finding good players

before you sigh and discard this as another post in the wrong forum hear me out.

this is not asking you to name a single name. this is not asking you to tell me which club or country has the best players.

this post is asking you to tell me what your strategies are for finding a good player. lets say you need a good goalkeeper, what do you do? do you just search for goalkeepers in a certain price range and get the first one that looks good? do you study each and every candidate thoroughly and if so, on what: personality or ability?

my transfer strategies do not seem to be working as well as id hoped and im getting beaten by my rivals who are snapping up real quality players on little or no money. i know the transfer system is a key part of the game as you might find yourself asking: 'if he cant work that out why is he playing at all?' but the fact is that i used to be better at this. i seem to have lost my touch and would like some help to get it back.

thank you

I find the key for me has been good quality scouting, they have picked up on players i wouldnt have looked twice at.

In my current save I only have the Italian leagues loaded and I have 3 scouts (started in C2, now in B).

In earlier seasons I had a lot of success scouting the U20 leagues but in the last couple of seasons I seem to get a better ratio of good players from France.

Currently I have:

Scout 1 - Under 20s league + Italy

Scout 2 - Next opposition + other countries in off season

Scout 3 - rotating between France, England, Holland, Belgium & Germany

From the reports I save to my shortlist anyone who is rated with 5*+ PA.

When looking for a player I only look at my shortlist by that position and see what options I have.