CA in free-fall!

My best central defender (30 years old) had a 4 star rating at the start of the season. His contract was to expire at the end of the first season & I used a fair amount of my measly wageroll limit to extend him; thinking he would be a star for anouther 2 seasons at least. Now, with a month to go to season end, his CA rating has plummeted to 2.5 & he is reported to have "slightly deteriorated" in CA. You kid me not!

It is disappointing to say the least that I will now have this mediocre player for another couple of years at top salary when I could have better used the cash to replace with a younger player. In future I will take a chance and wait till a month before contract expires to extend.

I don't remember CA doing this free-fall thing in earlier editions.

Does anyone else get affected by this?

Did he get injured?

If not, then maybe he has poor attributes determining his fitness, like Determination, Work Rate, Natural Fitness, Ambition and Professionalism. Players can start to decline very fast in real life too. I have personally been able to avoid massive CA drops, but that's only because I employ only the utmost professionals in their 30s (Lahm and Olic, to give examples).

I don't know what happened, but don't forget the star rating is related to your team and its reputation. Did you overachieve this season or did you recruit very good players ? He might also have been injured, long term injuries heavily damage CA.

Another thing : did you see a massive fall in his attributes, or just his star rating ? 30 yo is a little bit too early for the attributes to drop massively, especially for a CB.

Edit : reply to quaazi : you can also stop attributes decrease by adapting your training schedule for veterans.

Never give players of 30 or more, more than 1 year extensions to their contracts each time, I say. (exception: goalkeepers) Some players can have a pretty sudden plumeting of stats, some more gentle.

Anyway, "slightly deteriorated" is hardly "free fall" now, is it ...

The star ratings - ignore them. If you go by those when determining if a player is good or not in his position, you are not judging it right.

You are confusing me Thomit!

If you drop from 4 stars to 2.5 stars in a single season, that's free-fall, however your coach wants to describe it.

Are you suggesting when you say that I'm "not judging it right" that I go through all the PA's of every player I scout? That's crazy! Way, way too time consuming: this game takes up enough time as it is! Frankly, if you can't trust the star-rating then we have serious problems with the game!

Any Moderator want to tell us how reliable the "star"sustem is?

Of course the star ratings isn't 100%, thats why staff have different attributes.

Judging from the drop in ratings though I would guess you signed some players during the season and this mixed in with a general decline (albeit early) and maybe a slight error by your staff would add up to that level of drop.

You can't trust the star rating, not if you want to make the strongest decisions for your team. Use your own judgements, look at a player's attributes, their performances, their personality, and based on those factors work out where they fit into your plans, or not, as the case may be. The star system may be a quick and dirty guide - you can certainly use it to filter out players you know are not going to be good enough for you - but you're going to miss a lot if you make it your prime evaluating factor.

You are confusing me Thomit!

If you drop from 4 stars to 2.5 stars in a single season, that's free-fall, however your coach wants to describe it.

Are you suggesting when you say that I'm "not judging it right" that I go through all the PA's of every player I scout? That's crazy! Way, way too time consuming: this game takes up enough time as it is! Frankly, if you can't trust the star-rating then we have serious problems with the game!

Any Moderator want to tell us how reliable the "star"sustem is?

Example: I have van Persie as a striker. At 33, his speed and accelleration, stamina is not what it used to be. So his star rating as a fast striker/complete forward has gone drastically down, I think he's got 2 and half star now. However - he has still got amazing stats for use as a trequartista up front, and still pumps the goals in, as well as an amazing amount of assists. His 2 and a half stars should indicate that he is of no use in a top team in the Premier League - but he clearly still is. In fact, it is difficult to find anyone with better stats for a trequartista at all, apart from Messi. Now, Messi I can't afford, so RVP is the next best choice ... and probably will be next season, at 34 as well.

But I only give him, and everyone else above 30, max 1 year contract extensions. If the player can't accept that - Byebye.

I also have a central defender with CA in the 180's, and all the stars in the world ... he is still not as good as Vermaelen, for my purposes. Vermaelen has fewer stars, and CA in the 160's. (Yeah, I use Genie Scout to cheat, looking at such things). He is much better for my use, as a ball playing stopper. Even Koscielny is better than this guy, and his stars are even fewer, and CA even lower.

Its not free fall is it not just the rest of your squad getting better around him?

It's not other players getting better. This bloke has seriously dropped down in the abilities he enjoyed when I resigned him.

Sadly, I mean it when I say I don't have time to check abilities of all the players I'm scouting. If SI can't provide a decent star rating I will go with what we have.

I think if this game has a fault it's the tendencey towards micro-management. I will continue to use the flawed star system & offload a fair amount of micro-stuff to the Ass Man: I live on this game as it is.

What is his natural fitness? This is the biggest factor in how quickly a players attributes go down once he's older.

Also the star rating only take account for the visible technical and physical abilities (if scouted), and some of the mental ... but not ALL the mental stats, or the hidden stats, or the personalities, or the PPM's - and these are often very important. I often find that a player with considerably lower CA can be better for the purpose and position I want him to play, than a player with a sky high CA, all because of these stats that you can't see, and that the star rating don't take into account.

But if you can't be bothered with making a thorough job when asessing a players true strength, then you will have to make do with the star rating. But then don't expect any automatic relativity between the stars and the actual performance.

You are better off, in my opinion, by going with the recommended important abilities for each position/role/duty, to find a good match. Regardless of stars, players with stats that are high in the most important abilities for that specific position/role/duty, will often perform better than if you go for star rating alone. And, a player with a CA in the 140's, for example, will quite often perform much better than one with CA of 180, if the latter don't match these recommended important abilities well.

"don't expect any automatic relativity between the stars and the actual performance"

When I see fatuous comments like this, I despair! Why bother putting in the star rating in the first place if what you say is true?

You need to get yourself a day job Thom!

He's totally and absolutely right. Star rating reflects CA. If you have a player who has a great CA, but with a very bad attribute distribution for his position/role, he might not perform well compared to a player who has less CA but a better attribute distribution.

Of course, if you don't like micro management, you can go with star rating. Four times out of five, the better star rating is, the better the player will perform. But in some case, and especially when you are a club with a small transfert budget, you'd better concentrate on the attributes you think important rather than on the star rating.

I don't understand the fuss you are making. The stars judge exactly what the attribute says Player Ability or Player Potential aka CA/PA. However, why should a higher CA player instantly be better?

Take Hernandez for example, he's pretty limited so his CA isn't all that, however he has all the right stats a poacher needs, so even with his lower CA/Star rating he makes for an incredibly poacher.

Making the choice of what you want your player to do and the attributes he needs for that is YOUR job as the manager. It's not just putting the people with the highest CA on the field and hoping for a result.

This is why I always sell my players at 30 while you can still cash in and only buy new players 25 or younger.

And now for the important question:

How did the player in question perform for you?

I have a 34 year-old Jay DeMerit as my CB and captain. I don't like keeping players around past the age of 30, but my players didn't want him to leave, so I bit the bullet and re-signed him. His attributes are steadily declining, but this past season he managed a 6.94 in 28 league games, and a 7.04 in 49 games overall.

Bottom line- if a player is performing well for you, don't worry about his star ratings.

In FM10 I had a player who had a CA star rating of 2 stars. He was a striker and I partnered him with a striker of 5 star ability, yet the seemingly worse player was the top scorer in the league. He was consistent and a good finisher. The other player scored around 5 goals less per season for around 3 seasons. The backup striker had 4 star ability and scored very few goals.Never judge a book by its cover. Sure his ability will drop and that is inevitable. That doesn't mean he is mediocre.The way I'm playing at the moment means I make no signings, so therefore spend the time I'd usually spend looking for players in looking for the best coaches and focusing on improving my players, checking form and stats etc.Use the star system initially to filter players out but look at their form for their club and past clubs if that is available to you.

"...if you don't like micro management, you can go with star rating. Four times out of five, the better star rating is, the better the player will perform."

OK; this I can live with!

... but I would modify that and say 3 times out of five ... probably :-)

Someone else mentioned it - the star rating is affected by the position and role you want the player to play. It is a good top-level guide, but it also varies based on whom you are asking (ie. based on the coach's or scout's own judgment attributes). That's why you have to look at the player's attributes, directly. I have a template for each role I need on my team, and I judge the players for those roles against the template.

As for sudden declines, they do happen IRL, and IRL there is no guide to check to see at what state of decline the player is in. You have to judge by what you see from performance. I just finished the 2014-15 season at Liverpool, and saw both Gerrard and Carragher retire. Both had very limited roles their last season, but I saw that Carragher was declining faster and so I used him less.

My only criticism is that the star rating should not be affected by other players on the roster. I would have expected it to be a comparative rating among all players.

My only criticism is that the star rating should not be affected by other players on the roster. I would have expected it to be a comparative rating among all players.

If it was done in that fashion it would be next to useless.

For a non-league team in England or leagues like Malaysia, South Africa etc all the players in your squad would be 0.5* meanwhile for Man Utd every player would be 5*

If it was done in that fashion it would be next to useless.

For a non-league team in England or leagues like Malaysia, South Africa etc all the players in your squad would be 0.5* meanwhile for Man Utd every player would be 5*

Make it relative to the league, then.

Make it relative to the league, then.

Or SI could go a step further and make it relative to your squad.........Hang on isn't that the way it works

Or SI could go a step further and make it relative to your squad.........Hang on isn't that the way it works

Not really, because the league's "average team" is unlikely to change much due to the sheer number of players. Unlike an individual team.

I see the star ratings as "how good is this player going to be this season", which makes sense to peg it to the league. Alternatively, it could be pegged to the world, as suggested, but have more granular ratings. For example, without silver stars, most youth players would all be half a gold star. So we could introduce more star ratings (i.e. bronze, silver and gold) to show more granular control.