What would the AI do...

I was sitting here, thinking to myself, when am I actually going to stop playing, I achieved every goal I set and then sum. Taking the Rams first of all to a safe midtable position before a few lucky transfers and a UEFA cup victory that was nothing short of blind luck landed the club in strong enough position to push for the top 4 and beyond. Now in 2025 (and with countless trophies) I was wondering if I went back to say, 2019 and let the AI take control for these past 6 years, A) what would the AI do differently, and B) Where would the club end up.

Now the exact position the club is at this time:

So around £30 million in the bank, a transfer budget of around £40 million on offer, on the back of a triple (Champions League, League and FA Cup) and from my knowladge of the future (as I said, this is 6 years prior), the club has about 4-5 great young talents in the squad. This will be very interesting to see.

They would probably drop aload of your players, spend 25million on a striker and end up getting relegated, making all your hardwork count for nothing

Well, I'll check what's happened in a minute, but I decided to see if the AI could rebuild the team (2019 was my second major rebuild) and yeah... Let's see what happens, my bet is around 10th knowing the AI with some of my failed (remember, I'm 6 years past this) youth players being the stars of the show...

Wow... I'm actually stunned, they won the Premiership and were beaten in the Champions League Final, good going the AI, but let's see if they can actually keep this up.

They'll eclipse everything you do because they cheat

One thing I've seen so far is that the squad is thinning... I normally keep around 2 players per place and in some spots a third youth player, however they've moved one of my defensive midfielders to rightback as cover, they've sold a couple of good players for bugger all and basically the squad is depleted, though they have made some good buys, just not enough so far, but I must admit, in the game it has a lot has to do with the manager.

The manager is Meulensteen, he was a coach of mine for a few years and when I resigned half my backroom staff followed... So yeah...

He also made Andy Carroll captain, I never did that, but in truth I probably should have with how important he became. Even with some of these superregens that have appeared he is still my favorite player that has been in this game.

Second season... They won the title again! Though were knocked out in the semi-finals for the Champions League and were again not to be heard from in the FA and Carling Cups.

Pleasantly suprising. I always thought the AI was pretty incompetent. Perhaps the major problem with the AI currently is transfers/squad building.

How young are your players when you let the AI take over?

I find if I leave the cub with a good squad of mostly youngsters, then athough the AI trims the squad, inexplicably drops a couple of key players and gives everyone huge wage rises, it can hold it together, keeps the core of the squad, and goes from strength to strength.

However if I leave it with a good squad that relys on players the wrong side of 27, it tries to build for the future, but replaces badly, and the club sinks down the table.

Things are certainly very different, but yeah... A tad suprising that the club has stayed the way it was.

As for the mix of players, some of the key players at the time were around 27-29 years old, the AI has recuited well (in a way) and its looked good. However, something has shocked me somewhat. A striker I signed from tottenham, has gone on to be an amazing player, I signed him roughly a year after the point I gave the AI, he's currently still at Tottenham, in the Championship and hasn't really developed much, he's far far worse than he was under me. Other players are in the same boat. Tom Hudson, who I admit wasn't really that good of a player, but his physical attributes made him the best option down the left for England, he's now 20 with 1 cap when he had around 30 by this point under me. So yeah, very interesting.

Oh, and Liverpool were inexplicably relegated...

This seems to be proving a lot more about my theories on youth developement rather than anything about the AI, one of my coaches has managed to at least keep our dominance in the league going after I've left, though he hasn't been showing Europe who's boss.

Pleasantly suprising. I always thought the AI was pretty incompetent. Perhaps the major problem with the AI currently is transfers/squad building.

It is indeed. I took QPR up from the Championship to the Premiership, signing some very good players (Flamini, Obinna, a few South American regens), but I left them in January in 6th place. They had a predicted finish of 18th. What did the new manager do? He sold nigh on all my good players, replaced them with rubbish ones from the youth academy and players like Liam Ridgewell, and they were relegated. The AI generally takes teams backwards.

It is indeed. I took QPR up from the Championship to the Premiership, signing some very good players (Flamini, Obinna, a few South American regens), but I left them in January in 6th place. They had a predicted finish of 18th. What did the new manager do? He sold nigh on all my good players, replaced them with rubbish ones from the youth academy and players like Liam Ridgewell, and they were relegated. The AI generally takes teams backwards.

I must admit I did leave them with a fairly good team, but then my opinion is a tad bias thanks to my current super team that I built as a replacement. I don't think the AI could bugger it up by doing anything short releasing every last player. However I really do think that the manager has a lot to do with the success in the game, like in real life.

Eduardo took charge of Arsenal in my game and turned everything around after someone else had ruined it, they're now the second best again. On the same vein I've seen plenty of good teams turn to **** thanks to manager changes.

In terms of what I'm seeing here, Valverde was the manager of Fester when they were a force in the Premier League (hahaha...), however in my actual game he wasn't offered a new contract (as he only came 4th) and was replaced and the team was that season relegated in dead last. However he's stayed on here and the team is challenging for 2nd... Interesting.

Incedently, that's the 3rd title in a row now, though they have been disapointing in Europe. Oh, and the FA Cup.

Some Guy, what are the new manager's stats? And what are the Ram's Reputation as a club these days? Those 2 things seem most correlated with performance, with reputation taking precedence. Then again, big rep clubs get relegated all the time in my games, so who knows?

when i left real madrid for sevilla on fm07, they sold all the most important players apart from casillas and scraped the title, rather than winning it by 20 odd points and a few CL titles like i did with them. i am too scarred to leave any of the majorly sucessful clubs i've managed on fm08, i hate seeing all my hard work tossed aside for midtable mediocrity.

i also took newcastle over when they got relegated on fm07, but i left after 10 games, leaving them top and unbeaten in the championship. they got just one league win and were relegated to league one after i left, which was very bizarre.