Jugster Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 I had an interesting case of persuing a goalie to sign on a free. Here's the story. The keeper plays 4 years at Hayes & Yeading then is released on a free, age 20. I think he has potential and come in to sign him. Lincoln are now in the EPL, finished 4th in the first year so have European competition to look forward to. I ask Michael Payne how much he wants to sign on a free. 45k a week. Excuse me! I offer 10k and he refuses. At this point lots of lower league clubs start sniffing about. Typically, they come in and make an offer, Michael reports that he is willing to talk to <various lower league clubs>. At this point I also come in and offer around £12-14k. The next message is that he is unwilling to sign for such small clubs and dismisses the lower league clubs' offers. He then refuses my offer. This happens three or four times. Each time I approach Michael he reduces his demands so at the last count he wants £27k a week and refuses my £14k a week. Eventually, just to see what would happen, the next club in with an offer is Altrincham. I hold back. He goes into talks as usual. Then signs for them. For £850pw. Clearly, in reality this makes no sense at all, but it's obviously driven by the logic program saying, well if a big club is interested, I'm not signing for a small one, and if a big club is interested then i want big money. However, it's getting distorted and he (a) has unrealistic demands in the first place and (b) he's forgetting that he's been offered 16x what he subsequently signed for and by a team in Europe competition. And also © forgetting that he's been turning small club offers down all along. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SI Staff Alari Naylor Posted December 28, 2011 SI Staff Share Posted December 28, 2011 We're aware of a issue where a free agent occasionally signs for an inappropriate AI club, with a potential aggravating factor that he sometimes does this after turning down a better offer from a human manager. I'll try and reproduce your specific example with a similar player and add it to the issue. Do you have a rough idea of the player's standing in the game? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jugster Posted December 29, 2011 Author Share Posted December 29, 2011 As I said, age 20, first 4 years at Hayes & Yeading, now plays for Altrincham, no caps, no-one interested etc. I'm in the 2017 season so he won't be in the database. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jugster Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Just to follow this up, I repeated this exercise with another goalkeeper. His one and only contract at FC United expired and when asked how much to sign he expected £40k which is clearly ridiculous, even if Lincoln were Premier Champions. The process then followed the one outlined above exactly. I stopped approaching him, let him sign for a L2 team for £850pw again, then paid £450k to sign him (big release clause) on £10k a week. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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