Free Agents -too cheap and not picky enough!

Every year there is this same problem. Firstly, most of the free agents are overated........this year we have Andy Van Der Meyde, Gareth Williams, Terry Cooke, Christian Gyan, Patrick Suffo, Arnau Riera, Stephen Hughes, Ronnie Wallwork, Jermaine Wright, Michael Mifsud, Rohan Ricketts, Alvaro Novo, Joe Keenan, Pele (ex-West Brom), Rudolph Duoala, Inigo Idiakez, Santiago Ezquerro, Vincent Pericard, Steve Lovell, Rudi Skacel, Nathan Lowndes, Dejan Stefanovic, Seyfo Soley, Sean Doherty, Willy Topp, Luca Senicanin, Fabian Yantorno, Elliott Omozusi, Izzy Iriekpen, Glauber, Mamadou Seck etc etc.

I'm told most of these would be good signings for Palace when the majority have been let go by smaller/lower clubs and there's a reason why they're still without a club in October. Thankfully I can do something about these in the editor.

But a bigger problem is the high-profile players like Viduka, Campo, Smolarek, Vieri, Lauren, and Campbell - not only are they well up for a move to Palace, they'll sign for peanuts too. Viduka - £6k. Campo - £3k. Smolarek - £8k. Vieri - £4k!!!! Lauren £3.5k. Campbell - £9.5k.

These are players with big reputations and while I accept you could well see a couple of those ending up in the Championship, it will be with a weathier club who can pay them £10-15k a week. And in the case of Vieri, Campbell and Viduka, they're not getting out of bed for less than £30k.

With previous versions I've experimented to try and make this more realistic - put the players' reps up even higher, put the rep of the clubs down, put the rep of the league down....yet still certain big players like Vieri and Lauren can be signed by most Championship clubs for a pittance. If I restrain myself and don't sign them, someone else in the Championship like Plymouth or Coventry will!

It just upsets the whole balance of the game

Even if their rep drops due to age the game should remember their rep at the players hight of their career.

This would mean that they would still command relatively big wages. I offered a 34 year old carragher who was still a regular a new contract. He asked for a 50% wage cut.

Not realistic in my view.

How can a free agent be too cheap?

How can a free agent be too cheap?

I'd call £4k a week for Christian Vieri or Lauren with no signing-on fee cheap.

These guys simply wouldn't play for that sort of money. And almost certainly wouldn't play for Palace in the Championship for any money.

Excellent topic. I play the demo with Brighton and I was able to sign free agents for every position the team lacked quality (Pele, Skacel, Topp - all of them mentioned above). Now they are the very best players on my squad. It's not really challenging to strenghten your team. Even players like Andy van der Meyde were willing to negotiate a contract, though he eventually signed for another team.

It's another area thats hard to balance, the last couple of versions have been laced with players - old and young who wouldn't drop down leagues despite it making enormous sense. Very promising youngsters, who would say be on par with the likes of Ishmael Miller would get released by their premier league club and rather than sign for a championship or league 1 side would retire.

Mark Viduka has/is returning to Australia isn't he? Unless he's the designated player for an A-league side - he won't be earning a lot, just because Newcastle were daft enough to write a big number on his cheque doesn't mean the next club will be. Vincent Pericard has been taking trials anywhere and everywhere after a contract, even going to Burton Albion for a while in the summer.

Vieri's options irl are rather limited, he went to blackburn for a trial and he was a good 3 stone or so overweight. He'd need probably 2 - 3 monthsbefore he'd be fit enough to play so he would be quite likely to go somewhere on that much at least relatively short-term before he retired.

The simple matter of fact is, in many cases these players won't get contracts in the premiership. Lauren may, but only with the bottom end teams. I took him on trial at Stoke and decided he wasn't good enough, not even on a cheap deal. But there is two options these players hold out for 6 - 12 months in the hopes that some club at the top does take them on, which is very unlikely and by then they'll be even worse and championship sides would be hesitant to take them on and they retire. Or just be like on 09 and reject contracts endlessly from lesser teams and retire in January.

Quite frankly, if you can get more than 10 goals a season out of Vieri now, even in the championship I'd be impressed.

It's a problem when say, a 31/32 year old, who's actually good (not many of note this year - which is quite unusual), could still cut it at the top level for another season or two and has just left a rather big club starts to do this.

Ultimately though:

Vieri - played a few games for a lower half Serie A side - Atalanta wouldn't have the money premiership sides in the same position do.

Campo - spent last season at Ipswich - didn't pull up any trees there.

Viduka - terrible injury record, looked very much a poor and past it player at Newcastle, lacking the ability he once had.

Lauren & Campbell - both part of a portsmouth defence that looked terrible last year, Lauren didn't play too often and Campbell certainly was looking out of his depth at premiership level, the likes of Diarra covered over these cracks before.

Smolarek - only one with a chance of a future at the top, but has looked rather out of ideas both in Spain and England when it comes to goalscoring. He hasn't proven himself at the top level and fallen on hard times - no club in the top leagues in Spain, Italy or England would look at him, even Portsmouth didn't try when they were signing anything with a pulse.

Rudi Skacel signed contract with SK Slavia Prague on the beginning of the october though:) So if you want, you can move him there in editor, like other players..

I think older players probably would consider a move down the leagues when they get towards the end of their career if they wanted to get into coaching / management.

Vieri - played a few games for a lower half Serie A side - Atalanta wouldn't have the money premiership sides in the same position do.

Campo - spent last season at Ipswich - didn't pull up any trees there.

Viduka - terrible injury record, looked very much a poor and past it player at Newcastle, lacking the ability he once had.

Lauren & Campbell - both part of a portsmouth defence that looked terrible last year, Lauren didn't play too often and Campbell certainly was looking out of his depth at premiership level, the likes of Diarra covered over these cracks before.

Smolarek - only one with a chance of a future at the top, but has looked rather out of ideas both in Spain and England when it comes to goalscoring. He hasn't proven himself at the top level and fallen on hard times - no club in the top leagues in Spain, Italy or England would look at him, even Portsmouth didn't try when they were signing anything with a pulse.

I'm not saying these players are particularly good, certainly in real life. I'd say judging by their attributes, and without being able to see their CA yet, that they look overated and that the above issues you mentioned aren't reflected.

What I am saying is whether these players are any good or not, they're not going to play for Palace for £4k a week. If they can't get a big club or at least big money, I don't see them turning out at Selhurst or the Withdean. They just won't play at all, they don't need the money. Which, given as we're in mid-October and they're not playing for anyone, is pretty much what has happened.

Like aadam says, it's far far too easy to improve your side dramatically with free agents who are either better than they should be, cheaper than they should be, or both! If it were that easy and those players were any good, they'd have been signed in July.

I think the reason for overrated free agents could be that players on every teams from Premiership to Conference have their skills decreased a little bit, but maybe SI forgot to do the same thing to players without a club...

What is your reputation as manager? Try starting as automatic or Sunday footballer. I'm willing to bet that you will not be able to sign these players at all or would only be able to sign them at much higher wages. I could be wrong, though. Maybe you are starting at those lower reputations.

If you start at a high reputation like professional footballer or international footballer, then it's going to be far easier for you to sign players and get them on the cheap.

i think you have a slightly exagerated view of what some of these "past it"" players could now command.

whilst not all of those players are liekly to sign for palace, the salaries you quote are not ridiculous. Vieri and viduka for example, would have no chance of getting 30k a week.

I'm glad this is the case because nobody really knows how much veterans get paid anyway, and the OP hasn't even used FMRTE to check their stats. Also, older/younger players just want to play anyway. I'd be worried if players in their prime would accept it though. And we still don't know how players released by their teams at the end of the first season will be like. I'd hate to see Giggs and Scholes released again and unwilling to play for any other team.

i think you have a slightly exagerated view of what some of these "past it"" players could now command.

whilst not all of those players are liekly to sign for palace, the salaries you quote are not ridiculous. Vieri and viduka for example, would have no chance of getting 30k a week.

And this is exactly why they're sitting on the beach in October and not playing in the Championship. Until someone's stupid enough to pay them a decent wedge, they just won't play. Is Christian Vieri going to move to England to play for a mid-table Championship club for £4k a week? Is Sol Campbell, having just ripped up a £40k week contract, suddenly going to sign for less than £10k?

Jorge Campos - my reputation was sunday league. The problem continues the further down the league you go, it's just too easy to bring in a whole new team of free agents far better than the players you've got. There are players in the database whose last semi-pro game was 10 years ago yet are 'fantastic' signings for conference north clubs....I think the entire free agent population needs a good spring clean.

Hopefully the new way the editor works means I only have to do this once and I can apply that to all future versions of FM. Talent is a precious commodity at all levels of football, I just feel it's a little bit too abundant among the players who in real life are so good that they're without a job in October.

As a real-life example, take Emile Mpenza. He was a free agent on the game, and I remember signing him for Palace for £4K. IRL, Plymouth haggled with his agent for quite a while and got him for a reported £10k - by far their highest paid player. On the game, he scored over 20 for me. IRL, he was a flop with constant injury problems.

My point is, if you want to sign a player with a big reputation, ego and bank balance, it's a big risk and it's gonna cost you....no matter how unfit or past it he turns out to be.

On the game, it's not really a big risk as I can sign Lauren for less than a carthorse like Matt Lawrence is on and he'll probably do a far better job.

Do you reckon there's any player naming in this thread?!

There are some good points made on this. You often seeing signings of free agents which simply wouldn't happen in real life, for example ive just seen Van Der Meyde sign for Nottingham Forest on a free, these kind of transfers have always been the case on the series for example Steve mcmanaman would sign for a League 1/2 team on an older game.

At the same time its annoying and waste of space on the game players not willing to move down and just hanging around till they eretire. I think occasionally the game has to sacrifice a tiny amount of realism to make the gamem ore fun and avoid having loads of players hanging around on the databse doingn othing

Oh yeah i remember in fm09 where i could sign Bojan for Copenhagen in every game when his contract expired and for less money than my other strikers.

There are some good points made on this. You often seeing signings of free agents which simply wouldn't happen in real life, for example ive just seen Van Der Meyde sign for Nottingham Forest on a free, these kind of transfers have always been the case on the series for example Steve mcmanaman would sign for a League 1/2 team on an older game.

At the same time its annoying and waste of space on the game players not willing to move down and just hanging around till they eretire. I think occasionally the game has to sacrifice a tiny amount of realism to make the gamem ore fun and avoid having loads of players hanging around on the databse doingn othing

I'm sure in FM10 its nowhere near as bad but this was very much the case in CM 97/98 and 01/02.

I always holiday the first season to:

a) Shake things up a little.

&

b) Avoid being signing the same old free agents.

I don't mind that a veteren player will go to a much lower reputation club, but I do usually find their wage demands surprisingly easy to meet.

The fact is, these old players are very much unlikely to win you the league - pace is an incredibly valuable asset which these just don't have.

I believe this has been brought about by the attempts to rectify something we would normally see a couple seasons in. A good player is released by Chelsea/Arsenal/Man Utd reserves at the age of 17/18 and he retires at 19 because the level he is currently good enough for ie upper league 1/lower championship he won't sign for those clubs.

Last year I saw many 3 star potential players (players with the potential to be good enough for a club winning everything) retire because they were currently 1 star potential and were league 1 standard. At the end of the day Vieri for all he once was, signing for a championship doesn't ruin the game. I'd put his goals to games ratio probably somewhere between 1 every 3/4 games now.

All older players don't drop their wage demands, I just signed Beckham on a free and had to give him £42k a week.

It's another area thats hard to balance, the last couple of versions have been laced with players - old and young who wouldn't drop down leagues despite it making enormous sense. Very promising youngsters, who would say be on par with the likes of Ishmael Miller would get released by their premier league club and rather than sign for a championship or league 1 side would retire.

Mark Viduka has/is returning to Australia isn't he? Unless he's the designated player for an A-league side - he won't be earning a lot, just because Newcastle were daft enough to write a big number on his cheque doesn't mean the next club will be. Vincent Pericard has been taking trials anywhere and everywhere after a contract, even going to Burton Albion for a while in the summer.

Vieri's options irl are rather limited, he went to blackburn for a trial and he was a good 3 stone or so overweight. He'd need probably 2 - 3 monthsbefore he'd be fit enough to play so he would be quite likely to go somewhere on that much at least relatively short-term before he retired.

The simple matter of fact is, in many cases these players won't get contracts in the premiership. Lauren may, but only with the bottom end teams. I took him on trial at Stoke and decided he wasn't good enough, not even on a cheap deal. But there is two options these players hold out for 6 - 12 months in the hopes that some club at the top does take them on, which is very unlikely and by then they'll be even worse and championship sides would be hesitant to take them on and they retire. Or just be like on 09 and reject contracts endlessly from lesser teams and retire in January.

Quite frankly, if you can get more than 10 goals a season out of Vieri now, even in the championship I'd be impressed.

It's a problem when say, a 31/32 year old, who's actually good (not many of note this year - which is quite unusual), could still cut it at the top level for another season or two and has just left a rather big club starts to do this.

Ultimately though:

Vieri - played a few games for a lower half Serie A side - Atalanta wouldn't have the money premiership sides in the same position do.

Campo - spent last season at Ipswich - didn't pull up any trees there.

Viduka - terrible injury record, looked very much a poor and past it player at Newcastle, lacking the ability he once had.

Lauren & Campbell - both part of a portsmouth defence that looked terrible last year, Lauren didn't play too often and Campbell certainly was looking out of his depth at premiership level, the likes of Diarra covered over these cracks before.

Smolarek - only one with a chance of a future at the top, but has looked rather out of ideas both in Spain and England when it comes to goalscoring. He hasn't proven himself at the top level and fallen on hard times - no club in the top leagues in Spain, Italy or England would look at him, even Portsmouth didn't try when they were signing anything with a pulse.

Top post simply

I'll rather have this problem than young players not accepting anything. On top of that, I have yet to see a free agent who would be good enough for the EPL and those who are worse, will indeed rather accept what they can get than getting nothing at all due to inadequate pride.

Just for the record, Edgar Davids, one of the greatest DM's of his generation IMO is in talks with Leicester IRL, an upper mid table championship team. I'd consider him to have a high reputation similar to that of Vieri.

Even if their rep drops due to age the game should remember their rep at the players hight of their career.

This would mean that they would still command relatively big wages. I offered a 34 year old carragher who was still a regular a new contract. He asked for a 50% wage cut.

Not realistic in my view.

I also find that odd, Steven Gerrard is the centre piece of my Man City midfield on £140,000 a week. He may be 32 now but when offered a new deal he asks for £95,000!? Why would he do that? I'd understand if he played very few games last year and was falling out of favour behind a kid... but even then he'd surely consider big money at a rival club first?

Yet a reverse situation is Wayne Bridge is my third choice behind the England U21 left back and the Italy U21, played 3 games in the last two season, is early 30's but demands MORE money to renew?

Top post simply

I'll rather have this problem than young players not accepting anything. On top of that, I have yet to see a free agent who would be good enough for the EPL and those who are worse, will indeed rather accept what they can get than getting nothing at all due to inadequate pride.

It's not difficult for the game to differentiate between a youngster who didn't make the grade at United and Christian Vieri. Vieri's world and home reputation is high, the youngster's is going to be virtually non-existent. I don't really find it satisfactory to say I'd rather have problem A than problem B....why not fix both of them!

But then I'm a perfectionist. I'm clearly not going to win this argument, so I'll look forward to watching Campbell, Viduka, Smolarek, Lauren and Vieri visiting Selhurst in their Barnsley and Coventry shirts any week now

Just for the record, Edgar Davids, one of the greatest DM's of his generation IMO is in talks with Leicester IRL, an upper mid table championship team. I'd consider him to have a high reputation similar to that of Vieri.

And I bet you he won't be asking for £4k a week at the start of the negotiations, that's my point. Here we go, from the daily mail:

"The former Holland international, known as 'the pitbull' for his combative style of play, is said to be asking for a deal containing around £20,000-a-week in wages plus a large percentage of his image rights."

I highly doubt even if his wage package overall is 20k a week, that is his basic salary. I expect it'd be 5 - 10k to start with, with the rest being appearance fees. Irl some clubs actually use the signing on fee as a chunk of that to be added to the wage as well, so 100k signing on fee over the year is like 2k extra week on his wages so to speak.

He hasn't played for over a year now though, so he has been waiting out for the big money deal and unless he compromises its unlikely he will get a deal at Leicester. One criticism I have is that appearance fees should be higher, and basic wages less - especially for ageing more injury prone players.

But seriously whichever way you dress your viewpoint up doesn't matter, neither does mine. Do you prefer these players to sign deals and still be used in the game or to sit there and waste away before disappearing? Last year, it was much harder than it should have been.

Also, the reputation factor you were speaking of, regens got a high reputation at big clubs, especially making a couple of appearances (much like in real life, Keiran Richardson, Dos Santos, Luke Chadwick, Sebastien Larsson and various other players) who got in during an injury crisis or in cup games and then they would refuse to go to the likes of Ipswich, Stoke, Birmingham, Burnley when they were in the championship and sides lower down like they should do.

But seriously whichever way you dress your viewpoint up doesn't matter, neither does mine. Do you prefer these players to sign deals and still be used in the game or to sit there and waste away before disappearing?

.

I'd prefer the game to be realistic, if that means Davids & Viduka sitting at home as they are IRL then fine. Big names cost big money and should represent a risk to a Championship club on a tight budget. £10-£15k would be a risk, £4-5k is a no-brainer with very little downside, as it's the going-rate for a journeyman like Shaun Derry.

It would be nice if the game could be completely realistic, but it has limitations because the AI will be unlikely to never be able to truly emulate real life. On FM08 Ryan Giggs wouldn't still be playing now, neither would Scholes because they'd deteriorate so quickly.

It's taken 15 years or so to get where we are today, and in 15 years from now, they'll still be refining these kinds of areas. Leicester are run by an idiot (Mandaric) who is willing to do these daft things. Look at what he was letting Redknapp do at Portsmouth he then jumped out and another idiot owner did the same. Viduka is the kind of signing Stoke would have gone for a couple years ago when we were in the championship, we'd never have entertained the idea of paying him 20k a week.

One thing worth bearing in mind is, Vieri hasn't commanded a transfer fee in any of his last 5 transfers, at AC Milan he might have earned 20 - 30k a week. At Monaco I'd say he would have earned 20k a week tops, Atalanta are considerably smaller than Monaco and he'd have barely been pushing 5 figures there. Fiorentina he might have got a big appearance fee of maybe 20k or something but his general wages would have been quite low.

You say Viduka/Vieri wouldn't get out of bed for this much money, but just because they have been paid large amounts doesn't mean they won't accept less. Some players love the game and keep on when they don't need to just because they want to, and it doesn't matter at what level.

SI can't exactly put a personal trait in of "greedy fecker" and hope to get away with it, and you can't really guage whether its the right label for them or not. Players will push their luck in negotiations granted, but FM doesn't quite emulate rounds of negotiations whereby someone like Vieri comes in wanting say 8k a week basic wage, 22k per appearance and you negotiate it to 10k basic wage, 10k appearance fee or something. When it does, its something they can continue working on.

Players arent always greedy. Montella of AS Roma agreed to cancel his absurdly high contract for free, just because he realized he wasnt anywhere close at the level he was 4 years ago when he signed that contract. Same in Norwegian premier league, theres been a lot of clubs with a very difficult economical situation lately, and the tendency is quite clear, those who have a heart for the team, and are getting old, accepts much lower wages, even playing for free.

I always holiday the first season to:

a) Shake things up a little.

&

b) Avoid being signing the same old free agents.

I don't mind that a veteren player will go to a much lower reputation club, but I do usually find their wage demands surprisingly easy to meet.

Totally off topic to what is being discussed but can I just say what a fantastic idea!! I have never even thought about doing this...

I agree this need to be tweaked a bit. Seems far too easy to get good players to mediocre teams at the moment.

At least its not like Championship Manager 5 (I think) way too easy in the long run with West Ham in my third year I had Van Nisteroy, Lampard, Nedved and nearly got Gerrard but I tried to lower his wages all on free transfers in the third season.

With Carsile I got form the bottom divison to the top just by looking in all the international teams and signing any player without a contract. Top Slovinia players were destroying league 2 with my team.

But I do agree it is a little too easy to get good free players but at least other teams bid for them unlike CM5

Just for the record, Edgar Davids, one of the greatest DM's of his generation IMO is in talks with Leicester IRL, an upper mid table championship team. I'd consider him to have a high reputation similar to that of Vieri.

True maybe it isn't too bad then.

Someone was interviewed about the potential Davids transfer on East Midlands today and revealed he'd be on similar wages to existing players at the club. He did however imply he'd be on large performance bonuses, maybe thats the way forward?

Players arent always greedy. Montella of AS Roma agreed to cancel his absurdly high contract for free, just because he realized he wasnt anywhere close at the level he was 4 years ago when he signed that contract. Same in Norwegian premier league, theres been a lot of clubs with a very difficult economical situation lately, and the tendency is quite clear, those who have a heart for the team, and are getting old, accepts much lower wages, even playing for free.

If I remember rightly, Tommasi of AS Roma also did the same thing. After coming back from injury he agreed to pay for about 1,000 euro a month because of his love for the club. It's very rare though.

I once saw some where that Ole Gunner Solskjaer offered to take a hefty pay cut and accept a pay as you play contract due to him missing 3 years with injury, United were willing to offer a huge contract dispite him being injured.

20Legend

Legend Sums him up perfectly!

The full game has been released since the last post. Isn't it more difficult to sign good free agents when running several leagues and big database, not just quickstart? I can't see why it would be, but I hope so... I won't spend any money on a game that is so unrealistic that I could build up the best squad in League One for free in 3 days, no matter which club I manage. So has the situtation change? I think it's one of the biggest problems of gameplay.

Any news about that? I'm really, really curious.

i must be the only person who thinks its great you can sign players you wouldnt normally be able to sign. To see players like Glauber, Sol Campbell and Viduka at my club Preston North End is cool. I do like the game to be realistic but its nice to have a good chance to do well in the championship with barely any money

Another IRL example is Jay-Jay Ockocha might be joining FC Halifax town of Tier 8. Was a premiership legend and is only 33

i must be the only person who thinks its great you can sign players you wouldnt normally be able to sign. To see players like Glauber, Sol Campbell and Viduka at my club Preston North End is cool. I do like the game to be realistic but its nice to have a good chance to do well in the championship with barely any money

Yes, I guess you must be the only one. It's just unrealistic. If you don't have money, you cannot sign players like Campbell, even if they're free. Anyway, being able to sing veteran big names is not the biggest problem concerning free agency. Overrated players are. For example striker Willy Topp, who couldn't even score a single goal in 13 games for Bradford during 07-08 League Two season but is an excellent signing for any League One or even Championship clubs in FM.

Agreed even if a big name players drop down a division he's still not going to play for peanuts, the game needs to recongise this maybe make exceptions for people joining as staff/player.

Nice to know it's being looked at, as I was going to have a little whinge about this as well. On a related note, it seems as if it may be too easy to attract youth players who have a real chance of making the grade at bigger clubs to slightly less big clubs, but maybe that would need a separate thread....