[iPhone] FMH 2010 - Can't buy anyone - Really disappointing

Hello all, I got an iPhone a few months ago and decided to get FM, perfect for the train.

Everything about the game is excellent except these MASSIVE problems I am having, whats going on?:

- I done a game with Rangers, I struggled to even convince English Championship players to my club, even the season after I had won the Champions League. Kevin Prince-Boateng was the best I could get in and even he is crap.

- Strikers dont score enough goals. My best striker (trying lots of different formations and systems) scored 15 goals in 50 games, whereas all the other goals were shared around the team. I tried different games with different teams from Barcelona to Man United to Reading to Carlisle and the same problem every time, it was impossible to get a striker with a ratio better than a goal every 3 games! Which is quite frankly silly for the amount of games I times I tested it out.

- I unlocked the sugar daddy achievement but despite all the money in my bank couldn't attract anyone to the club. Impossible to buy players.

- Following on from the above, I started a Coventry game with the sugar daddy unlocked. I tried to buy players THAT WERE INTERESTED IN ME according to the filter, yet ALL the ones that were even half good said that they didnt think I had the resources to bring them into the club or whatever it said. For example, one player who was interested in me in the filter (same division, playing for a side thats not really considered big in the league), was on £7k a week, I offered him the max I could (£20k a week wage, £450k signing on fee, big release clause) and HE STILL TURNED ME DOWN!!!!!! Why? Absolutely ludicrous and makes the game unplayable as you literally cannot bring anybody in.

- Done the sugar daddy thing at a Blue Square Prem club ..... the only players I could bring in were players who werent in the starting XI at their clubs in the same division as me. This is so unlifelike and unrealistic. Even players who were on £200 a week were turning down £2k a week contracts in the BSP.

You guys should take a leaf out of Notts Countys book who when they had all their (supposed) £££ were able to bring in players from above their league who were actually decent such as Schmeichel, Hughes and Jackson. Its just impossible to do this on the iPhone version.

Such a good start yet huge errors have let it down. Hopefully FMH2011 on the iPhone will rectify this or I may have to go over to 'Championship Manager'. Such a shame as the transfer system and strikers setup is quite frankly rubbish.

P.S. The interface on the iPhone version is excellent and works really well with the touchscreen technology.

Thanks for the reply Marc.

When you're trying to sign players from higher leagues are you offering them big-club release clauses? - as this can be a big factor in them agreeing to drop down to a lower league.

Yep. Every single time.

Also try to time purchases for players when they're most likely to be interested - you might be surprised at the talent you can attract if they're unsettled at their current club or who have contracts expiring in the near future.

So basically I need I need to grin and bare with it until the first transfer window in Jan 2010?

PS - Glad you like the interface, took a lot of time to create but I think its been worth it.

PPS - I presume you're fully patched up to the latest version of FMHi2010? - If you'd be kind enough to start a new game and give me a club and some examples of players you approach at the game start I'll try and replicate similar situations in the FMHi 2011 game so I know if its something which has been fixed already for FMHi 2011, if not then its something I can put on the list of items to address in updates ('Sugar Daddy' is always a slightly odd thing to tune tbh as its a somewhat artificial situation in many ways - the problem you've got with the Blue Sq Prm club I think might be that they're set as semi-pro, I'll look at making a sugar daddied club always turn 'pro' at the game start for the first FMHi 2011 update that will probably help with that).

Thanks Marc, got a long 3 hour train journey home in an half an hour, so will do some testing and put the examples up here. But for example with Coventry (off the top of my head) I couldn't get the following players.....

- Michael Chopra

- Brian Stock

- Ferrie Bodde

- Jimmy Kebe

- Gylfi Sigurdsson

- Miles Addison

- Graham Dorrans

- Leigh Griffiths

....and these were the only ones I went for (that I can remember)

I was offering them well over their current wage + all the trimmings.