What is going on with the betting odds in this game?

I am playing the Dafuge challenge and am AFC Wimbledon. Every season my team is made out to be giant underdogs (odds of 40 or 50-1), and said to be almost certainties for relegation. For example, in the first season I was 33-1 in the Blue Square South and won for fun, barely losing a game.

My teams always have players rated very highly by fairly good scouts (for example, in my second season in the Blue Square Premier, almost all my players were rated as stars at league 2, or decent/good players for league 1). Yet, this and every season, I'm rated as giant underdogs, and almost every game I'm rated as underdogs against teams who probably aren't as good as mine.

I'm now in league 1 after getting this "incredibly surprising" promotion from league 2, despite most of my players being rated as league 1 quality players when they were in league 2.

What is going on here? The odds system does not seem to be working.

By the way, I am patched up to 8.0.2.

Is this a bug? Thanks for any responses.

The odds go off the reputation of the two clubs, not the rep of the players it has. As rep grows so slowly, you'll always be underdogs until your rep increases, even though you may have the best 11 players in the world.

Something that often baffles me, is that the odds get drawn up, and I'm given a 40-1 shot of winning the league, they expect me to be concerned about relegation, and the board season target is for me to avoid relegation, yet on the team info screen it has "Media Prediction" - "9th"

huh? So all the signs point to me getting a pasting game in, game out, yet I'm predicted to finish 9th. Work that one out.!!

yeah - that's weird - I'm almost always predicted for last.

I think the odds system needs to be changed to better reflect the actual abilities of the players. After all, this is what wins football games. If only in real-life I could get these kinds of odds, I'd be rich!!

Every home game they tell me I face "difficult (fill-in-name) challenge", even if I'm in first and the other team is in 20th place!! I was 2 places ahead of Brighton in league 2, and made a 9-1 underdog at home and won 1-0. Brighton finished like 8th or 9th, while my team finished 3rd.

When I win a couple of games, they say "it will only be a matter time until my team starts its descent down the table" This is every season!

I hope they address these kinds of problems for FM09.

yeah - that's weird - I'm almost always predicted for last.

I think the odds system needs to be changed to better reflect the actual abilities of the players. After all, this is what wins football games. If only in real-life I could get these kinds of odds, I'd be rich!!

Every home game they tell me I face "difficult (fill-in-name) challenge", even if I'm in first and the other team is in 20th place!! I was 2 places ahead of Brighton in league 2, and made a 9-1 underdog at home and won 1-0. Brighton finished like 8th or 9th, while my team finished 3rd.

When I win a couple of games, they say "it will only be a matter time until my team starts its descent down the table" This is every season!

I hope they address these kinds of problems for FM09.

I do think that the odds could be improved however it is purely cosmetic - I would also like to see 1st goalscorer odds, next manager to be sacked odds etc as it would be a little fun.

Its not an official bug but its clearly an unofficial one. Clearly as has been stated rep works so slowly that your team is unrecognised outside its division yet the game allows you to sign great players and add quality which IRL would improve your rep yet in the game this is only achieved at the end of the season with an average given for the start of the following. So say you win a cup and the league in a season in League 2, then during that season you'll have good rep but when the next season starts the game sees you in League 1 and seems to forget what was achieved the previous season and so rates you based on the others around you who are mostly all league 1 or higher rep, so by this definition you'll always be an underdog.