Introduction
One of the most important tools you’ve got at your disposal when looking to develop youngsters it the loan market. I’ve seen a lot of people arguing against using loans recently, saying that the benefits of keeping a player at your club will generally be preferable to loaning a player out, and while that is sometimes true, I think the loan market is a great tool and I use it very regularly, with often superb results. The key to using the loan market is to use it with caution and maintain as much control as you can, if you use it right, it will yield some great results. I’ll take an in depth look at loans and how I use them, discussing why I think they’re useful, and how I go about loaning out my players and trying to maximise the results
First off, here’s the most important point to remember when using loans:
It’s a Trade-Off
Any loan deal is a trade-off between two different, important factors of player development. It’s a trade-off between the control you have over a player at your club along with the generally better facilities and coaching you’ll have at your club, and the playing time a player will get at another club. What you have to do with any loan deal is to think in terms of cost-benefit analysis. The cost is the control you will lose over the player, and the they won’t be training under the coaches and facilities that will probably be superior at your club, rather than at the potential loan club. However, the playing time they will get at the other club could easily trump both of these costs. The key to a successful loan, is to minimise the costs, and maximise the benefits. If you follow the steps laid out below, hopefully you’ll be able to do that, and ensure the best possible development for your players.
Now I’ll look at exactly why I loan out my players, then I’ll discuss how I do it.
Why loan out your youngsters?
In my mind there are two key reasons I look to loan out my young players. I’ll look at each in turn, though in reality each reason compliments the other and taking a holistic approach is always important.
Increase Ability and Attributes
The most obvious reason to loan out youngsters, and the one everyone is surely aware of, is the ability to increase a players Current Ability (CA), and improve their attributes, though the player getting regular playing time with another club. Here’s one great example of the progress that can be made
Case Study: Niall Selby
Here’s what Selby looked like at the very start of his loan move:
Selby is my young goalkeeper who I’ve got great hopes for in the future. I think he’s got the making of a future England number one, but he’s clearly not there yet. I’m managing Chelsea, a top club, and I need to guarantee success. I can’t risk having a goalkeeper who’s not ready for the big time between the sticks. So, I decided to loan Selby out, and to my delight I managed to secure him a loan to another Premier League club (I’ll discuss how to loan players out a little later), and so off to Norwich for the season went Selby.
Here’s what Selby looked like when he returned:
So as you can see he’s developing really nice, with many of his attributes increasing by one or two points. He’s returning for me ready to be my number two next season, having had a year of top flight football under his belt, and with a solid level of Current Ability and good Attributes. So, that’s a good demonstration of the benefits that loans can bring to CA and Attributes.
Testing a Player out
The other reason I like to loan out a player is to test them out. No matter who good their Attributes or CA are, the real test of a player is how well they perform. There are two ways to find this out; use them yourself, or loan them to another club and monitor their performances.
Obviously the two results you’ll get will be different. Any human manager worth anything will be to better adapt to a player and bring the best performances out of them than an AI manager, so using them yourself should generally bring a better level of performance. But if they can perform well for an AI manager, they should perform very well for you. I like to think that I can increase a player’s average rating by at least 0.5 over what the AI can achieve.
Performances
Loaning a player out for me isn’t about seeing exactly how they would perform in my team, as other teams won’t play the same style, tactics or formation. It’s about getting a sense of whether the player can cope at a certain level of football, and whether they’re ready to push on into your first team squad.
Case Study One: Niall Selby
So as the screenshots showed, Selby’s attributes improved very well while at Norwich, but did he really cope with the level of football he was playing? His improvement would suggest he did, but to be sure, let’s look at something else: his Average Rating in his time at Norwich.
Well on the face of it that’s not outstanding, but it’s solid enough. It shows that he’s certainly able to play at this level, even if he might not be a leading Goalkeeper. But then when we look at it a bit more, it seems a little more impressive. Norwich were fighting relegation for the first half of the season, before they pulled clear at the end. they conceded quite a few goals, but had a fairly poor defence so Selby would’ve faced a lot of shots. And the Average Rating system for goalkeepers on FM isn’t always the best, so when looking at this rating, it’s not bad at all, and it shows that yes, Selby is ready to come into my squad and play a role.
Position
There’s another reason to test out a player on loan, and that’s Player Position. Sometimes you’ll have a player who’s a natural in one position, but you’ve decided will be a better player, or more useful to your team, playing in a different position. So, you’ve retrained them, focussed their training on the attributes they need, but you can’t be certain how well they’ll perform in that position until you’ve played them there. So if you’re not ready to risk them in the first team, but want to get an idea if they really are suited to the position you’ve given them, you can use the loan market to get them a move to somewhere they’ll play regularly, and stipulate in the loan deal that you want them playing a particular role.
Case Study Two: Keith Derry
Keith Derry came to me from Northern Irish side Cliftonville at the start of the 2013/14 season. He was a natural Striker, and accomplished at Central Midfield. However, his poor Finishing and Composure attributes, coupled with his blistering pace, meant that for me he seemed that he could do a solid job as a winger. So, I’ve retrained him to play at the AMR position, and I’ve focussed on improving his already solid Dribbling and Crossing attributes. But I’m not sure if he’s quite ready to come in and perform in the Right-Wing spot in my side, so what I want is a loan deal that will see him playing regularly, at a good level, in the Right-Wing spot. So, I offered him out for just this (again, I’ll go through how exactly below) and got him a good deal for 6 months on loan at Newcastle. I decided a short-term loan was best, as I still want to control some of his development this season, as he needs more work and focus on his key Attributes.
Here he is at the start of his loan deal:
And here’s how he looks having just come back from his loan at the end of January 2016:
So he’s coming along very well, with his development coming primarily in the right areas as well. His pace is now phenomenal, and he’s got solid if unspectacular attributes in other key areas. But the real question is, how did he get on in the Right-Wing role?
Well, a little look at his Position stats tells me he’s played 14 games in the AMR position and 1 game in the MR position, so he’s definitely been getting game time in the right place. And how did he get on?
Again, he wasn’t spectacular, but we was solid enough and grabbed two goals and one assist. Considering that I’m confident I could improve his performances by around 0.5 points on his Average Rating, those performances have shown me that he’s got enough about him to be useful at this level in that position.
Conclusions
So that’s why I loan players out, and those are some of the results you can hope for if you use the loan system effectively. Now I’ll take a look at how I go about loaning out a player, and the steps you can take to ensure the process gives you the maximum benefits.
How to use the Loan Market
Preparing Your Player
The first step before you consider loaning out a player is making sure they’re ready for it. The first part of this is ensuring they have a strong personality, which is done by Tutoring your players. Take a look at this post here for a bit more information on how that’s done. I would never loan out a player that doesn’t have a strong personality. I also like to have a high level of Determination in my young players, though this is just personal preference, I like to think that more Determined players will work harder to be a success for their loan clubs, and so will develop a little more.
Once they’ve got a good solid personality type, and a good level of Determination if you want that as well, make sure they don’t have any glaring weaknesses that need special attention. Once you’ve loaned out a player you will have no control over their training. So it’s absolutely crucial that your players don’t require close attention to their Attributes and don’t have glaring weaknesses. If they do, while they develop out on loan their CA will be spent on whatever Attributes the AI is focussing on, not on the Attributes that you feel are most important. For example, if you’ve got a striker whose Finishing is only 8 or 9, you might want to keep them at the club and develop them yourself until that Finishing Attribute reaches are more reasonable level, around 12 or so, and then consider loaning them out after that.
Once you’ve got your players a good Personality type, and to a level where they don’t have any areas that need particular special attention, they should be ready for a loan move.
Offering Players for Loan
This is the real part of the job, figuring out exactly what you need to do to get your player the right move. I won’t go through every possibility or exact ‘offer this and this’ instructions, instead I’ll give some broad principles that guide me when I’m using the Loan Market.
The Basics
The first thing to do is to set your players as Available for Loan, and to make sure their squad status is Youngster, Hot Prospect or at most Backup (though I prefer to keep them at the first two), as this will usually make sure they’re more willing to go out on loan – if they think they’re important squad members, they probably won’t want to head off on loan. Then you’ve got two options: take control of the loan process yourself, or let your Director of Football handle it. I would always recommend handling the process yourself, though you can simply monitor what your DoF does, the chances are you’ll get a better deal if you do it yourself. You can instead take a sort of middle path, allowing the DoF to conduct the leg work, and simply accept or reject the deals they create, however again I would always argue that the best results come from doing it yourself.
So the next step in loaning them out is offering them out for loan. You can of course simply leave them on the long list and hope to receive a good bid, but it’s much more effective and will save you time if you offer them out yourself instead. When offering them out to loan, there are few things I like to keep in mind.
Ability to Recall Players
One thing that I make sure is in every loan deal I agree with another club is the ability to recall my players in the next transfer window if the loan isn’t going well. No matter what the other details of the deal are, this is a deal breaker for me. Luckily, I haven’t found a club on FM13 that has had a problem with having a recall option in the deal, so make sure it’s there when you offer them out, or negotiate for it to be included in any deal that’s offered to you. You’ll see why it’s so important a little later on.
Aim High
I always start by looking for the best possible deal for the player and the club. I’ll ask for exactly what I would like to get (usually a Season long Loan, 100% of the wages paid by the loaning club, and at least a First Team Regular squad status), and wait and see if I get a suitable offer. I never exclude anyone from loan deals, I want to get as many high quality offers as possible, no matter where they’re coming from. Sometimes you’ll be successful straight off the bat, sometimes you won’t. Don’t feel like you’ve failed if your first attempt gives you no offers, keep trying with the next key point in mind.
Be Flexible
You’re often not going to get everything you want, so you should be prepared to be flexible. If you’re first attempt at loaning them out fails, try asking for a lower wage (if your club can afford to keep footing some of the bill) or look for a shorter loan deal – remember, you can always loan them out again in the next window. I tend not to try and compromise on squad status, as the whole point of the process is to get them playing as much as possible, but with some players it might be better to get them a rotation spell at another club if they’re not going to get any time at all with your club. Playing position is another area you can be flexible on at times, if you’ve got a versatile player who can player a lot of positions but you’ve got no offers when asking for a particular position, you might want to consider offering him out without a position set and see if clubs want them for another position. This is usually only helpful if you’re not trying to test them out in a particular position, but it can help. The main thing to remember is to try and get the best deal you can, and flexibility may be required to get that.
The Finances
Always keep in the back of your mind your clubs finances. You have to remember what your club can and cannot afford in terms of the wages you might be paying a player who can’t even play for you for a few months. If you’re particularly well off, and you haven’t managed to get any offers asking for a good wage contribution, you can always offer them out for nothing. Whereas, if you’re particularly hard up, you might look to profit off your loan deals and ask for a monthly loan fee, but remember there will be fewer clubs willing to pay the money. I personally generally don’t ask for a monthly fee, but it can be a nice little income if you get lucky with a loan deal.
Selecting The Deal
So hopefully you’ve offered your players for loan and you’ve received a good number of offers, but how do you pick the right one? Well, it’s not just a case of picking the deal that’s giving them the most playing time or paying the largest percentage of their wages, there are a few other aspects to think of.
The Deal
Firstly, look at the deals you’ve got. I tend to reject any that are only offering them squad status as cover or rotation players, but if they’re the only offers you’ve got you might not have too much of a choice. I’ll also look at how much of the wages they’re paying, but I won’t reject them off the bat if it’s a low amount, as long as there are other things that make up for it. Then I’ll look at the position, usually I’m not looking for a specific position, but if I am then I’ll reject those asking for other positions, as it’ll defeat the point if I’m looking to test someone in one position and loan them out in another.
The Loaning Club – Level
The most important thing about the club you’re loaning them to is what level they’re playing it. Players will improve at a rate that is related to the level at which they’re playing – the higher the level, the greater the improvement you can expect during the loan deal. If you can get a loan deal in the same division you’re in, that’s almost always the best option, as it not only will give them a similar level of development that they could expect at your club, but it will also allow you to see how they might get on when they return to your club at the same level. If I’ve got four offers from a Championship club and four offers from a League One club, the chances are I’m going to keep them in Championship (as long as they’ve got a good squad status), as the development they’ll get is going to be much better in a higher division
The Loaning Club – Facilities
What if you’ve got two clubs in the same division, offering the same wages and the same squad status? Well, then we look at the club’s training facilities. When a player goes out on loan, they’ll be leaving the facilities you’ve built up behind, and you want to try and make sure the facilities they’ll be using are as good as possible, as training facilities are again linked to development. The training facilities could be the element that tips the balance in favour of one club over another.
The Manager
What if the facilities are the same as well? When then I look at the manager looking to loan my players. I look at Attributes like Working With Youngsters, Man Management and Motivating. I’ve done no sort of studies on this, but you’ll always want your players playing under the best managers possible, and these are just the areas I choose to look at. As in real life, managers will have particular favourites they might look to loan their players to, and I do as well, with Gianfranco Zola currently enjoying a good relationship with the club and having loaned a couple of my players and developing them very well.
Other Factors
You could look even closer at other factors, such as where the loaning club is predicted to finish, the formation the loaning club players, and the composition of the squad of the club loaning your player, as all these factors could help you make your decision, as you’ll want a club that matches your formation, is likely to finish as high as possible so your players might play well, and has few players to compete with your youngster so that he gets as much time as possible.
Feeder Clubs
If all else fails, and you don’t get any bids for your players at all, then you should always try and have a feeder club or two that you could send your players to. Remember, feeder clubs have no requirement to play your players, so loaning to a feeder club offers more risks than a normal loan – you’ve got no information about how or even whether they’ll give your players any time at all – but they still give you an option. When selecting your feeder club, look at the ideas above, and that should help you pick the right option of those the board can find you, or that you can find yourself.
Monitoring The Loan
Once you’ve selected the deal and the players gone to his new temporary club, there’s still work to do. One of the most important elements of ensuring a good loan is to keep monitoring your loaned players. One of the great things about FM13 is that you can see how well your players are developing on loan, you can actually see the attributes that are increasing as they increase. This will tell you exactly how effective the process has been. So, keep an eye on your players at all times. One great way of doing this is by getting match reports. I do this by giving the task to scouts that are scouting the same division in which the player is playing, I find it gives me the largest number of reports as the scout can minimise his travelling time and make sure he’s giving you reports.
If the loan deal isn’t going well, you should bring them back to your club. This is why the recall clause is so important – it’s annoying if you’ve wasted half a season on a poor loan, but it’s really frustrating if it costs the player an entire season of development. So make sure that clause is there and keep checking on your players. If they’re not playing and not developing, bring them back as soon as possible, and either keep them at your club, or try and find a different loan move that could work out a little better.
Just remember, once the loan deal is agreed, your responsibility doesn’t end. If you don’t monitor your players progress, you risk losing out on a lot of player development.
Conclusions
So that’s how I use the loan system in FM13. I think it’s an incredibly valuable tool that can really improve your player development, but it’s a challenge to get it right every time.
The main thing to remember is that the whole process is a trade-off. The decision to loan is a trade-off between control with higher facilities and playing time. The decision about which deal to select can be a trade-0ff between wages, club level, club facilities, managers or any number of other factors. What you’ve got to do is try and find the trade-off that works best for you, pick the deal that meets as many of your priorities as possible and minimises the costs related to any loan deal. If you can do that, you’ll have a great loan deal for your player which will greatly enhance his development.
Playing Between The Lines 