Potential Ability

Hi i have been playing football manager for a bit now (since FM2006) but never had a go at creating a player using the editor option.

now i have tried to create an 18 yr old, who is gonna be a big star in the future, someone like aaron ramsey or jack wilshere. so i go and look at their CA and PA to see what range i should put for my player. CA wasnt a problem as u would expect them to be low as 120 or 130 max. but i was surprised when it said PA as -9 and -8. now i dont understand why that is. i used FMRTE so see what their PA was in the game and it turned out to be in the 170's.

so can someone explain to me why does it show -8 or -9 in the editor.

unless i understood it wrong, would -10 necessarly mean a higher PA than 170 in the game itself?

would appreciate if someone can help me on this. Editor in FM2010 is much more usable and realistic to finally create a player for a change.

PS: i have done some searching on google but didnt find anything useful, so had to resort on posting this thread

The minus numbers are random PAs within certain ranges:

-10 = 170-200

-9 = 150-180

and so on.

oh right. thanks

so its just better to state what PA u want rather than the game to decide.

They do this for relatively unknown players. Though I'm not sure Wilshere and Ramsey are THAT unknown. Maybe it's because they're quite young, and so it's hard to tell exactly what their potential is. Either way, if you create a player I would say to give him a fixed, numerical PA. That way it'll be more defined.

Depends what you want, really. If you want complete control then specify an exact PA. If you want a bit of variation in your games (so sometimes a player's better than others) then use a minus PA.

The -10,-9, etc. ratings are generally for players who are considered within a range of potentials, but the researcher(s) are not sure what their exact potential is, therefore you get players like Ramsey and Wilshere, who are well known, high in potential but not yet of sufficient exposure (i.e. games played) for the relevant researcher to give them an exact potential. I remember if you checked Messi in 05 he had a potential of -10 (what you'd expect for a player just burst onto the scene).

The other thing about PA ratings is that their a subjective rating, so I would rather to see a young player with a range PA in the editor than an exact rating, unless he is already a big star.

thanks very much guys for such quick responses. both ways work as a charm for me, although i prefer to give a direct PA. i can finally have myself as a world class player lol. and i dont even play footy in real.