If its one thing that has the potential to allow you to develop your players into potential quality for your club is the ability to loan them out. Unfortunately, not a lot of mangers within SMW take advantage of this glorious opportunity which often comes down to the fact that they are managing so many different clubs that they do not have the required energy to take a glance at the potential loan prospects at their disposal.
First off, I need to mention that there are up to 184 loan slots within a regular gameworld (not talking about the customized ones), and I personally believe you should be aiming to send up to a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 loanees per season (depending on how many managed teams are within your gamewold).
Now, there are several methods of identifying what players within your squad should be considered for loan, but let’s start off with the traditional youth player. Everyone loves a youngster within their set up! Most of these youngins may not be ready for first team football and they’re simply too good to just be sitting within your youth team without actually getting the playing time that they deserve. Depending on the rating of said young player, I personally believe that you should be thinking of sending them out to umanaged teams and no lower than D2 (Division 2), but this will depend on thier rating. So, let’s dive into the best approach for your youth players based in their rating:
75-82
Don’t bother wasting your time sending them out on loan since they won’t get any game time
83-85
Youngsters who are steadily developing their game and are good enough to play within D4 or D3
86-89
This is where we get into the upper echelon of young players who are potentially the next world beaters and should be playing regularly in order for their development to continue. It must be understood that they should not be playing any lower than D2, since D3 and D4 are simpy not competitive enough.
89-91
This is where the likes of Gavi,Wirtz, Camavinga, Musiala, and co. come to the front since they are the elite level youngsters who are just a season or two away from being regulars within your first team. It must be mentioned that some clubs will not allow you to loan out players of this quality but if you’re fortunate, it is advised to NEVER have these blokes playing out of D1 (seriously, don’t do it).
A QUICK NOTE ON OLDER PLAYERS
One thing that I’ve realized playing this game for so long is that there are some managers who enjoy loaning out players between the ages of 25-30 who are usually between the ratings of 88-91. And, although I can understand doing this for a player whom you probably expected to give more game time but then changed your mind afterwards, if you have no intentiomn of actually making this player a part of your first team then why have him out on loan in the first place? 🤷♂️ Look, I’m not trying to be judgemental here, but I believe that he may have better use elsewhere playing for another club where he might actually turn out to be an important player for them…
One last thing to mention before I go is the fact that we must take into consideration the amount of competition an unmanaged team has in the position that your loanee player plays in. If, for example, you have an ’86’ rated Youssoufa Moukoko within your team and you want to loan him out to a club within D2 but that club already has two F(C)’s rated at ’87’ and ’89’ respectively, it won’t make any sense to loan Moukoko there since he will barely get any game time. It also means that you’ve taken up a loan slot that could’ve been used by another manager within the gameworld since clubs can only have 3 loaned players within their squad per season.
Anyway, I’ll catch you back here next time for episode 4!
The Soccermanager Experience 