By my experience in FM19, it will be hard for you to acquire players below 18 unless they are wonderkids or with very high potential as Premier League requires them to play certain amount of international games to be signed and those guys are generally already at high end clubs or will ask for decent amount of in transfer fees. Also its good to note, if you manage to sign a young players and cannot get a work visa you can still loan them out, but you will not have control over how they may develop apart from their role and position. One of the options is actually to acquire the youngster with high potential than loan him back to his own club (option during transfer offer) which might also convince an unwilling club to sell the player since he will still be applying there and developing in a known environment for the next couple of years and hope that he lives up to the earlier stats and become an international player sooner than later.
You will of course will be saving more from wage budget but depending on your squad quality and your short and long term plans, you may need to get less younger players as you will not be playing them in the main squad as you said you'd be looking to improve them first.
Therefore, going for younger players such as 15 to 18 might work for you to give them couple of years under you to develop and hopefully become a citizen sooner.
Apologies, if I have rehashed the info or tips you have already known
You will of course will be saving more from wage budget but depending on your squad quality and your short and long term plans, you may need to get less younger players as you will not be playing them in the main squad as you said you'd be looking to improve them first.
Therefore, going for younger players such as 15 to 18 might work for you to give them couple of years under you to develop and hopefully become a citizen sooner.
Apologies, if I have rehashed the info or tips you have already known
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