[FM 08] Clubs deciding to buy a certain player.

Hi everyone, first time poster so go easy on me .

I am currently in a game with AFC Wimbledon and in our third season we're in the Blue Square Premier. Now one of my strikers has been nothing short of amazing for me, scoring 98 goals in 130 games. Granted, that's not anywhere near some of the stats I've read about in other people's LLM carreers, but seeing as he's attribute-wise really not that good, and how he always seems to score at the right time (i.e. scoring 2 in the last 5 minutes when we're down 0-1), he's been a blessing to my team.

Now, in all of this time in which he's been performing on top of his form, I've never had a bid come in for him. Not even the slightest interest. Even though he's still only 25, and only valued at a mere £25k. So that made me wonder. Does the AI decide to buy players (A) based on CA, or does it (B) look at a players average rating/goals scored/assists made/etc. ? Or does it © look at the attributes? Or is it mix of all those things? Surely if it was (B), higher rep clubs from my league or maybe some league(s) above would be all over him?

This isn't criticism of the transfer system in any way, I agree with everything that's been said about it and I'm really excited about it being much better in FM09. I'm just curious how it works in FM08. And I hope this hasn't been asked before (recently), otherwise I'm sorry, didn't find anything in forum search about this particular thing.

Thanks for reading through this and I hope to get some interesting answers.

- Bubba

P.S. : I'm not using any editors or anything on this save so I can't/won't find out about his CA.

The big clubs tend to go after all of my star players at Sunderland, its hard to keep them all happy, so i find the ai clubs look at the CA and also the performance of players.

Do find its a lot on PA because eg Buonanetto (spelling) I have bought he never plays but then a sweason later I get 5mil bids, how does that work?

Wow that was fast, thanks!

I forgot about PA. I guess that could explain it. He's probably performing at his PA already, and since that's probably rather low anyway that could be the reason why there's no interest. Would be unfair though, how could they realistically know his PA? I can't! And I have a hunch this guy would score goals for any time in this league.

The AI usually bases purchases on the PA of a player AFAIK, this is why we see so many older players who used to be good, still being signed by decent teams.

The AI thinks along the lines of, "oh Makelele for £25k, but his PA is 185, BARGAIN",

Whereas we (should) think, "Makelele is too old, he isn't worth didly squat".

It also explains why players with decent PAs are signed and end up sitting in the reserves. In one of my games a LW from Peru with 198 PA was sined by real Madrid, but sat in the reserves until they sold him for a substantial loss, he was in the reserves because they already had 3 excellent LW's. Sometimes the AI seems to buy for the sake of buying.