Why is no one trying to buy my 22 year old goal machine? 169 goals in 146 games!!!!

I am Borussia Dortmund in 2018 and have won the league for the last 4 seasons but i've not made a lot of progress in the Champions League so i would not consider myself to be one of the biggest teams in the world. I am thoroughly enjoying the game and feel that it is a good step forward as a tactical challenge however i find it very strange is that the bigger teams are not trying to buy my best players.

The player in the title was a newgen for Real Madrid who was scouted as a 5 star purchase. They obviously didn't want to sell but i got him on loan and then after shifting out Shinji Kagawa i was able to cobble together £25 million to sign him. He was an instant smash and has scored a goal a game for 3 1/2 seasons until this year where he has blasted 34 in 19 games. Now obviously this is impressive but what is very odd is that NO ONE HAS EVER PUT A BID IN FOR HIM! I had a couple of half arsed enquiries a couple of seasons ago from Milan but i didn't even have to put up the asking price to put them off.

In addition to Rafael Jurado i have also had no bids for Mario Goetze, Marco Reus, Mats Hummel or Subotic and had to offer out Shinji Kagawa to move him on despite all 6 getting 7.50+ avaerage ratings, having excellent stats and being young.

I know most people wouldnt complain about this but i find it a bit unrealistic that i am not fighting off bids all over the place and having to sell some unhappy players wanting to move to bigger clubs!

Anyone else finding the same thing or have any ideas as to why this may be?

Have you set an asking price for him?

Are there clubs interested in his transfer tab?

Other than that its a mix of his reputation, his CA/PA, your clubs reputation and his contract.

There should still be lots of interested clubs, though. A striker who has a long-term goals-per-game ratio better than 1:1 should be attracting interest from every single big club in the world.

No asking price set, no clubs interested, he's valued at £26.5 million and has 14 in 13 for Spain as well. Same for all the others as well!

It's been this way since forever. Players are way too content to stay at their clubs despite outgrowing the league they play in, and AI clubs are not aggressive enough in the transfer market.

There should still be lots of interested clubs, though. A striker who has a long-term goals-per-game ratio better than 1:1 should be attracting interest from every single big club in the world.

But we know that performance & goal ratio mean nothing as the AI don't consider it.

No asking price set, no clubs interested, he's valued at £26.5 million and has 14 in 13 for Spain as well. Same for all the others as well!

High value, you expect to have to pay in excess of £30m for him possible closer to £40m and there are very few clubs in the world that can afford that sort of fee.

But we know that performance & goal ratio mean nothing as the AI don't consider it.

Maybe they should.

High value, you expect to have to pay in excess of £30m for him possible closer to £40m and there are very few clubs in the world that can afford that sort of fee.

There should still be a lot of interest - gently unsettling him. The player should also be actively seeking to move because, quite frankly, he's so good.

Not everyone can afford him, but clubs should still be interested in case things change (i.e. he falls out with the club or his contract starts winding down).

It's been this way since forever. Players are way too content to stay at their clubs despite outgrowing the league they play in, and AI clubs are not aggressive enough in the transfer market.

This and what Cougar said. Seems ridiculous that after all of this time, the AI still doesn't take into account how well a player is actually playing.

Even if AI teams are ignoring his 8.70 average rating and goals record, he was rated as a 5 star signing by my scouts and is now 4 1/2 stars by my coaches so i would guess his PA and CA are both very high so i would still have expected some interest. Its not just him though its all the good young players i've got. These are real players that we all know are very good so will definitely have high CA/PA's yet still no bids. Man U, Chelsea and Real were all interested in Goetze this summer and the gossip column today has big teams in for Reus. Subotic has had all the big teams looking at him as well yet no bids in game.

Has anyone checked how many highly rated youngsters are coming through the ranks of the top tier teams under AI control?

There should be a lot more interest in him a player scoring that many goals in real life would surely attract the interest of the biggest clubs around.

I find it pathetic that after all this time the A.I. doesn't take into account how well a player is playing.

Has this been confirmed or is it actually an urban myth of sorts?

Is this also true for the World PLayer of the year awards? This would explain some of the strange winners i've seen over the years if its true but if these awards are actually based on how well a player has played then the AI is capable of using form as a measure of performance so surely should be doing so for transfers.

With regard to my situation i would compare my dominance within Germany to that of Bayern over the last few years. They have a great crop of youngish players, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Mueller, Kroos, Gomez, Ribery that they have managed to hold on to, as have I. The differnec is they have had to work very hard to this and withstand constant bids and enquires from the big teams. I haven't had to do anything other than keep an eye on their contracts.

I agree. I'd like to see AI teams be more agressive on the transfer market also. In 3 seasons I've only gotten around 5-6 bids total on my players. (when I didnt offer them out) And yea, they should be especially more agressive if players are performing really well.

Maybe they should.

There should still be a lot of interest - gently unsettling him. The player should also be actively seeking to move because, quite frankly, he's so good.

Not everyone can afford him, but clubs should still be interested in case things change (i.e. he falls out with the club or his contract starts winding down).

So, you think, that because he is so good that he should be wanting to leave? Does Lionel Messi want to leave Barcelona because he is too good?

So, you think, that because he is so good that he should be wanting to leave? Does Lionel Messi want to leave Barcelona because he is too good?

You do realise that Barcelona and Dortmund are not quite on the same level?

I doubt Matt LeTissier ever actively seeked to leave Southampton. Although even he was linked with Tottenham once...

Surely the elite clubs will be swarming around him like flies on ****. Surprised the AI has never taken in goals per game and average ratings into account when signing players.

Do you want to sell him.

If so: Offer him out for 100 million or whatever

If not: don't worry.

Wait till you actually start to put players on the transfer list & try to move them on. I find lots of cases where I can't even give good quality players away, never mind get a decent bid for them. It's a serious turn off for me in the game.

Transfer are annoying.

buy a player valued 1M contract 2y left -> I have to bid 5M or more to get him

sell a player valued 1M contract 2y left -> ask 3M and every one runs away.

even buying unhappy players who have 1y left they ask more then the value of his price.

not to mention AI teams who got their bids accepted but my similar offer gets rejected.

Transfer are annoying.

buy a player valued 1M contract 2y left -> I have to bid 5M or more to get him

sell a player valued 1M contract 2y left -> ask 3M and every one runs away.

even buying unhappy players who have 1y left they ask more then the value of his price.

not to mention AI teams who got their bids accepted but my similar offer gets rejected.

Maybe annoying, but I can see the logic.

Scenario 1. You are buying a £1m player, chances are the AI doesn't want to sell him, although 5 times a players value isn't that bad. It's the same situation as the other annoyances people have trying to buy £20m valued players, sometimes £100m + is needed.

Scenario 2. You are trying to sell a £1m player for over £3m, chances are you don't want him anymore. So why would they want to pay 3 times the value of a player you don't want (and if you do want him, then 3 times his value is nowhere near enough to w.ant to sell anyway).

In my squad at the moment, my keepers value is £1.5m and he has 18 months left on his deal. If I offer him out for £5m I know I'll get loads of offers (because his PA is high and he's only young). On the other hand, I've got a player valued at 900k who is no more than a poor squad player, although he is very effective at the level below me. If I try and offer him out for £2m, I'll get no offers, but I expect to get around the 900k asking price. He was a key player last year and I wouldn't have taken £5m for him last season.

Not having a dig at you mate, it's just I don't think this particular situation is as bad as some people think. That said, I do agree with the OP, his player should absolutely be attracting the attention of the top 5 clubs in the world.

There's a definite case of "yeah we have no chance of signing him" happening on the AI's part.

Save your game, transfer list him and offer him out for double his value and clubs will jump at it.

I did this with my 2 goals per game striker (Tunnicliffe ) and received a bid of £87m from Real Madrid and Ac Milan.

The re-load so he's still at your team.

Maybe annoying, but I can see the logic.

Scenario 1. You are buying a £1m player, chances are the AI doesn't want to sell him, although 5 times a players value isn't that bad. It's the same situation as the other annoyances people have trying to buy £20m valued players, sometimes £100m + is needed.

Scenario 2. You are trying to sell a £1m player for over £3m, chances are you don't want him anymore. So why would they want to pay 3 times the value of a player you don't want (and if you do want him, then 3 times his value is nowhere near enough to w.ant to sell anyway).

In my squad at the moment, my keepers value is £1.5m and he has 18 months left on his deal. If I offer him out for £5m I know I'll get loads of offers (because his PA is high and he's only young). On the other hand, I've got a player valued at 900k who is no more than a poor squad player, although he is very effective at the level below me. If I try and offer him out for £2m, I'll get no offers, but I expect to get around the 900k asking price. He was a key player last year and I wouldn't have taken £5m for him last season.

Not having a dig at you mate, it's just I don't think this particular situation is as bad as some people think. That said, I do agree with the OP, his player should absolutely be attracting the attention of the top 5 clubs in the world.

#1: okay fair enough

#2: let me give you some more information:

Central Defender aged 27 with average CA, playing almost every match last season with 7,5 avr. Valued around 1M and currently the best defender in my team.

Team are interested and bid 2M.

now I have to consider this:

- is my back up good enough to replace him? Yes.

- Does the club has money issues? Yes.

- Do I want to sell him? No but for a good enough price he may leave.

and for me 3M for a DEF with avr PA who is currently valued for 1M is a good price to sell him. You even say it's not enough but no body is going to pay more.

also

another defender with about the same amout of PA/CA where I rejected his transfer offer from asked me to give him a new contract and I applied gave him 5 years. couple of weeks later same team bidded for that player for the same amount that did last time just a couple of K more then his current value.

So, you think, that because he is so good that he should be wanting to leave? Does Lionel Messi want to leave Barcelona because he is too good?

Yeah, he should actively seek a move to a larger club than the current La Liga champions and Champions League winners...

I doubt Matt LeTissier ever actively seeked to leave Southampton. Although even he was linked with Tottenham once...

Surely the elite clubs will be swarming around him like flies on ****. Surprised the AI has never taken in goals per game and average ratings into account when signing players.

Le Tissier is a rare player who wanted to stay. Most players nowadays would jump at the chance of trophies and likely a huge wage increase.

The AI has always been weird when it comes to transfers, at least in my experience.

almo is right; the biggest teams, and/or biggest spenders, in the world in his save should be constantly bugging him about that lad. I'm honestly surprised to hear that a team like Man City or Anzhi haven't thrown 100 million in almo's direction yet.

There are times that I've had a lot of trouble trying to sell players regardless of how well said player is playing.

This makes me laugh. This transfer system is been this way since last year.

It's a bit mathematical so, i will try to explain:

- AI will rarely pay more then 2x their value - He could be the best player in the world, if is value is 1M only in extreme situations you will get a bid of more than 2M. (Keep in mind there is some random chance that you get e better offer, i suspect that this random values are related to the presidents attributes)

- If you have a defined value for the player bigger then 2x is value clubs won't bid him - In this case you will have clubs interested in the player, you will receive news that this clubs are interested in him, but you won't get any bids for him. (again, there are a few rare exceptions related to what i wrote in the previous point)

- Transfer Listed status will only affect the willingness to leave the club of your player - it won't get any new clubs attention, it will only shorten the money they are willing to pay. Most of this cases they will accept only accept to pay up to is value.

That said you can and should use some tricks to go around this problem. So, here is a few of them:

- if you want to sell a player offer the player for the amount you want (you probably get a 2x is value offer) and ask for 50% of a future fee - The AI doesn't see this as half of a players value, it simple see it as a way to get the player. In some cases you can sell the % for a good deal even before the new club sell the player. (or the end of the contract) So this way you can get more for the player then the 2x value.(this worked better in FM 2011, in FM 2012 i've noticed that you get less offers to sell the %)

- Never put him in transfer list unless you really need him to leave - If you want to sell the player offer him to the clubs using the tip in the previous point. If the player is playing good you will probably get a good offer.

Hope this tips helps. All this observations are taken from long term saves i made in FM 2011. (What i've played from the 2012 version seems to confirm the same conclusions)

Your first 3 points are incorrect in my experience of FM12.

Your first 3 points are incorrect in my experience of FM12.

I don't have that much experience in FM 2012 compared to FM 2011. Still, i am doing a long term save to test the Dynamic League Reputation. I am in 2016 and i set most of the players i want to stay in club with prices bigger then 2x-3x their value and i NEVER had a bid for them. (And i won a Europa League with them) I've tested offering a player for 2x their value, and tested offering for more. The offers i got in this tests were similar to what i posted, if i offer 2x-3x i get bids very close to 2x is value. if i offer for more then that i don't get offers at all. The test i made for the transfer listed players was to check the messages after i offer the player with or without the transfer list status. if i offered without the clubs that were interested appeared in the message telling they could not afford the wage demands so wouldn't offer bids. after the player was transfer listed they were able to offer bids, just all of them close to their real value. This tests i made myself seem to be confirmed to what is happening in this long term save I'm doing.

I know that i could be using a limited variables to this test, but the results i'm getting are very similar to this conclusions i got from the last year version.

It has always been the same. In SI's defence it must be a hard thing to balance no one want to have to fight off advances for their star player every week or to see top players on a merry go round of moving between the top teams each season.

I have a theory about what causes some players to perform so well and receive such little interest.

In my long term FM08 game I was Colchester in the championship we signed a striker who went on to produce the following numbers.

Season 1 43 games 30 goals 7.21 average

Season 2 31 games 13 goals 7.00 average

Season 3 39 games 28 goals 7.33 average

season 4 42 games 36 goals 7.45 average

Don't you think any player performing like that for a upper-mid table championship team would attract bids from bigger championship teams and premiership strugglers?

four years no bids no inquiries.

Looking at his attributes he has good Off the ball, Workrate, Anticipation and Acceleration. Everything else is distinctly average to bellow average.

I think It works like this players attract the interest of other clubs through a combination of their reputation and CA/(PA for young players). Reputation is linked to the league they're in and their CA/PA. So my relatively low CA striker playing in the championship never had his reputation reach a level where bigger clubs would become interested despite him banging the goals in. It probably reached a level where only teams that couldn't afford to bid or pay his wages would have wanted him.

I still have the save so if I can find a save game editor I will try a little experiment and bang his reputation up and see if the bids start coming in.

#1: okay fair enough

#2: let me give you some more information:

Central Defender aged 27 with average CA, playing almost every match last season with 7,5 avr. Valued around 1M and currently the best defender in my team.

Team are interested and bid 2M.

now I have to consider this:

- is my back up good enough to replace him? Yes.

- Does the club has money issues? Yes.

- Do I want to sell him? No but for a good enough price he may leave.

and for me 3M for a DEF with avr PA who is currently valued for 1M is a good price to sell him. You even say it's not enough but no body is going to pay more.

also

another defender with about the same amout of PA/CA where I rejected his transfer offer from asked me to give him a new contract and I applied gave him 5 years. couple of weeks later same team bidded for that player for the same amount that did last time just a couple of K more then his current value.

Ok, I think I mis-understood your first post.

Your £1m Defender you are willing to sell for £3m, not actively trying to offload him, I think that makes a difference. If teams are bidding £2m already, then it's possible you could get £3m for him by structuring the transfer deal differently (half fee over 48 months, % of next sale, fee after league appearances etc). Based on your information above, I agree that £3m is a good price for this player.

I had a look at my striker in FMM and run a couple of tests and I have a theory about what happened in my case.

I no longer think CA influences reputation. His reputation was as higher then better CA players in my squad and on a par with other consistent over performers. I think his performances and goals were taken into account when calculating his reputation.

I think his reputation was high enough to make bigger clubs aware of his existence but because his CA was low they never made an offer. While smaller clubs who were also aware of him and would not have been put off by his CA couldn't afford the transfer fee or wages so didn't bid.

It's been this way since forever. Players are way too content to stay at their clubs despite outgrowing the league they play in, and AI clubs are not aggressive enough in the transfer market.

Ive always found it the other way around, Ive never had a player stay at my club for a career, every single one of them has wanted to move on despite me getting QPR in and even winning the CL.

Maybe its different with level of the clubs but every couple of months, someone wants to move on despite playing and being successful.

But we know that performance & goal ratio mean nothing as the AI don't consider it.

One has to ask, why is this the case then?

Would've thought these sort of things would be important in order to have a realistic transfer market.

One has to ask, why is this the case then?

Would've thought these sort of things would be important in order to have a realistic transfer market.

I think it all dates back to CM1 when for speed of processing SI took the decision that the AI should look not at player individual attributes and performances but at broad indicators of player ability, CA and reputation.