Investment Players

Sometimes you need extra cash and one way of achieving this is to invest in players with a plan to selling them down the line. Brilliant plan but many managers fail to execute it well.

When buying players to sell it is of utmost importance to buy the right players. You need to periodically investigate buying and selling prices, see how much profit you can make per season and pick the best options. 

One thing that never works well is doing the same as everyone else. So many people blindly buy 17/4s and 3 seasons later sell players who have made little more than the training costs. Find you're own niche and equally importantly if it stops working see if you can see why and find another one.

One of the best ways to do this is to look at players, assume you can add 1 bar/season to them and look what they will be in 2-3 seasons. Here are some examples prices in private leagues

17/4 vanilla defender is valued around 900k

17/4 defender (1 SQ) is valued around 2.7m

3 seasons later (sell prices are adjusted down to account for agent fees)

20/7 vanilla defender is valued around 3.9m

20/7 defender (1 SQ) is valued around 4.7m

In most leagues you can count in 1m/season for training fees so a 17/4 vanilla defender will break even over 3 seasons and one with a SQ will lose you money. People blindly buy them, train them and sell them later - and moan they aren't getting rich. They then repeat the cycle.

Of course you can get a double jump. They do happen but it's my experience they aren't as common as people like to think, and sometimes you get players who miss a bar or develop badly. The above 2 players would probably have gained 4m extra if they doubled - which is about the minimum profit I would want.

So how about other options. Well nobody buys 20/6 vanillas to develop do they.

20/6 vanilla defender is valued around 1.1m

23/9 vanilla defender is valued around 5.5m

4.4m/3 seasons. More work maybe but better profit than the standard cash cow 17/4 and a DJ provides an extra bonus.

I'm not going to recommend anything specific, I don't think there's any point. Things change all the time and vary from market to market. The point is look at different options to what everyone else is doing, do your own research and make some cash.

Targetting players to DJ as a niche.

In some teams it's possible to buy players with the specific intention of getting 1 or 2 double jumps as a niche way to develop for cash. To do this you probably need less youths per team, maybe start with 1 in each area. Players that are good for this are 16/2, 16/3 and 17/3 but all probably require good SQs - maybe 16/4 or 17/4s too. Again check the exit price to see what will work. With these players you can aim for maybe 15/16 AF but play so many games each season that 18 DV is your minimum target each season, preferably 19. That might mean playing 2/3 of the games each season but big money can be made this way.

Hidden SQs as a niche

You can have success selling less desirable players but with good hidden SQs. Finding a 18/4 with 2-3 ok visible SQs and HT or greedy for a reasonable price is not a massive problem. Picking up these players for under 1m then selling them 2-3 seasons later for the maximum asking price (1.5x valuation) can work well. You might need to list them several times but eventually the hidden SQs get spotted and you get your price. 

Effect of SQs

Everybody knows SQs add value. Unfortunately that doesn't mean they add profit. It's not hard to get a 20/7 defender with quick for example, no matter how special the seller thinks that is. You can't really charge much over the asking price for these players. What does work well is combinations of SQs. 

A 20/6 defender with heading and quick might be valued less than the 20/7 quick defender, but if you put him on the list for the maximum asking price you are likely to get it. People love SQ combinations and will often pay very highly for them, even on players significantly under skilled.

When/how to sell

In private leages there are usually 2 good times to sell. When the valuetion reaches around 5m you can list the players for a bit more depending on what you feel they might fetch. Playable players in the 5-8m range are very popular, especially with managers who don't have much luck training their own. 

The other very good time to sell is when players become very special, such as maybe 16/5 path. Players like 21/10 will always fetch a fair valuation, but are hard to get over-valuation for.