There is something Odd with transfer system

Before I get to the problem, let me explain a little backgound info.

Have just been promoted to the premiership. My team has about 4 players who were of average premiership quality, the rest were good championship players but poor premiership quality. Chances were I wouldn't survive in premiership.

My eyes lit up when I received the £30m in TV revenue. Was given £20m transfer budget. Decided to plan for the future. Spent about half of budget on 9 promising youngsters and bought 3 more experienced players who could fit into first team.

By some miracle, I survived and finished 16th. Between prize money for final position in league and the next £30m in TV revenue, was given £18m transfer fund. Bought another 4 younsters and 4 first team players.

I now had a surplus of players so decided to sell a few.

When playing in the championship, most of the players were undervalued by the AI. Most were valued in the region of £50k - £350k. I think this was because they were mostly younger players who had come thru' the ranks and had only played 2 or 3 seasons in championship.

Every transfer window I was bombarded with offers for players with the maximum offer being about £500k.

To buy players of similar quality, I would have to pay about £1m - £2m.

After a season in the premiership, most had been re-valued between £1m - £2.5m. About same value as equivalent players in other teams.

Now to the crux of the problem.

I placed 10 players on the transfer list as not needed by the club. Decided not to be gready and only ask about 1/3rd of the AI's valuation. They were all aged between 23 and 26. Plenty of playing life left. All of these players were greatly desired by other teams when I was playing in the championship.

Didn't recieive a single enquiry about them during summer transfer window. January transfer window came along and I offerred these players to clubs at even more knockdown prices and easy installment plans. Managed to sell 1 player.

Summer transfer window again. Reduced price to £100k each. The AI still values them at over £1m each. Only managed to sell 2 more players.

I decided to try a little experiment. I had a saved game from start of previous year. Instead of transfer listing the 10 players, I gave them all free transfers. I then went on holiday for a year. During the holiday period, all 10 players had been snapped up, mostly by championship teams.

I tried to buy these players again. Didn't have a single bid under £1m accepted.

My conclusion. There is something screwed up with transfers.

My conclusion. There is something screwed up with transfers.

I'd say that was a fairly widely-held conclusion round here.

I see it as because you are the only human user prices usually sky rocket when you want to buy someone but when AI sells to AI the prices are usually higher than the players estimated value. Also you can only seem to be able to sell players who are your first team regulars. You can rarely sell reserve team players for anything more than 500k.

Maybe the clubs dont think the player will want to move down to the championship if they're at a Prem clubs

I think that when I looked at this before I came to the conclusion that because the way that a players valuation can rise, (& fall), relating to form, (average match rating), and other factors, then players doing really well in the Championship, would be "rated" more highly then similar ability players performing ok in the Premiership.

It is the performance levels, (and by performance levels I mean match ratings), that seems to make a difference to whether the AI is interested in a players or. Obviously CA/PA is involved in this too, but "form" seems to be a key driver in the whole thing.

What I based this on, was that having a player receive unrealistically high match ratings by abusinig the match rating formulae, (having a GK score lots of goals or assists) then I created a "false" average match rating and therefore the offers that came in for him were not proportionate to either his ability or his real value.

There were about 3-4 really good threads about this on the old forum that went into great detail and had loads of examples and went into quite a lot of depth but unfortunately these seem to have been lost with the transfer to the new system

Maybe the clubs dont think the player will want to move down to the championship if they're at a Prem clubs

Well they are inept if they dont even try.

QPR recently signed players this summer from

Spurs

Newcastle

Chievo

Real Madrid

Genoa

Fiorentina

None of these players would have made that move in the game. We also signed Vine from Birmingham when they were in the prem last season.

It is the performance levels, (and by performance levels I mean match ratings), that seems to make a difference to whether the AI is interested in a player

I can see this being the case. When I transfer listed the players they became unhappy, their morale dropped and I moved them to reserve team.

My Assman looks after the reserves, but i do notice that he rarely picks these transfer listed players to play for the reserves.

I did an experiment a while back, while managing at Hamburg on FM8.0.2. Foolishly, I had offered my (average) youth players salaries of 90K per annum, so when I wanted to offload them, no one was interested.

I ended up using FMM to edit their salaries down to 20K p.a. and wouldn't you know it, I sold every one of them.

The moral of the story is: if you're paying Premiership wages, don't expect Championship teams to come calling.

QPR recently signed players this summer from

Spurs

Newcastle

Chievo

Real Madrid

Geneo

Fiorentina

None of these players would have made that move in the game. We also signed Vine from Birmingham when they were in the prem last season.

SO true, and needs sorting, doesn't it? Otherwise players find there way to the top and then get stuck there.

.................

The OP's point that the AI will buy and sell these players in certain conditions, but will ignore them in others, also needs sorting. Your example seems a good one, and there really can be no explanation for the lack of bids. These weren't Crespos and Ronaldos whose wage demands would sink other clubs. And you prove this by having them snapped up when released. Something has to balance this...

SO true, and needs sorting, doesn't it? Otherwise players find there way to the top and then get stuck there.

.................

The OP's point that the AI will buy and sell these players in certain conditions, but will ignore them in others, also needs sorting. Your example seems a good one, and there really can be no explanation for the lack of bids. These weren't Crespos and Ronaldos whose wage demands would sink other clubs. And you prove this by having them snapped up when released. Something has to balance this...

Same with last season, I tried to get all the loan players we had that werent in the data update at the start, Sahar for one, of course he wouldnt come either.

one possible way out would be sending those players on loan..even if it was to your feeders...sometimes i have found that if the player in question is playing regularly, then someone will express an interest to buy the player even though the price will be a bit lower than what u expect...not a sure shot method though..works in some cases while it doesnt in others