why does ManUtd stop buying players?

I'm in my 6th season with Leeds, just got promoted to premiere. In my game, they (ManUtd) haven't bought anybody in the last 3 seasons. Certainly something is not right bc this can't happen in real life. I looked at their club information, it shows they are in 1.11 billion dollars loan debt. Maybe that's the factor, but still. They keep getting worse and worse every year, and this year to me it looks like they can't be better than a mid table team. Once Rooney and Ronaldo will be old, if they keep not buying anybody new, they will definitely go down.

Anybody else experiencing this with ManUtd?

Other way round for me, for the first three seasons they didn't sign anyone, but when Fergie retired and got replaced by Rijkaard, they've bought and sold a fair few players. Some distinctly average players, but signings nonetheless.

Just got the Man Utd job, they hired Steve Bruce to replace Fergie and he let all their best players go, I think they did the same as in Yonezzz game and did replace them, but with very average players, They managed to hang on to Rooney, Anderson and Darren Fletcher so hoping to rebuild the squad round Rooney and Anderson (although in my game Rooney is 31 and Anderson is 29, so both will need replaced in 3-4 years).

Generally, they sign no one.

I've seen 4 games now and they buy no one at all hardly. Occasional big-name signing but average about 1 a season max. The squad eventually becomes old and ****

Generally, they sign no one.

I've seen 4 games now and they buy no one at all hardly. Occasional big-name signing but average about 1 a season max. The squad eventually becomes old and ****

This is exactly what happened is happening in my game. Some AI managers are active, but some never ever buy new players wile managing ManUtd or Chelsea.

I can't believe how things like this can go unnoticed by the testers, especially after 3 patches!!! Or maybe they do notice it, but game developers refuse to solve the issue, which then is worse

has anyone noticed how c*** they always seem to be as-well in my last 2 saves a total around 17 seasons they got 2 prems a champ league and 2 fa-cups and generally struggled to hit the top six. in my current save at the start of 2015-16 they literally have won nothing and havnt finished in the top 4 for 4 years and actually finished 12th and 9th in 2 different seasons!!! oh yeah and guess who has won the pl for 5 (maybe 6) seasons in a row?....yep ARSENAL (and no im not arsenal)

Has anyone who had these issues actually started a game on 9.3.0? I just wonder as sometimes a new game is needed to get the full benefit of the patch.

agreed, I have played some holiday games on 9.3.0. In the first few seasons where Sir Alex is still in charge, they did not buy any players but the current squad is still decent enough to win some trophies. But once Sir Alex retired, it signalled their downfall with some weak signings (players who aren't even internationals - Northern Ireland GK who couldn't get into the national squad playing as first team GK for Man Utd). Even when they spend big, they are not signing world-class players, at best, they signed some internationals who are only fit to be rotational players at a top level club.

Why should they buy players when the ones they already have have overrated stats. Rooney good at long shots? Please...

Why should they buy players when the ones they already have have overrated stats. Rooney good at long shots? Please...

That's rubbish. If you think Rooney's over-rated, or other Man Utd players, go to the Data forum and speak to the Man Utd researcher with your valid explanations. Furthermore, we are talking about the future when the game goes into a few seasons and not the current ability of the squad.

Fair enough, but I've played games where these players have gone over 30 and still dominate. The only reason I don't get an editor and cheat is because Rafa Benitez has just took charge of them on my game and they're starting to go in the wrong direction now.

This seems to highlight what is said in this interesting thread about the long-term playability of FM09 http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=96212 that after a while teams seem to fill up with old players and don't replace them with better and even potential players.

I've noticed something similar on my FM08 game too. They sold ROnaldo, Anderson, Tevez, Nani, Vidic etc. and replaced them with player from their youth system who clearly aren't in the same league, such as Febian Brandy, James Chester and Danny Simpson. While it's good to see them investing in British players it doesn't strike me as being that realistic although they have overacheived last season and came 3rd/4th.

I don't want to offend anyone but Man Utd have a debt of roughly 1.1bn irl. There are also grumblings that they may have to offload Ronaldo et al to help balance the books.

While this is rumour and speculation I can see Man Utd in a very real financial hardship very soon (mainly because of the Glazers' crippling debts).

Who knows, by FM2010 we might all be asking how Man Utd can sign anyone at all!

Why should they buy players when the ones they already have have overrated stats. Rooney good at long shots? Please...

Rooney overrated stats? I really dont think so mate.

Why should they buy players when the ones they already have have overrated stats. Rooney good at long shots? Please...

Rooney overrated stats? I really dont think so mate.

I'm not a Man Unted fan but come on do you remember the goal he scored against Newcastle at Old Trafford either last season or the one before, wasn't it goal of the season?

He can certainly hit a ball from long distance but he doesn't have to do it every match to prove he can hit a ball from distance.

Yeah when he was arugin with the ref one min then turned and smashed it in with a lovely volley.

Why should they buy players when the ones they already have have overrated stats. Rooney good at long shots? Please...

Not really a valid point in here I think. We're talking about the long term here - not any beef you have with the current stats. As said before - take it up with the researcher.

I think the AI is slightly off as most of the teams who have dominated their divisions, like United and Bayern, will get gradually worse. But I think this is unrealistic to the level it is taken. I am United and can accept that in the game they may well become a poor side - but there is no *bottom* to the slump. They just keep falling. Not entirely sure this would happen IRL - let alone within 10 years.

Yeah when he was arugin the ref one min then turned and smashed it in with a lovely volley.

*dreamy vision of an awesome strike*

Thanks for reminding me of that one

No probs mate, was quality. Rooney one of my fave players in the world top class.

Yeah when he was arugin the ref one min then turned and smashed it in with a lovely volley.

Exactly.

There are numerous threads on the long-term playablity and to be honest it is a problem that has existed since the newgen system was implemented. Not sure if it is coincidence or not that the new system was introduced when the long-term problems came in but I'm think it is not.

Generally speaking, there is a problem where teams become gradually worse and the human manager can get all the best young talent in the world. I was at Marseille in my current game and took a lot of amazing 17 year olds away from Man Uts, Milan, Inter etc. They all becamse superstars and were bought back by all these large clubs for huge sums of money. Yes this happens occasionally but it happens all the time in FM.

Paul C said that they were looking into this for FM10 which is definitely a good thing and that there was a team just looking at this aspect. They also need to bring personality into the game whereby different managers have different methods - some buy young, some buy tried and tested etc...

In my game manutd bought nobody and finished mid table two seasons in a row

The game should see all sides buy someone each season. How often do we see a club buy no one? Which clubs have not made a single signing in any of the last 5 years? I'm telling you, that's one part of the game that's been a problem from fm07

The game should see all sides buy someone each season. How often do we see a club buy no one? Which clubs have not made a single signing in any of the last 5 years? I'm telling you, that's one part of the game that's been a problem from fm07

Yeah I remember the days on FM 05 when teams would start panic buying like mad towards the end of the transfer windows, it was much more realistic.

In my game Steve Coppell became manager in 2010 and he signed German Lux, Royson Drenthe, and some other good but not great player like those two. I don't think any one of them has a rating above 6.50 and Man U are in 8th 1/3 of the way through the season.

Arsenal always sign the best regens along with R Madrid. Man Utd and Chelsea usually buy awful players (read: slow defenders). edit: this is irrelevant of managers, usually SAF and Wenger are gone within 2 seasons)

Rooneys attributes are spot on in my opinion. Ingame Rooney plays like real Rooney, SI do a good job on making ingame stars play like they do in real life. The issue they have is with potential stars like Walcott (i've seen him score 39 goals in the league).

I don't want to offend anyone but Man Utd have a debt of roughly 1.1bn irl. There are also grumblings that they may have to offload Ronaldo et al to help balance the books.

While this is rumour and speculation I can see Man Utd in a very real financial hardship very soon (mainly because of the Glazers' crippling debts).

Who knows, by FM2010 we might all be asking how Man Utd can sign anyone at all!

I think the debt is actually about £650M IRL and Man Utd is still a very profitable club. They still manage to make a profit even with this debt, its just that the Glazers take the profits out and dont invest them back in to wind down the debt. I think they mad an operating profit of about £80M last season, no doubt though the glazers are idiots and without them Man Utd would be one hell of a rich club. Over 5% of the worlds population support Man Utd thats how they manage to make all this money, along with success and the tragic events of Munich got them most of the fans they have today due to the club being passed down through generations.

It's all to do with what manager they bring in after fergie, they are very strong and competitive with him, but the manager who comes in after may not be a good judge of player, agguire came in after fergie in my game and sold berbatov and carrick, and bought sinama pongolle instead, he also doesn't have the most attacking formation

It's all to do with what manager they bring in after fergie, they are very strong and competitive with him, but the manager who comes in after may not be a good judge of player, agguire came in after fergie in my game and sold berbatov and carrick, and bought sinama pongolle instead, he also doesn't have the most attacking formation

Any manager they bring does pretty badly from what I've seen. Ancelotti is there in my game and he is very well rated and Man Utc are terrible.

in my game (3rd season currently) they've bought no good players, let both foster and kuzsak leave on bosmons, and when VDS retired they replaced him with some crap 2nd rate old goalie...

sold talented youngsters like rafael, let giggs, neville and scholes go on frees after 2nd season and have invested no money on youngsters or even decent squad players

this is while fergie is still manager, and this is nothing like united

guarenteed between now and the end of the year they will buy perhaps 1 world class player, invest a good few million on youth and young promising players (ie ljajic and tosic) and perhaps one squad player

4 seasons into my game an Man U are a 8-10th placed side with the following lineup:

GK - Foster

DL - Fabio

DC - O'Shea

DC - Evans

DR - Simpson

ML - Nani

MC - Anderson

MC - Fletcher

MR - Ronaldo

FC - Rooney

FC - Wellbeck

On paper the first 11 is quite good, but beyond that there are literally no other players over 20 and the bench is awful.

When they have a couple of injuries they are pretty much hopeless which is why they are struggling.

its not like they dont have any money

in one of my previous saves that i no longer use i looked at their team and they'd bought nobody worth mentioning (either good youngsters, seasoned old players, or world class players) in 5 seasons and they had a budget of like 125mil when i took over as manager to see what their budget was...

I think the debt is actually about £650M IRL

Which roughly equates to $1 billion ....so not much difference at all, really!

Over 5% of the worlds population support Man Utd thats how they manage to make all this money, along with success and the tragic events of Munich got them most of the fans they have today due to the club being passed down through generations.

5% of the worlds' population!! I think that is extremely optimistic and very, very unrealistic. And many other clubs have had tragedies along the way also. I don't think Man Utd is particularly extraordinary in the tragedy stakes. Just ask Liverpool, Atletico Nacional, FC Jmenta(sp?) or Alianza Lima fans.

I think the debt is actually about £650M IRL and Man Utd is still a very profitable club. They still manage to make a profit even with this debt, its just that the Glazers take the profits out and dont invest them back in to wind down the debt. I think they mad an operating profit of about £80M last season, no doubt though the glazers are idiots and without them Man Utd would be one hell of a rich club. Over 5% of the worlds population support Man Utd thats how they manage to make all this money, along with success and the tragic events of Munich got them most of the fans they have today due to the club being passed down through generations.

Your £650m is almost spot on according to this but it also shows that - in the current economic climate at least - that Man Utd winning the CL and EPL wasn't enough to stop their debt increasing. Looking at the figures on the BBC article Man Utd would need to stop buying players to counteract their mounting interest payments.

I could be wrong though.

for mine, man utd have the squad absolutely intact. they are apparently inactive in the transfer market. but they still are in the top 3 everytime!

The problem is that SI concentrating on this means less new features or higher costs (team dedicated to this)...

I read that the beta team test for the long-term game but judging from past games I remain skeptical.

They definitely need to concentrate on addiing depth to current elements of the game - media, player interaction, AI logic etc.....But, again, if they did this then there would likely be less new features and less marketing potential around the game. I just don't see it happening right now - we'll get another set of new and shallow bells and whistles.

Which roughly equates to $1 billion ....so not much difference at all, really!

5% of the worlds' population!! I think that is extremely optimistic and very, very unrealistic. And many other clubs have had tragedies along the way also. I don't think Man Utd is particularly extraordinary in the tragedy stakes. Just ask Liverpool, Atletico Nacional, FC Jmenta(sp?) or Alianza Lima fans.

5% of the world population claim to support Man Utd, only a few of these will be passionate supporters but dont forget that Man Utd is massive in Asia.

Another piece of useless information - more people in china speak english than in england. Most of these people will support Man Utd. MUTV is massive out there.

I agree that there has been some other bad tragedies. "I don't think Man Utd is particularly extraordinary in the tragedy stakes." A very young team already dominating the domestic and european stage, wiped out. Only about 4 of these players played again for the club. These players could have dominated for years to come, may of which would have played for england in the world cup of 1966. How can that not be one of the biggest tragedies in world football? To come back and win the Europeam cup only 10 years later is perhaps one of the biggest achievements in football and along with their continued success these will be the reasons for Man Utds massive support

Other way round for me, for the first three seasons they didn't sign anyone, but when Fergie retired and got replaced by Rijkaard, they've bought and sold a fair few players. Some distinctly average players, but signings nonetheless.

Same thing in my Newcastle game. Fergie retired, Rijkaard got the job and signed the likes of Michael Kightly, Diego Penny, Yakubu, Gio Dos Santos and they've been chasing Matt Murray, who's my reserve keeper. These aren't bad players, they're just not United quality. Dos Santos had played about 20 games in 3 seasons for Spurs, Yakubu and Kightly both came from a relegated Wolves, Penny from the Championship. Strange signings considering the money they have

Your £650m is almost spot on according to this but it also shows that - in the current economic climate at least - that Man Utd winning the CL and EPL wasn't enough to stop their debt increasing. Looking at the figures on the BBC article Man Utd would need to stop buying players to counteract their mounting interest payments.

I could be wrong though.

seems that way and the glazers seem to not want to fork out to get Tevez so we might be seeing less signings IRL so i think the main reason for Man Utd to not sign anyone in the game will be the debt even thouh they have a massive budget :S

Same thing in my Newcastle game. Fergie retired, Rijkaard got the job and signed the likes of Michael Kightly, Diego Penny, Yakubu, Gio Dos Santos and they've been chasing Matt Murray, who's my reserve keeper. These aren't bad players, they're just not United quality. Dos Santos had played about 20 games in 3 seasons for Spurs, Yakubu and Kightly both came from a relegated Wolves, Penny from the Championship. Strange signings considering the money they have

Michael Kightly came to Man Utd in my game as well, probably because he has Man Utd set as his favourite club in the database, but obviously he's not Man Utd quality. The most problematic area for Man Utd will be the GK spot whereby they signed 5 GKs in 3 seasons (John Ruddy, Stuart Taylor, Keiren Westwood, Jason Brown, Craig Gordon), most of which won't even come close to be considered for first team action for Man Utd lest C.Gordon who's at least an established international. Why aren't Man Utd chasing the likes of Mandanda, R.Adler, H.Lloris, Manuel Neuer who are all stagnant at their lower reputation clubs? A big problem there is!

Heres the Man U starting 11 in 2015 on my game:

GK -Enyeama

LB - Jonny Evans

CH - Phil Jagielka

CH - Mathias Jorgensen

RB - Carlos Cuellar

AML - Nani

CM - Darren Fletcher

CM - Gojko Kacar

AMR - Ronaldo

AMC - Daniel Drinkwater

ST - Alessio Cerci/Tevez

League positions:

08/09 - 1st 94pts

09/10 - 1st 86pts

10/11 - 1st 81pts

11/12 - 1st 82pts

12/13 - 2nd 85pts

13/14 - 6th 64pts

Currently 6th again after 20 games.

Alex Ferguson left after the 12/13 season and sales of players in 13/14 were £118 million.

Were great, now gone to pot, all their new players are ageing fast.

Hobgob.

Michael Kightly came to Man Utd in my game as well, probably because he has Man Utd set as his favourite club in the database, but obviously he's not Man Utd quality. The most problematic area for Man Utd will be the GK spot whereby they signed 5 GKs in 3 seasons (John Ruddy, Stuart Taylor, Keiren Westwood, Jason Brown, Craig Gordon), most of which won't even come close to be considered for first team action for Man Utd lest C.Gordon who's at least an established international. Why aren't Man Utd chasing the likes of Mandanda, R.Adler, H.Lloris, Manuel Neuer who are all stagnant at their lower reputation clubs? A big problem there is!

This sums up the problems well, like someone else mentioned you end up almost willing the AI to make some decent signings, especially ones for the future but instead they sign old players, ones that arent good enough or no one at all. They usually ignore the likes of Lloris or Akinfeev and it just leaves them open for the human player to sign.