Declining players: FM12 seems to have nailed it.

For the past two years or so, I've been very vocal about the way in which FM handled players declining after the age of 30 or so. I'd have a 32 year-old at the start of my game with 11 pace and 12 stamina, but by the end of the first year he'd be down to 9 and 10 or worse. After that first season he'd be completely worthless to me. By the start of the second season I wouldn't have a single player on my squad over the age of 28, outside of a backup goalie.

Imagine my surprise, then, as I'm now halfway through the 2014 season and players such as Beckham are still playing well, despite their age. In fact, I just sold a 34 year-old Jay DeMerit...after he rejected my contract offer! He was obviously in decline and yet he could still be counted on to go the full 90, game in and game out. This sort of thing simply never happened for me in previous years...and I love it! I'm actually seeing teams from the top leagues paying decent money for players over 30 and, whenever I see such news item, I immediately check to see the player's atts. Many of them are still in the 12-14 range for pace and stamina.

Overall, FM12 seems to do a much better job of gradually allowing players to "lose a step" on their pace while keeping their stamina high enough for them to be reliable starters. Anybody else feel the same way?

John Terry was still world class in his mid 30s on my save. Definately a change from previous years.

That sounds a good change, I always found myself selling anyone over 30 on Fm2011 and 2010

Well instead of old players we can now sell anyone who is injured for more than 10 days due to the insane hits to stats.

Well instead of old players we can now sell anyone who is injured for more than 10 days due to the insane hits to stats.

Testing this out right now, actually. Starting CB was out for 9 months or so and is now back in my squad, starting every game. Atts didn't seem to drop too noticeably- maybe a point or so in a few attributes -but right now he's averaging a 7.0 after 5 league games.

Should also note that Thierry Henry, in his final season, still had pace and stamina around 11 after coming back from a knee injury that kept him out for 8 months or so.

the players losing stats due to injury or age is linked to there natural fitness and work rate attributes I feel, the worse these are the quicker a player will decline without playing.

Testing this out right now, actually. Starting CB was out for 9 months or so and is now back in my squad, starting every game. Atts didn't seem to drop too noticeably- maybe a point or so in a few attributes -but right now he's averaging a 7.0 after 5 league games.

Should also note that Thierry Henry, in his final season, still had pace and stamina around 11 after coming back from a knee injury that kept him out for 8 months or so.

That seems to be quite lucky. Sidney Sam fell out for 3 months for me and it was a disaster. This was at the end, so the points he lost at the start off the injury aren't taken into account. He used to be 19/18 for acc/pace and 18 finishing if I remember it correctly.

@Welsh

Doesn't look like it to me. Fernando (DM from Porto with 17 fit/20wr) lost quite a few points on me over a simple 3 week injury.

Some players age better than others. You shouldn't make broad assumptions yet.

Nevertheless, my C Ronaldo still performs superbly at 34 after missing half a season to a torn ligament, still hits the ball like rocket.

Athos7- I understand, I'm just going by what I've seen compared to my experiences with past FMs. The likes of Beckham and company would basically fall off a cliff (in physical attribute terms) as soon as the game started. Now, however, I'm seeing more and more players with at least a 10 for stamina well into their 30s, and these guys don't start out with a 20 for it, either. Definitely a nice improvement to the game, imo.

Freakiie- Wow. Those are some steep drops...I don't think I've had a single injured player have a red down arrow for that sharp of a dropoff. Looking at the training graph of my player, it looks like the most his attribute dropped in any of the physical categories was about a 2 (acceleration.)

Freakiee do you have the latest patch installed? That injury decrease was toned down on the last update.

Freakiee do you have the latest patch installed? That injury decrease was toned down on the last update.

Yeah. My other injuries also aren't nearly as bad as Sam, "luckily" he's an unlucky exception. Was quite shocked when I saw it though

you tell me. wifried has lost physical stats due to injury and they havn't come back, he has 20's in areas when you get him, now they are stuck at 19.

tymoshuck IMPORVED in some areas at 34 (his tackling got to 20 from 18 or 19 when i got him)

annoyed at people i buy for pace as newgens losing pace after an injury, it should come back again.

interestingly that drop happened for wilfried in aggression, but it hadn't acctually moved.

Quick update: 39 year-old Beckham is still starting for the Galaxy in 2014. His pace is now 3, but his stamina is still a respectable 11. No decision on retirement as of yet!

I agree. Over 30 I would normally sell players but I still am able to play someone like Lavezzi as his stats haven't really declined. Lampard and Terry's stats are still good (both retiring in 2017) but are still regulars for Chelsea. This better than FM11 when Lampard was released after a season and ended his career playing with Southampton.

33 (soon to be 34) year old Hulk has scored 19 goals to add to his 18 assists this season (a month to go yet) playing AMR for me. Ramires (same age) still has 14 pace, 16 stamina. This seems really good as long as it hasn't gone too far the other way like in FM09 where too many players kept playing forever and teams didn't look to replace them leading to aging squads. Doesn't seem to be a problem in my game so far, so from me.

Just looked through the EPL teams (September of 2014) and the oldest senior team player- excluding keepers -is Carragher at Liverpool, 36. Next highest appear to be Kuyt (Liverpool) and Yobo (Everton) at 34. Burnley have a total of 3 outfield players over the age of 30 in their senior squad.

Some players age well, Wilson Palacios on my save was still playing 50/60 games a season at 34 with a tiny drop in his pace and that was about it. On the other hand, Robert Huth at the same age hit a sharp decline at 32 because of a few niggling injuries. Wilfried who was still only 29 was awful to due to a series of bad injuries over 3/4 years. It can go either way depending on professionalism, determination, work rate, natural fitness and some other aspects too.

My big complaint about the way players age in FM is that as they get older they take no longer to recover from injury or exertion.

I'm sure we all know it takes longer to recover from a knock as you get older, Its why we see managers rotating veteran players during busy periods.

Players don't take longer to recover because recovering after games is governed by "Natural Fitness". "Natural Fitness" also plays a large role in determining the speed and age at which players decline so allowing it to decrease with age would put players into a death spiral. It just annoys me that we don't have to protect veterans and use them sparingly the way RL managers do.

I've found this time around that if a player doesn't play regularly, his stats start to drop. First season, Giggs hardly dropped for me, so got a new contract. Then an insane regen came around and stole his place - he's dropped considerably due to lack of playing time.

Ditto Rio Ferdinand. I'm sure if I kept playing them, then they wouldn't deteriorate as much, but I do have a youth first policy

I have some great players picked up free in their thirties, and generally I'm happy to extend their contracts when they expire. Much better than previous versions.

With regards to injuries, I have had a couple of players become worthless after long injuries, and a couple come back as good as ever.

I've found this time around that if a player doesn't play regularly, his stats start to drop. First season, Giggs hardly dropped for me, so got a new contract. Then an insane regen came around and stole his place - he's dropped considerably due to lack of playing time.

Its been that way for a long time. Which is kind of true older players almost never look the same after a long absence due to injury or just falling out of favour, but I think it's a bit over the top. In FM You practically have to play your thirty year olds every game if you leave them out for a couple of weeks you risk them starting to deteriorate.

Its been that way for a long time. Which is kind of true older players almost never look the same after a long absence due to injury or just falling out of favour, but I think it's a bit over the top. In FM You practically have to play your thirty year olds every game if you leave them out for a couple of weeks you risk them starting to deteriorate.

Heck, it's not just the 30 and over crowd...I'm getting sick and tired of receiving updates about "so and so player has stalled in training due to a lack of playing time." Are you kidding me? He's played in over 30 games for me this season (26 starts, no less)!!!

Heck, it's not just the 30 and over crowd...I'm getting sick and tired of receiving updates about "so and so player has stalled in training due to a lack of playing time." Are you kidding me? He's played in over 30 games for me this season (26 starts, no less)!!!

I see that too, but it does go away after you play him often enough. Just be patient. Once he's got enough playing time, he'll develop nicely.

Unfortunately, it's been happening for almost 4 years now (in-game.) Player's been a backup his entire career with me, but he still sees plenty of action (subs play 30 minutes for me, and he gets starts in some of the national/continental games.) This season he's been filling in for my injured starter and is racking up the starts...but it seems as though the moment I go a week without a league game I get the "stalled" message. In my current game, on October 3rd I received a message about the stalled training (despite filling in as a starter for almost 3 months)...and three days later was notified that he's been showing "remarkable" improvement in training. What?

The stalled msg is a noted bug it's just a visual error, the players are still recieving attributes, I had this problem myself