What's your transfer policy on the game?

I've been playing FM with a few mates recently, and its quite interesting to see how we all operate in the transfer market.

I personally will sign 1 or 2 players with a view to be developed for the future, with then focusing on players who are first team, and after this generally just 1 or 2 big money buys each season.

My mates have different approaches, two of them are hung up on getting all the best youngsters in the game, with the plan that "in 5 years time my team will be better than yours" which is doing ok for them, but they are literally putting their hopes on these players turning good to win things.

The last one is more focused around older bargain players, he signs a lot of players who are 27 - 33 for quite cheap amounts and an odd young player or two for his first team to mix it up a bit.

So, how do you approach the market on this game?

I've been playing FM with a few mates recently, and its quite interesting to see how we all operate in the transfer market.

I personally will sign 1 or 2 players with a view to be developed for the future, with then focusing on players who are first team, and after this generally just 1 or 2 big money buys each season.

My mates have different approaches, two of them are hung up on getting all the best youngsters in the game, with the plan that "in 5 years time my team will be better than yours" which is doing ok for them, but they are literally putting their hopes on these players turning good to win things.

The last one is more focused around older bargain players, he signs a lot of players who are 27 - 33 for quite cheap amounts and an odd young player or two for his first team to mix it up a bit.

So, how do you approach the market on this game?

first of all i search players that are out of contract , expereinced players and youngsters . i then search for players that are transfer listed/litsed for loan . first season i rarely spend a huge amount as i like to keep my finances stable .

in my history of playn fm08 my biggest signing has been under £5 mil

I sign a lot of youngstersbut also constantly try to improve my first team.

I currently have 11 young strikers that should be leading Premiership strikers, 9 of which I signed. I don't break the bank, but if I thinkI can get a good youngster for a million, then I will. Like I said, I also like to get quality, but don't pay more than 10m for a player.

On 8.0.0, I got Srna for £3m, Elano for £8.5, Eddie Johnson for £1.2, Maldonado for £4 and Skertel for £2. I hope that combined with my current squad, they'll help me to finish in Europe.

I used to only buy youngsters but in FM08 i have changed my strategy. My DC's and goalkeeper are usually over 25 years old since i find them more reliable than youngsters. So if i think im missing a really good player in those positions i buy an older player. (but not over 27 years old) I have quite a few 20-22 year old playing in other position, but they are probably one of the best youngsters available and their youth doesnt seem to have any negative effect on my results.

I also have a couple of u18 players in my first team that get an occasional game. They have to have a really big potential or else they will play for my reserve team (coaches are rating their potential as a leading premier league players). They are usually not used as substitutes since i prefer to have some depth in my team. (two players for each position + a couple of u18 potential stars).

weston-super-mare just won the double this year using this strategy .

Depends who I'm playing as.

With Leeds / career games, it's anything goes. I'll sign anyone I think can improve the squad, and ignore those moaning about not getting a game - I tell them to impress me and they might get their place back. Always with one eye on wage budget and general finances, of course. I send scouts out once when newgens are coming though and again about three months into the season to look for youth (if they're playing first team at all, I try and snaffle a couple of the better ones).

Currently on a save with Chelski under some self-imposed restrictions.

1) I can only use my transfer budget to buy U18s. 2) I can only spend money on over 18s that I make from sales. 3) My net first team squad size must remain the same, ie, if I only sell one player, say Carvalho for £12m, I can only sign one player to replace him - for £12m or less.

It's made for an interesting game, using Chelski's wealth to scout almost constantly, and buy in the world's best newgens. Was hoping for a superteam of newgens quite quickly but so far (2014) only have 4 first team regulars as newgens. Probably because I bought the usual superyouths (Saivet, Wijnhalm, etc). I reckon I'll be doing okay by 2020 - if I can stand it that long.

I buy mostly youngsters

In my current save on Dafuges Challenge as Mangotsfield Town in the BSP, my oldest player is my captain at 25, who I had from the 1st season.

I buy them in hope rather than expectation, hoping that in a few years they will blossom, and will become legends at the club.

I tend to buy mostly youngsters on free transfers, in the lower leagues these players are often good enough to go straight into the first team.

I used to only buy young and english because in FM 05 with spurs, buyuing lennon, routledge etc always came off good in say season 3, but now i have 3 main scouting areas, south america scandinavia and central europe , ill look for the 'wonderkid youngters and any good under 20 plaers and then every 4 years or so bring a new batch of reserves ijto the first team squad, i once did that with 3 yoor f4 young english players, they cost 5mil a pop but turned into 25mil, but that was luck.

The most i will shell out on is for defenders. The big money midfielders and strikers are gereally disspointing. They may score in spain italy or elsewhere but dont in england. Im always left disspointed.

I have to say that my policy can have a negative effect as ill sign a load of good players that are young (law of averages but i fear that this disrupts the harmony as im always the team at the end of the transfer window with, the biggest number of signingsie i have signed no less than 23 players etc. normally this is 2-3 players to bolster my first team squad to fill the gaps left by the overpriced signeing ssold on and then say 20 youngsters to boost my youth team and reseves....

Does any one else do this or am i just tight??

I tend to always buy players who are under 23. At the start i strengthen the positions in my squad that need it.

Then, i usually buy 16-18 year old's who i eventually bring into my first team.

I get most reward from the game seeing my own youngster winning trophies. Had lots of success at Lyon, Arsenal and Man United without needing to spend much and brining youth through to my first team.

I first see who the best players i can get on loan are, no point buying when you can get them for free.

I then usually buy 1-2 big signings a year to go straight into my first team, followed as many potentially good youngsters as possible, even if they don't make it to my team you can pick them up for very little, pay them peanuts in wages for 3 years then sell them for a couple of million.

I never bother to buy anyone over 26 (unless it's a free transfer) because they're skills deteriorate to quickly when they pass 29, and therefore have no resale value.

I guess I treat players like assets, I buy cheap, make better then sell for a big profit

That's a very interesting question. I tend to go for youngsters only (23 and younger). In my experience, the rewards are much greater when you sign players that are rapidly developing. Only in really low leagues do I sign older players, the reason being that hot prospects do not want to sign and that their development is slower bacause of poor training conditions (facilities/coaches).

Also, just as IRL I tend to have a bit older players further back. Often my oldest player is the keeper, then the centre backs, followed by defensive mids and full backs.

bosmans for profit

i also tend to avoid 28+ players, my average squad age is usually 24ish. i always have a decent 30+ GK.

I love signing freebies and bargains, I'll spend hours trawling through the soon to be bosmans looking for a gem that's available for nothing. This probably reflects the fact that I usually play as clubs who don't have a great budget for their level, so picking up the bargains is vital. Once I get the club into a stronger financial position though I am prepared to splash the cash on quality players. On this game I will only sign players over 28 if they are available for a knockdown price or free as they deteriorate so quickly. At my current team I've signed a lot of players under 20 for not a lot of money, though I have spent a few hundred grand on a couple who I thought were worth it.

If I can afford them and they can improve my team, I will try and buy them. Once I'm in a position to think about the future, then I'll buy youngsters and attempt to turn them into stars, but I always focus on improving my team immediately first. Nothing worse than having loads of potential stars and then getting sacked because your first team isn't performing well enough.

Firstly look for free transfers, usually the older generation when playing lower leagues. Then it would be the loan list, usually younger players with potential and I always attempt to agree a decent price should I wish to purchase him. Finally its a look into the transfer list or scouts if I really need to improve the squad!

i'm in a transition period with my team, i cant find many players that are willing to sign for me that are better than my current lot. i am dundee utd and we won the spl for the first time last season and reached the uefa cup final. however the bigger players are still not keen on coming so i have 12mil to spend and i've yet to really spend it, the summer usually ends with me desperatly just searching for someone to sign.

Currently running a Barca game where I can only spend money on players under the age of 21. Above that, it's down to nicking people at the end of their contracts (Pique and Isaksson this year.)

My average team age when I won La Liga last season was around 23, and it'll probably be even younger this year as I've offloaded Henry. In a year or so when Puyol and Zambrotta leave my team will be like a creche!

Well im Udinese and I sign a bit of both i im in my second season and i have made the squad my own already with young players and big money transfers and some older players like Makelele and del piero. although they dont always start they are great match winners or to get a goal or two back

By and large, my policy is to buy the best players I can afford and who want to join me. When I manage Man. United, I tend to only buy players who will have a future at the club, so I won't buy anyone older than about 25.

That said, I've signed four players in my two seasons in charge, one of which was a 26 year old Javier Saviola, who turned 27 shortly afterwards. But I identified a need for a new striker and, at £7m, I thought I had a potential bargain on my hands. I was right. He's been class.

One thing I do not do is worry about a player's nationality. My squad won't improve if I reduce the field of possible players. All that matters is ability and my youth setup isn't producing good enough players so I am happy to look abroad. Sorry England fans!

The first couple of seasons I buy players to improve the squad then once Ive got some good squad players I start to buy alot of young players aged 15 - 17 to get some furture blood through or make money back on them

I will only sign Bosmans or scout young players and sign them for cheap (300k).

I always buy players from my previous squad. I have a player (a Hungarian regen) who I got on a free, then when I left the club, I bought him with me for 100k. A couple years later, I moved clubs again, and when he was worth 325k, I bought him for 2mil + 40% sell-on clause. He's now worth $6 million after three seasons.

I rarely buy players over $5 million (only twice so far).

My philosophy is basically buy low, sell high.

Youngsters or frees, usually, or bargains (just bagged Adriano for less than 500k pounds, bargain!).

It's because I'm Triestina and a couple of seasons ago I was finding it hard enough attracting good Serie B players let alone Serie A players - and I'd overacheived and promoted. Because Triestina have quite a lot of rivals, I ended up going into Spain and England to look for frees, usually the outcasts of relegated teams, or poorer teams. Managed to grab a trio of frees from Recreativo in a previous game which made the bulk of my new squad.

The only real major buys I've made were Huntelaar, Lahm and Matias Fernandez for my Manchester United squad, but they were the only acquisitions over 5 years. I haven't seen my transfer balance in ages because I never use it...

I always like to have one experienced CB and one experienced target striker, but most of the rest are usually youngsters. I tend to snap up good youngish players from Germany, Hungary, Holland and Slovenia especially - I like all of my players to at least have a little aerial ability (believe me, it makes a huge difference). Spanish/south american players tend to be rather too short for me, but there are some exceptions.

I will rarely shell out very much at all for a player - I find it a little boring playing with sides with a huge budget. About 5m is generally the max, and frankly it's the players closest to this max that generally underperform for me.

I try not to use the listed players from here, but obviously it is inevitable you will end up seeing them as the players to buy.

With Newcastle I have only 2 talented youngsters under the age of 20, Wijnaldum and Bernardo, the former is a first team regular, the latter on loan to gain experience.

Most of my team has been centralised around buying 22 - 27 year olds, my two big signings were Van der Vaart in the second season, and Alves at the beginning of the third season. I have signed a bargain of a player from Mexico, when I signed him for 100k when he was 15, he's not 17 and worth 1.8 million before he has even joined the club.

However, from the save game I'm in with my mates, it seems there's a lot more to be said for going with the policy I have, the policy of journeyman players - than the spectrum where you sign all talented youngsters for large sums.

As for selling players... when I buy a player the intention is for him to be first team until he declines and then if I get some money - great. However, they usually wind out their careers at my club gradually making less and less appearances.

I aim for 4 potentially decent free transfers (and there have been some), get a couple of youngsters that might be good, then replacements for outgoing first team players and finally one big name to keep it interesting.

I don't buy anybody. Really.

I manage Ajax and for me it's a big part of the game to develop my own youngsters. I also manage my U19 team to get closer look to my youth players abilities etc.

But I still sign 1 or 2 talented youngsters and very rarely snap up some of Ajax former players in case their contracts have expired.

I also sell my first team players very reluctantly, only if they really want to leave themselves or the club who wants to buy them is listed as players favourite club. I find it a kind of "fair". I feel that IRL when young player (age 20-25) does really want to leave and the price is also fair, then the club will not hold him back.

Sometimes I lose a player when some club makes offer and the board accepts it. For me it's rather challenging, but I just hate when it happens like 2 days before transfer window closes.

Anyway, because of this approach I've got a huge transfer budget just after couple of seasons.

I'm in year 2010 at the moment and my transfer budget is somewhere between £30-40m, but I don't intend to use it.

My biggest signing was Miralem Sulejmani (from Heerenveen for £3,2m). His the only player for who I've paid more than £1m.

Biggest transfer fees received:

Johnny Heitinga: £12,5m (Barcelona)

Miralem Sulejmani: £8m (this young star made a superb season and board accepted this bid, not me).

For Huntelaar the biggest offer so far has been around £18-19m. I rejected but I'm afraid in next summer Liverpool, Juventus and Manu manage to get board approval for their large bids.

The way I play is to always look through my team and identify any weaknesses that if sorted will give a massive team boost (e.g. Liverpool signing Torres last summer) and do that. Once I am confident I have a team good enough to do at least as well as last season I work on signing lots of young players who will become world beaters. The fact is that with correct tactics and semi-decent spending you could probably win the premiership with a lower half team in about 3-4 years, thus consistently outperforming expectations.

Then in 4 years time, WHAM! Domination

At the moment at Werder Bremen my transfer policy appears to be to lose my head and blow large sums on players who don't perform

In general though I send my scouts out to look for players U23 and like to keep signing the young players I find, especially ones from the nation of my club because I always like to try and have a core of players from that nation.

At a big club though I will generally look to sign the odd big name player too for positions that need strengthening right now.

In Fiorentina's case I spent quite a bit of money on signing youngish (but already first team ready) Italian players to give a strong Italian core so that I now have 7 of my players in the Italian national squad. Then alongside that I have added what I hope are quality foreign players.

At a small club I'm not so fussy - I still favour young players, but there is often a lot to be said for a 35 year old vastly experienced ex-Premiership player who maybe has a year left in him at lower level. Other than that I sign players my scouts recommend whom I also like the look of.