The "Players you wish you kept" Thread **PLAYER NAMING**

Has anyone ever sold or released a player who has later gone on to achieve massive success?

Or any former players who cant stop scoring against you?

I'll start.

I sold Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid in my third season, and my team had a great season, despite losing the EPL on goal difference (2 goals kept us in second place:()

We did make it to the CL final against Real Madrid, and with a team of fully fit players, they walked out onto the pitch.

The game was heading towards 0-0, and in the second minute of injury time, none other than (yep, you guessed it!) Alonso himself fired a free kick into the top corner of my net.

My first trophy denied, by a player who i always liked, and sold, because i needed the money.

So everyone is happy with players they have sold?

Noone has had players come bck to bite them?

Ched Evans on my Man City save, I wish I could have kept him but he wanted first team football but i preferred Torres and Robinho instead so had to let him go.

I had a regen called Jonathan Ball who had come up through the ranks with Middlesbrough. Bought him for £5m, potentially a world class player. He spent one season with me scoring 5 and 12 assists (he was a AMC). Barcelona came in with a bid. I replied saying I wouldn't sell unless I got £30m and a 50% clause which they replied they would pay up. Seeing as I was building a team for the Premiership I couldn't really say no to 30m which got me a suitable replacement for 10m, a great central defender for £15m and a couple of youngsters. After a year at Barca and only making 5 sub appearences he went to Chelsea for £20m so I got another 10 from him.

Now I am quite split if I should of sold him or not because he is world class and there is probabaly not a better player in that position at the moment but then again I have gotten £40m out of the deal which built a good team.

I had a regen called Jonathan Ball who had come up through the ranks with Middlesbrough. Bought him for £5m, potentially a world class player. He spent one season with me scoring 5 and 12 assists (he was a AMC). Barcelona came in with a bid. I replied saying I wouldn't sell unless I got £30m and a 50% clause which they replied they would pay up. Seeing as I was building a team for the Premiership I couldn't really say no to 30m which got me a suitable replacement for 10m, a great central defender for £15m and a couple of youngsters. After a year at Barca and only making 5 sub appearences he went to Chelsea for £20m so I got another 10 from him.

Now I am quite split if I should of sold him or not because he is world class and there is probabaly not a better player in that position at the moment but then again I have gotten £40m out of the deal which built a good team.

Oh thats a toughie!!!! How are his stats at Chelsea? Is he helping Chelsea to trophies or just playing really well?

fabian delph on my 1st leeds save sold to reading for 3.6 million worth 17 million by the 5th year

didn't make the same mistake twice

Darren Fletcher - i dont particularly regret selling him its just that every time he plays against me, he scores the winning goal -£15 million isn't bad though.

Oh thats a toughie!!!! How are his stats at Chelsea? Is he helping Chelsea to trophies or just playing really well?

He's just started his 6th season at Chelsea. He has scored 49 goals and made 34 assists. He has helped them win the EPL once, the CL once, World Club Cup once and the carling Cup once. He has been named World Player of the year and European player of the year and also always figures in the EPL team of the year. He also has 25 England caps to his name.

So all in all I'd say yes I wish I'd kept him but then again would I have built the team that I did if I hadn't sold him?

how about the players you wish you would of kept on the starting lineup, does that work?

Ricardo Fuller for Stoke, we would of easily stayed up if he played more than 10 games, put him on for the last 5 and got an average rating of 7.85, and kept us up single handedly, was gutted when he said he wanted to leave after the season, but it was my own fault

I sold Saivet to Athletico Madrid in the 4th season for £26m. I didnt want to sell him but he became unsettled so he had to go. 2 years later he get sold to Arsenal for £46m and he is now scoring for fun, usually against me.

He has scored 8 goals in 5 games against me, he also made me lose the FA Cup Final.

I've had some slight annoyances, many of the English youth regens I had I sold as they weren't looking like they'd be quite good enough.... now they're filling out the teams I'm in direct competition with. Bah.

It depends what level of the game you are at:

1. Top level

No real chance to develop young players unless they are exceptional. In which case they will be 2nd choice in the 1st team squad from 20/21 on and probably in the youth team until then. There are only about 30 or so potentially world class players in the game at any one time in my experience, so you won't be in any doubt and you won't be able to afford most of them in the first 5 years of the game - until proliferation of regens and the AI's non-exhistent potential scouting fails to pick them up and you can get them for nothing or only slightly more than nothing by the truck load.

2. Mid level

You have enough money to buy or sign and pay the salaries of the better players available each window - so you probably don't put much time or effort into youth development. Since you are ambitious and always on the cusp of success but never quite able to sustain a challenge, you can't afford to let any game slip through your grasp by playing youngsters. Every competition is a key source of revenue and potentially winnable if you enjoy the rub of the green in key games - so kids are a luxury you cant afford. You will probably look to build your 2nd tier squad players from the kids over 5 years or so, but in reality you will probably always be in a position to buy better every year and the kids will become fringe players and/or permentantly on loan somewhere before being sold for a decent fee and a 50% sell on clause.

3. You are a small to almost mid level club either fallen on hard times or aspirant, you invest in youth to keep your wage bill down - usually looking to buy promising u19 players cheaply and develop them. Unfortunately you won't be able to keep the better ones, as they will decide to leave or want to progress their careers and constant interest will wreck their form. You'll probably resign yourself to getting 2 full seasons out of a truly great individual before letting him go for a good fee. The reality is, again, that until the later career stages you can always get experienced players on bosmans anyway.

With the above in mind, unless you are a world class side looking to replace a retiring or ageing legend with an equally world class youngster (<=5 seasons into your career) then every player is dispensible and (>=5 seasons in) replacements are not usually difficult to find for almost no outlay. You will also notice that you get a contintental or world class youngster coming through your ranks with a ratio of about 1:20 every year.

So with all that in mind, every player has his price, its not worth paying a fortune for talented kids initially (obversely, if you are in a position to sell, then sell!) when they will be abundantly available in the long term and you will likely produce a few of your own anyway.

I signed Davide Santon from INter for Liverpool in the first season for £11 million. He was a back up for while and only played a handful of games because i had Dario Srna. After 3 seasons he had an average of 7.1 and was playing quite reguarly in cups etc. Then at the end of the season Barcelona came in with a bid of £26.75 million. he was valued at around £12 million so i asked them for £60 million and an extra £20 million after 10 international appearances. I did this thinking they would say no but they said yes and eventually sold him. I bought 3 good players with the £60 million and havent really missed him but by the end of the next season (season 4) he is picking up the world and european player of the year. Gutted to say the least!

Sold Carlos Vela on my Arsenal save in my first season to inter for 17 mil. In 2013-2014 season took AC Milan job, and Vela was immense! Just to think what I could have done with him!

I was managing Man Utd on FM08 and I sold Michael Carrick and Nemanja Vidic when they turned 30. We didn't suffer for it and I kinda had to do it in order to bring younger players through, but it didn't feel right and I'm sure they still had plenty to offer.

/i160

I am Everton and had to get rid of one good young striker at the time. Only positive is the other 2 are not much weaker. But why did he have to have success at Liverpool pf all the teams out there. :-(

On FM08 i had Wijnadlum, Guardado and about 5 potentially world class players, i sold them all because they could never get into my team, they all went to different clubs, but their loyalty faltered, as i'm tottenham about 2 seasons later they all play for Arsenal! and they always play so good against me!

julius james

i sold him at toronto because he was unsettled and i thought i could get better(both his replacements are now at cska moscow:confused:) but the team he went to (FC Dallas) have been my main enemy ever since by beating me in numerous competions and have even beaten me in 2 MLS Finals in 2 years:mad:

ah welll

Heres a screenshot of that Arsenal team

out of all of them the following were origionally mine: Ben Zid, Niskala, Swan, Brouwers, Allen, Wijnaldum, Heemskerk, Saenz, Al-zahrani, White (i'm not too bothered about Al-Zahrani to be honest, they bought him for 44m and he broke his leg on his debut )

I never regret selling players, as their is no point thinking about the past.

reget selling a Chinese regen who I got for 65k from a feeder club. Played a season but then Bayern and Milan both came in and he wanted to leave so I got £10 million + 25%, decent profit but now it says he is a wonderkid, should have held out for more

There are some real heart breakers out there, and it must particularly hurt when the player in question came out of your own youth team:D

The main reason why we let them go is money, and after we see them progres through the years you cant help thinking:

"If i had kept that lad, i would have had more money, cos that lad would have won me competitions"

I had this great regen, Terry Stone. He's a center midfielder and can also play on the left wing. I bought him from Arsenal as a wonderkid at the end of his contract, paying only 3.8M (€). He developed into one of the best players i ever managed but unfortunately he wanted another challenge. Since he had only one more year on his contract and many clubs after him I was willing to consider an offer big enough for his talent. AC Milan asked for how much I wanted for him. In the end, I sold him for 65M €, which I used on Mazzarani, who was offered to me for 18.75M and on a replacement for Stone for 47M from Man Utd.

He signed for AC Milan in the summer and he didn't adapt to the region and thinks that there's too many players for his position.

Given that the thread title warns about player naming, I think/i] I'm okay to say the following, but a mod can delete it if I'm not.

On my Man Utd save on FM08, I sold Fraizer Campbell and Febian Brandy for pittances. They then went on to have awesome careers, bagging goals by the bucketload for club and country.