. All of these traits are now reflected better in game.

We’ve also improved the way youth recruitment works at different clubs for their youth setup. The club’s youth recruitment network and youth facilities are not only linked to the quality of newgens produced by the youth setup, but also the scope of the recruitment. So clubs with excellent recruitment networks and state-of-the art facilities have the ability to attract youth players not just from the local regions, but from other continents as well.

There’s also been a big improvement in the way names are generated for all youth players, particularly in countries where there are lots of regions and names tend to be region specific.

So that’s it for the youth & newgens blog – there are many other improvements in this area too, but we’ll let you discover those for yourself when you’re playing Football Manager 2012 later in the year

Also just watched the tactics video, looks pretty good.

Link??

Got bored of Liverpool, and started another Celtic career.

Anyway, trying to re-sign Victor Wanyama to a new contract, but he keeps getting rejected for a WP. The kicker? He's played all bar 1 of Kenya's games in the past 2 years. That's 10 out of 11 games. How the fuck is he not getting a permit.

There's something so satisfying about completely overhauling a team and bringing in youth and it just clicking right from the off.

What are Kenya ranked? They need to be inside the top 75 or something.

This. They must have played 60% of international games in the previous 12 months for a side ranked inside the top 75. I don't remember the rules for outside the top 75.

I currently have 11 players away on international duty and have to play a cup quarter final away against Utrecht. Don't have a full side to field. And I hate playing Utrecht away because they always get lucky against me. Not happy.

I generally try to use the NT to scout for potential, but that's not much use when you're managing a shitty nation like Australia :P

[size=6]FM2012: Transfers And Contracts[/size]

When I’m playing the game, I’m the archetypal “wheeler dealer” manager. Buying, selling, negotiating. Finding that young rough diamond, turning him into a world superstar, getting the best years out of him, then selling him for a tidy profit at the same time. Here’s what is in store for me this year.

Let’s start off with improvements to amateur contracts. And the addition of proper “non-contract” err, contracts.

Non-contracts are very similar to amateur contracts in many ways, in that the players are able to move freely to other clubs if they are signed on non-contract terms. However, these players can earn money with appearance fees and bonuses possible.

Non contracts aren’t just for players either – you can offer non-contract terms to staff too.

Of course, these options are only available to you should the team be likely to use them in real life, so don’t expect these options if you’re managing a top division club!

One thing many of the community noticed from the original announcement and screenshots from a few weeks ago was the “loyalty bonus” which has replaced the “signing on fee”. This has been changed based on feedback from both our agent and chief executive contracts, as signing on fees are now paid throughout the length of a contract, and not all upfront.

Another thing that was mentioned then was contract locks. These have a huge effect in the way that contract negotiations are done now, particularly when you’re on a budget!

Say you’ve got a limited wage budget and a maximum of 5k a week, yet the player you want is demanding 7k. Rather than getting frustrated going backwards and forwards without movement, you can lock the 5k offer, and the agent will then look at other ways to make the player happy, such as looking at some of the other bonuses available, or asking for a percentage of any sale on the player. Or they could just accept. Or walk away. But at least you all know where you stand in the negotiation.

There are some other tweaks to contract negotiations too, such as making it easier to withdraw or change your contract offer, including the chance to re-negotiate terms with a player after the agent has provisionally accepted, in case another club comes in for them that might be offering them more wages.

And you’ve also got the chance to have different minimum fee release clauses, for higher division clubs, domestic clubs and foreign clubs, as well as a new contract clause – “pay increase after x international caps”.

What about when players don’t want to be at your club anymore?

We’ve increased the chances that players might ask for mutual terminations, such as when a team gets relegated, or if they are near the end of their contracts and transfer listed.

You can also, via a conversation, issue an ultimatum to a player who hasn’t agreed a new contract with you in the last year of their contract to sign, or they’ll be put on the transfer list.

And also via a conversation, can tell a player why you’re transfer listing them.

A change with agents sees them better servicing the needs of the club – if you suggest that you’re looking for a new goalkeeper in a press conference, for example, then expect to be offered more goalkeepers from agents.

You also now get much better feedback in the game on why a club that was interested might not put in a bid for a player.

As mentioned in the blog that included the news merge, I wrote about the revamp of the transfer centre.

This really now has become the hub from where you sell players – rather than it just having basic information there, it now has more information by default, and by clicking on the more info button, opens up to give you the full information on the screen. It’s really easy to compare all the different offers, and you can accept, reject or negotiate, them directly from the transfer centre screen, either grouped together, or separately.