Question on Assistant Reports/Coach Reports

I'm new to the Football Manager series and was hoping for some insight into how to best judge player talent on a team.

For example, I started a new game as Boston United in the Blue Square North. Initially, my assistant reports showed him very pleased with the strength of the team, and players with star ratings from 4 to 7, with most being 5 or 6 stars. Team looked great.

Then, I reviewed my coaching staff and decided my Assistant Coach was less than desireable and fired him. This fired coach had only a 1 and 2 on Judging Ability and Potential, respectively.

My new coach had a 13/8 in those stats, and once he was on staff, that same Assistant Report now showed my team was not nearly as good as the last coach thought, including one defender than dropped from 6 starts to just a 1 star.

I then decided to look over the Coach Reports using the various coaches, and while my assistant viewed this player as a 1 start player I should dump, my other coaches were somewhat higher, going as high as 4 stars (quality player).

So, from the above, I assume that my first assistants analysis was off due to his poor stats for judging players, but how do I know who to believe amongst the vastly different opinions from other coaches on the staff.

For example, my assistant lists as an "Attacking" coach and judges my fall back at 1 star, while another coach described as (Defensive) judges him at 4 stars.

Just don't know who to believe and whether judging attributes are the sole determination of how accurate the opinions are, or does a coaches knowledge of a particular area also factor in whether he judge players (like a low Defense stat coach would be bad at judging defenders?).

Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated.

best tip i can give you, is do not rely 100% on the coach reports/scout reports/ass.man reports. use your own judgement, and use them if you are really not sure. theyre only opinions, and they are often wrong.

Just don't know who to believe and whether judging attributes are the sole determination of how accurate the opinions are, or does a coaches knowledge of a particular area also factor in whether he judge players (like a low Defense stat coach would be bad at judging defenders?).

Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated.

I tend to doubt its quite that detailed, though I could be wrong. But the main thing is that the better the Assistant Coach (often called an AssMan around here), generally the more accurate the report on the team. What I'd do if I were just learning the game is to take over at a very good club with good staff, and look through their coach reports to get an idea of how they rate players. Pick a team that you know well, if possible, so you can compare your own impressions with the reports.

If you don't want to start a new game you can go to the menu and just add another manager. Add him to Manchester United, or Chelsea, or AC Milan, or some other big team, and use these reports as a baseline, comparing what you see in the players yourself (their attributes and personality) and in the reports.

Keep in mind that the reports are relative to the team and league, so 7 stars in the Premiership is quite a bit better than 7 stars in the Championship. Likewise if you're in the BSP a 7 star player may look a little iffy in attributes, but is relatively much better than the competition in the league, so is 7 stars.

Hope that helps.

Since I've started playing, I've preferred the lower league teams to see how far I could get them, so I know that the 7 star players for Blue Square North, for example, might only be a decent player in League One. I was just struck by the HUGE difference in my assistant report (View - Assistant Reports from the player roster screen) after firing my assistant for a new one that also happened to have significantly better Judging stats.

I guess that means my team just looked really insanely strong for the Blue Square North because my initial assistant stunk at judging and they're actually a bit more appropriate for the league.

I was also struck by the huge difference in ratings from various coaches when comparing them as some told me to get rid of the guy, while others said he was a quality player.

I guess it all comes down to that the coaches available to lower-league teams just aren't that great, so cannot be depended on as much as the higher quality coaches available for the big teams.

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah I found this aswell, helps to invest in a really good Assman. I had Paul McGuiness who would rate my players well and tell me what players they should learn from. Ive never had that from another ass man in my save. My current ass man is dumb as hell.

The higher the Judging attributes of the coach the more accurate their report will be. From your opening post the 13/8 coaches reports would be more accurate than the 1/2 coaches reports.

Whilst the stars are relative to your squad and the league you are in - I find it's better to go off the description they provide aswell (leading BSN, decent League One player...)

Also make sure you have patched the game, as there was some problems with the recommendations unpatched.

The rating my AssMan gives change all the time, at the end of last season I had some young guys in the first team getting a bit of play time.then at the end of the season they all dropped to 2 stars straight away while 1 in the reserve team went up to 3 stars. My question is, what is the rating based on? Ability regardless of how they've been playing? the last 5 games theyve played? them compared to others in that particular team? Can anyone answer that?

I'm not offering any advice here, but I find the OP's observations about how widely the assman/coaches opinions differ very interesting. It's good to see their attributes so fully reflected in the game now, and especially coaches with defensive expertise being clueless about attacking ability and vice-versa.