FM2005: Roster Size Question
 

So now that I've made it up to the Premiership and qualified for the UEFA Cup...my first team roster has grown to a pretty good size (26). Well at least for a little ol' Blackpool. :) Anyway...looking around at some of the actual Premier League team's websites it looks like most of them have anywhere from 23-25 players on their first team...then maybe another 10-15 reserves. Do all of these first team players play strictly first team football? Or do some of 2nd and 3rd string guys spend some time on the reserve team as well?

I'm trying to find a balance between keeping guys on the first team and playing them when their "severely lacking match fitness" as opposed to putting them on the reserve team and then becoming unhappy. But at least they're staying in shape for the most part.

I've also noticed that most of the clubs have a manager...an asst manager...two 1st team coaches...one keeper coach and a reserve coach. I need to scale my coaching staff down a bit. :)

Depends entirely on the manager and their style ...

Some like to rotate the squad in which case the first team players aren't really active in the reserves as much because they all get a reasonable amount of first team football, others run smaller first team squads and 'call people up' from the reserve team as required.

Advantages of first approach:
* Competition for places
* Players don't play quite so many matches so less prone to tiredness

Disadvantages of first approach:
* Team may not 'gel' as much because they're not playing as the same unit all the time
* Some players won't like being rotated because they won't get so much playing time.

(for the other style pretty much invert these items)

Through my experiences I've found more success playing with the same starting eleven as often as possible with only 2-3 guys who rotate in fairly regularly and maybe 5-6 who are backups. I think it's the Barcelona coach, Frank Rijkaard, who believes that it's most important for a club to run the same 11 out consistently, using 2-3 others, if they want to win.

same as desnudo for me.

I also try to lineup the same 11 as often as possible and the same 5 subs...but that's almost near impossible in the months of December...January and February. But yes I do subscribe to that theory as well whenever I can. Maybe this weekend I will try and scale back my first team a bit and start to rotate players between the first team and the reserves when needed to see how that works. I just hate the thought of guys rotting away on the bench all season. I guess trying to loan out a few wouldn't be a bad idea either.

I usually play down in the conference to start my league.

I usually run the same starting 11 and sub 3 of the 5 players every game. I do this based on the performance / injury / fatigue rating of the starter. Since I play in conference, the pickings are slim but I almost always have a rotation in at striker and midfield.

My starting defense almost always stays the same barring injury or severe like of form.

same as astrosfan for me

I made a mistake in my Norwich game where I went on a buying spree and brought in too many players. I think the only solution, at least for me, is to get rid of some of them since I hate not playing guys also.

Sometimes if I'm running different tactics on a regular basis (home/away or attacking/defensive) I have platoons of players who may not ever get listed as a substitute, but will either start or not be on the gameday roster. This is a way to use some of those players who have useful attributes but may not be complete enough to use on a regular basis.

I run the same eleven but I do like to rotate my D CRL guys because I find they start to get exhausted earlier in the season so I try to sub them out vs weaker teams to avoid this. Other then that I only use players as subs not rotating starters.