We're very close to the draft now, and having looked closely in the past when scouting, I've noticed a few teams that don't make the most of the players they draft.
Whether you invest money in the draft or not isn't my concern. That's up to you. We all draft three players though, and they are assets that may or may not be worth something to your team. That they might also be of value to the England NT or u21s is irrelevant at this point. The important thing is they may be worth something to you.
The first thing we should all do is to decide what to do with our players. Basically the choices are, keep as scrubs, keep to train, sell, or fire. The very worst thing you can do is keep a player with decent potential and not train him. This can be a loss of value to you and your team. Money is the lifeblood of your team and its best to make the most of every opportunity to make money.
If you're training an 18yo, and you're not confident of the best way to do this, contact the u21 or NT manager and he will be able to help you. You could also post on the forum to receive help. Whichever route you take its good to contact the u21 manager so that he at least knows about your player.
As I've said, the worst thing you can do is keep a trainable player and not do anything with him. You're wasting money if you do this. You're also wasting valuable training time - a player trains better the younger he is - but the money is the main thing to you. You're paying his salary, and he is also decreasing in value.
A player is generally most valuable when he is drafted because a lot of people make sure they have money to spend on a trainee in the week following the draft.
Even allstars can be worth something to someone. When you draft, you don't pay salaries until the following monday, so you don't need to fire them until then. That gives you two opportunities to sell before you need to make the decision to fire. What I do with trainees I think aren't worth much is just to list them for $1000. Its not much but its better than nothing.
As an example, last season I invested nothing in the draft. I got a 19yo MVP in the first round who sold for 77k. Second round I got a 19yo starter potential who I kept as a scrub, and will likely be fired this weekend. The third round was a 18yo star potential who sold for 1k. Not a great success, but 78k profit for arranging some numbers on a screen.
Good luck with all your drafts.
Gully.