Loaning or sticking in the reserves?

What do you guys tend to do with your star kids? If you leave them in the reserves there's always the worry that they're not going to be developing as well as they could be by playing mediocre reserve football every week. Yet if you send them out on loan they're no longer surrounded by your expert training schedules or coaching staff, not to mention the wisdom of the other experienced players at the club. Especially now with tutoring in the game, which if I remember correctly doesn't have the same effect if they then go out on loan.

Personally I pretty much always send all my prodigious out on loan to clubs in the same country but a few leagues lower down, I much prefer checking their ratings and getting the match reports after each game this way and since youngsters tend to be a source of income for me (not managing the big teams) it also helps to increase their value alot more than sitting in the reserves does.

However i've never really done much experimentation to see if that is actually the best way, what does everyone else do?

I do the same, loan them out. I get the match reports too and I constantly check for improvements in their attributes. If the loan move hasn't worked that well the first time around I've kept them in the reserves and given them the odd cup game.

I've started using the development list thing for this and leaving it down to my assistant or whoever to sort players out with a club to work at. I tend to set the minimum that they'll be a first team player as like you've said, they'd be better off in the reserves and maybe playing cup games over sitting on the bench in a lower league

most of the time, I will send them loan for a season(or two), then at 19(sometime 20) years old, I'll let them play in 1st team, with tutor...

I think i'd be more inclined to do it the other way around, unless of course they are seriously good enough for the first team.

Lets say i'm a Premiership team and i've got a 17 or 18 year old who's not good enough for my first team, infact he's not very good at all.... (yet). If I loan him out the only place he's going to get regular football is in League Two or even the Conference. However these teams don't really have the facilities, coaching staff or experienced team mates to help him develop.

So i'd rather keep him at my club until he's 19 or 20, getting some tutoring and taking advantage of my better facilities and then when he's good enough to go to a Championship side I can send him out on loan and get him some experience and some plaudits. Even if he is borderline good enough for my first team, sometimes i'd rather not take the risk in my team and have him destroy the Championship for a season instead. That way he can build his confidence and his reputation with some strong ratings, as opposed to some average ratings as a bit part player in the Premiership.

My concern with loaning them to other clubs is that they'll get krap coaching and as a result, won't fulfil their potential down the line.

True daherlihy, but isn't it also more likely that without first team experience they won't fulfil their potential either?

Based on my current lack of understanding of the new coaching system I may be best sending them on loan instead! lol

I do what Rob does and i seem to find it works out better than letting them go to clubs with terrible facilities.