Thoughts about player development

I'm changing the first post again to make myself even more clear.

The original thought was that no man has ever reached his abo****e peak. If a healthy football player somehow manages to get immortal stay at 18 years of age forever he would for sure be the best football player in the world. Thats is a fact and i dont think anyone will say anything else. Therefore i think its silly that a player should have a fixed limit to how good he can get in the game. I mean nothing is more annoying than when your youth player suddenly can't get better at taking penalties no matter how hard you work them on it, right? That wont happend in real life. If you practise penalties 2 hours a day for 20 year you will be an expert. Hell you would be an expert on it even if you were in a wheelchair.

Now I'm not saying that this theory includes your physical ablilities such as acceleration and speed. Those stats must have some kind of limit. For those stats the PA system works excellent and it is the most lifelike way to do it. But not work technical and mental abilities.

What I'm looking for is an attribute that would determine the speed of wich a player develops. Because that is the difference between me and C. Ronaldo. I sure did not hit my PA as a mediocre division 4 player from Sweden. If i had all the time in world i would be better than C. Ronaldo no doubt. What took him 20 years learn will take me at least a 100. And why is that? I'll tell you.. He is more talanted than me. Simple as that.

So why not have talent as an attribute in FM? On a scale from 0 to 20. This talent rating togeather with other things such as training and injurys will decide how fast the player gets better. If i have the talent of 2 (somewhere like i do in real life) i wont get further than Sweden division 4. But if everything went my way and I trained like a mad dwarf, then I bet I could have made Swedish premier division.

If you want to take it another step further this talent attribute could be called "Potential" and range from -20 to +20. A negative value would mean the player gets worse than he does (most likely beacuse of old age). Then this "Potential" value would change as the player gets older, gets put on the bench for 2 years or have a long term injury or whatever incident you can think of. Maybe he is a late bloomer? Well the value should also be able to change to the better under the right circumstanses.

This way every single player could be the best in world if he is physically able. It would be a freakin miracle if an untalented guy where to be, but he should still have a theoretical chance.

I disagree. Having a PA value is fine.

Welcome to the forums Andre and I think the PA is pretty well done in FM.

Well in a way in FM08, the PA thing has been "fixed". Not all players come close to their PA & scouts can't judge which players will become world class when they are young. So I don't really have a problem with using PA.

I disagree. Having a PA value is fine.

But don't you think that a central defender should be able to improve if he works hard on a certain ability?

And don't you think that every single one of your youth players should, in theory, be able to take a place in your first team given the right training and incuragement? Even if this chance is very remote at best for most players i still think they should be able to.

Welcome to the forums Andre and I think the PA is pretty well done in FM.

Thanks, and i think its well done too but what i dont like is that a player will eventually reach his absolute peak even if his stats are as low as 7 or 8.

by the way, wow you guys are quick to reply.. Theres at a lot of action in this forum.

Thanks, and i think its well done too but what i dont like is that a player will eventually reach his absolute peak even if his stats are as low as 7 or 8.

Yeah but that player obviously isn't as talented as other players and will never have as good as stats as other players. Otherwise your are going to get world class players playing in the BSP which is totally unrealistic.

But don't you think that a central defender should be able to improve if he works hard on a certain ability?

And don't you think that every single one of your youth players should, in theory, be able to take a place in your first team given the right training and incuragement? Even if this chance is very remote at best for most players i still think they should be able to.

I agree with you here but these already happen in the game. Players have a current ability and potential ability and good training and playing them will lead them to improving their current ability to get closer to their potential ability and this in turn means their attributes improve.

Yeah but that player obviously isn't as talented as other players and will never have as good as stats as other players. Otherwise your are going to get world class players playing in the BSP which is totally unrealistic.

And thats where the Talent range of -10 to +10 comes into the game.. most of your youth players will have a farily low talent rate like say +2 to +4 wich will mean that it would be a freakin miracle if the make it into a premier league team.

The talent rating is the main factor when deciding how fast a player gets better. If the talent is below zero the players stats will most likly decrease (like if they are old or due to some bad luck) If the player rating is low, say +2 or +3 they will bearly get better at all. most youth player gets better all the time time so they will have +2 to +5 in talent. But most 26-30 year old dont improve at all so they will have something like -2 to +2 the talent rating will offcourse change with age, happiness, and luck and other factors.

do you understand me?

I agree with you here but these already happen in the game. Players have a current ability and potential ability and good training and playing them will lead them to improving their current ability to get closer to their potential ability and this in turn means their attributes improve.

Yes. But some players will eventually reach to peak? right? or at least very close to their peak and then they wont get better in most cases.

And thats where the Talent range of -10 to +10 comes into the game.. most of your youth players will have a farily low talent rate like say +2 to +4 wich will mean that it would be a freakin miracle if the make it into a premier league team.

The talent rating is the main factor when deciding how fast a player gets better. If the talent is below zero the players stats will most likly decrease (like if they are old or due to some bad luck) If the player rating is low, say +2 or +3 they will bearly get better at all. most youth player gets better all the time time so they will have +2 to +5 in talent. But most 26-30 year old dont improve at all so they will have something like -2 to +2 the talent rating will offcourse change with age, happiness, and luck and other factors.

do you understand me?

Yeah I understand you but now you've said that I don't understand why your talking about PA. Wouldn't it have been easier to talk about talent ratings from the off?

Yes. But some players will eventually reach to peak? right? or at least very close to their peak and then they wont get better in most cases.

Which is surely realistic, isn't it? A player's peak is the best that they will ever become and this happens in reality.

I dislike PA. I feel that one year. Say Jowe Bloggs, he plays for Airdrie. In this version of FM his stats of CA show 99 and a PA of 110. Now the next year he has blossomed at Airdrie and gets a dream move to say Sunderland. In this verison of FM his CA is 140. Waitr a minute, according to last year his PA was only 110.

So i think its time to rid of it, and have a differnt system.

Which is surely realistic, isn't it? A player's peak is the best that they will ever become and this happens in reality.

No. I player NEVER EVER NEVER reacher his peak at a skill such as taking corners.. If you work on your corners all day long for 10 years then you are bound to get better.

In more realistic terms, if you put an central defender or hard offensive training and let him play as a striker for a couple of seasons he is going to be a better finisher, even if he has reached his PA at a young age where his finishing skill is peaked at 7.

I dislike PA. I feel that one year. Say Jowe Bloggs, he plays for Airdrie. In this version of FM his stats of CA show 99 and a PA of 110. Now the next year he has blossomed at Airdrie and gets a dream move to say Sunderland. In this verison of FM his CA is 140. Waitr a minute, according to last year his PA was only 110.

So i think its time to rid of it, and have a differnt system.

I feel this is because Joe has obviously had a bloody brilliant season IRL and so his PA improves in the next game. Look at Ronaldo, before last season no-one was talking about him as best player in the world and someone who would score 42 goals. Next thing you know he has scored 42 goals and is being talked about as a younger version of Pele, Best, Maradona etc. Surely in 09 Ronaldo is going to be much better than he was in 08, because SI will have improved his PA and CA because he has got better IRL.

Yeah I understand you but now you've said that I don't understand why your talking about PA. Wouldn't it have been easier to talk about talent ratings from the off?

I thought i did? Sorry if im unclear, english is not my first language and im getting a bit tired.

I thought i did? Sorry if im unclear, english is not my first language and im getting a bit tired.

Yeah it's ok it's just that I thought it would have been easier to scrap the PA bit and just talk about the talent ratings. But it's all good. Are you from Sweden by any chance?

I feel this is because Joe has obviously had a bloody brilliant season IRL and so his PA improves in the next game. Look at Ronaldo, before last season no-one was talking about him as best player in the world and someone who would score 42 goals. Next thing you know he has scored 42 goals and is being talked about as a younger version of Pele, Best, Maradona etc. Surely in 09 Ronaldo is going to be much better than he was in 08, because SI will have improved his PA and CA because he has got better IRL.

Shouldnt he be able to have a bloody brilliant season in FM and then make that move too? thats exactly what i dont like with PA. With a talent rating he would most likely not do it either, but at least he would have a chance.

Yeah it's ok it's just that I thought it would have been easier to scrap the PA bit and just talk about the talent ratings. But it's all good. Are you from Sweden by any chance?

How did you do that sherlock?

No. I player NEVER EVER NEVER reacher his peak at a skill such as taking corners.. If you work on your corners all day long for 10 years then you are bound to get better.

In more realistic terms, if you put an central defender or hard offensive training and let him play as a striker for a couple of seasons he is going to be a better finisher, even if he has reached his PA at a young age where his finishing skill is peaked at 7.

If you work on corners all day long of course you will get better and this happens in the game as well. Put a player on high set piece training and they will improve.

For you 2nd point, of course they will be a better finisher and this would happen in the game as well.

Sorry if I misunderstand you but what I understand you said there already happens in the game.

Shouldnt he be able to have a bloody brilliant season in FM and then make that move too? thats exactly what i dont like with PA. With a talent rating he would most likely not do it either, but at least he would have a chance.

Yeah I see what you mean. Oh and by the way, does Ronaldo ever have a good season on your game? On mine he has decent seasons (averaging around 6.8) but never scores more than 5 goals a season which in my opinion is totally unrealistic.

How did you do that sherlock?

Well I am a genius

If you work on corners all day long of course you will get better and this happens in the game as well. Put a player on high set piece training and they will improve.

For you 2nd point, of course they will be a better finisher and this would happen in the game as well.

Sorry if I misunderstand you but what I understand you said there already happens in the game.

Well it doesnt happend if the player have reached his PA. if I haven't completly missunderstood the whole thing then every player has a peak on their attributes. If this is reached then it can't get better. Well i think it should be able to. Thats my point. And this can be fixed with a talent attribute.

Do the folks at SI look at these forums? I've been told so and it was actually them my first post was ment for.

Well it doesnt happend if the player have reached his PA. if I haven't completly missunderstood the whole thing then every player has a peak on their attributes. If this is reached then it can't get better. Well i think it should be able to. Thats my point. And this can be fixed with a talent attribute.

Sorry, I understand much more now. I must be slow.

I do think that players can still improve their attributes. I think current and potential ability has no effect on corners attribute. So that will always be possible to improve.

Also for a defender the finishing attribute will not be effected by their ability.

Hope you understand what I mean.

Do the folks at SI look at these forums? I've been told so and it was actually them my first post was ment for.

Yes of course they do. Moderators look at them aswell and don't they communicate to SI about what needs to be implmented into new version etc. Could be wrong though. Could a mod clear this up please?

Do the folks at SI look at these forums? I've been told so and it was actually them my first post was ment for.

They do and they do post sometimes but I thinking they are busy developing FM09 at the moment so don't post a lot.

There are currently some SI people on the forums.

Yes of course they do. Moderators look at them aswell and don't they communicate to SI about what needs to be implmented into new version etc. Could be wrong though. Could a mod clear this up please?

No mods are basically like other members that have been given mod rights due to their several helpful and good contributions throughout the forums.

No mods are basically like other members that have been given mod rights due to their several helpful and good contributions throughout the forums.

Yeah I knew that but I was just wondering if they were ever in contact with people at SI like Miles or Ter

Yeah I knew that but I was just wondering if they were ever in contact with people at SI like Miles or Ter

I would imagine that they may communicate with them but wouldn't think that they would have any say about what need to be implemented in the next version. Of course they could make suggestions but then again so can we.

I would imagine that they may communicate with them but wouldn't think that they would have any say about what need to be implemented in the next version. Of course they could make suggestions but then again so can we.

Yeah I see what you mean but I read that when people make suggestions on new versions that Mods inform people at SI of what people want in the new game and different things.

Yeah I see what you mean but I read that when people make suggestions on new versions that Mods inform people at SI of what people want in the new game and different things.

I think that the mods just place a little tag beside those threads with suggestions so when someone from SI comes on they don't have search through lots of irrelevant threads to find them.

I think that the mods just place a little tag beside those threads with suggestions so when someone from SI comes on they don't have search through lots of irrelevant threads to find them.

Oh right. Thanks for that

Oh right. Thanks for that

No problem

I dislike PA. I feel that one year. Say Jowe Bloggs, he plays for Airdrie. In this version of FM his stats of CA show 99 and a PA of 110. Now the next year he has blossomed at Airdrie and gets a dream move to say Sunderland. In this verison of FM his CA is 140. Waitr a minute, according to last year his PA was only 110.

So i think its time to rid of it, and have a differnt system.

Great point. I hadn't really thought of it before, but you've made the system's flaw very clear - it can't mirror reality properly. Who can judge the potential ability of a player anyway, to the degree that they can write down a number out of 200 and say "this is the best he'll ever be" ?

Now obviously while a change like that is hugely improbable, it's not impossible. Basically, a change like that for the next game is an admission: "last game, our absolute + arbitrary value for the best this player could ever be was hugely wrong." Nice.

Great point. I hadn't really thought of it before, but you've made the system's flaw very clear - it can't mirror reality properly. Who can judge the potential ability of a player anyway, to the degree that they can write down a number out of 200 and say "this is the best he'll ever be" ?

Now obviously while a change like that is hugely improbable, it's not impossible. Basically, a change like that for the next game is an admission: "last game, our absolute + arbitrary value for the best this player could ever be was hugely wrong." Nice.

Yeah, but in reality everyone has a fixed potential ability but as you said nobody know it. This happens in the game as well as nobody knows it unless they use an external editor or scouting tool to find it. So I actually do think that is quite realistic.

Everyone has a fixed potential but nobody knows it. So how do they get a value to put in the game?

The Jowe Bloggs example draws up another interesting point: what is ability? At the moment the "ability" stats are governed by performance. Jowe Bloggs' real-life blinder of a season translates to an increase in ability in FM. But was he actually any better? Or did he just play to his ability?

So, I've thought of a different system - which still needs a lot of work as it has some obvious flaws, and it's just something I came up with over breakfast.

The first important stat: Current Performance (CP)

This stat is derived from the player's performances, and would probably be on a similar scale to the current CA. The player's performances are combined to create a value which is clearly not arbitrary, and is not based on guesswork - it comes from the hard fact of how they've played.

It's important, of course, that it's based on long-term performances. Having a hot streak of three or four games shouldn't be enough to raise your CP dramatically, and the same goes for a run of bad form.

So the stat comes from performances over the previous 1-2 seasons. This accounts for one important thing currently missing: clubs chasing players who have had a good season.

This doesn't happen in the game. Your striker may score forty goals in the season, but if his CA/PA aren't that impressive you won't have any clubs targetting him. That's ridiculous. Who in the real world can say, "he scored forty goals but his ability isn't that good." What does that mean? Assessments can only be based on performances, and in the game currently the CA/PA stats are independent of performance. Obviously they usually lead to good/bad performance, but they exist independently which is a little ridiculous.

So the CP stat gives an idea of how the player has been performing and makes some sense of computers' decisions to chase players.

I'll do the next stat in a new post. It deals with players who have had a bad few seasons but are still good players - with CP, the suitors would disappear...

...which is not realistic. So we need another measure to ensure that top-class players who have a bad season or two - they suffer injuries which hamper their performance, they don't fit into the tactic, they are given close attention by all your opponents all season - don't disappear off the transfer radar.

In the current game this problem is sidestepped - most computer transfers aren't based on performance anyway, so a drop in performance won't affect them. In my current game I have a 20-year old who scored over thirty goals for the season plus many assists. But there were virtually no clubs chasing him, even though it's blindingly clear that he has had a great season and should only get better.

But with the CP system, players who perform badly could quickly drop out of the transfer dealings.

So I propose Known Ability (KA), derived from the player's maximum CP.

Firstly, it's important to note that this is not a future measure. This stat simply measures how good the player has been in the past. It would most likely be simply the highest his CP has been over his career. If John Smith plays the first two seasons of the game (2008-9 and 2009-10) brilliantly, his CP will rise drastically and he should be widely chased. For reference later, we'll say his CP rose to 180. But let's say his club keeps him. He's fairly young so he has a long span. He performs pretty well in 2010-11 but not as well as the previous seasons. Then in 2011-12 he starts the season with a horror injury and never recovers his flair, playing a poor season.

Now his last two seasons have been not as good as his first two. His CP will have dropped, perhaps to around 150. There won't be as many clubs actively chasing his signature. But there will still be some, particularly those hoping to pick him up for a bargain due to his recent underperformance. Cristiano Ronaldo has had a good few seasons. If his next two seasons are disappointing for him, he'll still only be 25 -- plenty young enough to recover and play well. He'll still be Cristiano Ronaldo. Of course Madrid would still be chasing his signature, particularly if they thought they could get him for a reduced price.

So this is represented by KA. John Smith's CP drops to 150 by the end of the 2011-12 season. That is not high enough to bring club's chasing him. But his KA is 180 - the highest his CP reached. This represents the fact that all the clubs and managers know that he can play that well - after all, he did. This is obviously much more realistic than the computers knowing that someone can play that well because his PA says so.

This provides for a lot more interest in the transfer market. The difference between KA and CP provides some scale on which the AI can base their transfer offers. If CP is massively lower than KA, then the computers may start by offering a lower price because they know he is not performing well, but they still bid becaues they know he can perform well.

A third measure is simple and can be added for a little further depth: Average Performance (AP).

This is just like the CP stat except over the player's whole career. This gives another stat for the AI to compare. If a player's CP is a lot higher than his AP, and he isn't a youngster on the improve, then that would obviously give a hint that he may be playing out of his skin and that he may not be able to sustain such a level of performance.

Those three measures create a solid system for dealing with AI chases of players and the like. Now for the next post.

The CP stat is form, is it not? All you have suggested is that players be judged on form. That is already in the game. Maybe it could be tweaked but clubs should be chasing players on form and CA put together, which I think they already do. Hence the reason why we you get few offers for your reserve players.

The thing is IRL all players have a potential, it isn't a flaw in the system if a reseacher gets it wrong, its the flaw of the reseacher. CA and PA are perfect the way they are IMO. I don't see a need for a change to something that has worked fine for years and still works fine. 'If it ain't broke....'

As I say, those stats cover a large portion of what they are needed for.

They don't, however, cover the traditional ground which CA is used for at the moment - ie a player's stats and how they scale. In the current system, when a player's stats improve thorugh training/match time so does his CA.

So why does the stat need to exist? Well, it provides a neat summary of the player's stats across the attributes key to his position. That is only useful to the AI, and why should they get that advantage when they should just be assessing the stats as we (when we aren't cheating) have to do?

So get rid of CA altogether. All it does is collate the stats, and it also provides an easy way out in database development.

So going back to wardog's Jowe Bloggs example, when he has his blinder of a season and moves to Sunderland, at the moment his CA will be bumped up massively and if he displayed an incredible increase in prowess at anything in particular (heading, corners, whatever) then that stat may be increased independently.

With CA gone, research actually has to produce some definitive facts about why he actually performed so much better. The stats exist independent of CA once CA is gone, so they have to be dealt with independently.

Some researcher was obviously watching Jowe Bloggs throughout his annus mirabilis, and the year before. That researcher should be able to produce a quantifiable reason for Bloggs' improvement in performance. Was he better at crossing? Did he work on his pace? Was his finishing much better?

Whatever areas are identified as being the areas he improved to make his performance so good, these stats are upped rather than a haphazard increase across the board.

That's why CA is unnecessary. Next for PA, and how my system would replace it - which is the trickiest bit.

Neji, players are judged on form but this rarely contributes to a transfer.

I don't look at the CA and PA of my players, so I rarely comment in threads which deal with the intricacies of the system. But that makes it all the more obvious when there is a flaw which is no good. A low-CA player who plays one brilliant season won't be chased in the current game because his ability isn't good enough.

Therein lies the problem. How the hell do managers assess a player not based on performance? A low-CA player's brilliant season in this game will currently be dealt with as follows:

The player plays fantastically all season. No transfer interest is shown because his ability isn't good enough.

Excuse me? That doesn't actually make sense. This suggests that there is some way of assessing how good a player is apart from how well he actually plays the game. CA exists independently of performance and that is the major flaw. If a player goes out and scores forty goals in a season, you won't find any managers saying - even in private, I'd be willing to bet - that it was a fluke and his ability isn't up to scratch.

The only way to judge someone's ability is by watching them. Watching someone train is all very well, but it's on the pitch that the game is played and that's where players will do their best work. So the best way to judge someone's ability is by observing how they play. If someone plays brilliantly, then it will be assumed that they have some kind of ability backing that performance. At the moment, ability and performance are totally independent of eachother and that doesn't make sense.

Also, the CP stat is not really form. As I said, a good or bad run of form over a month shouldn't be enough to drastically affect CP.

Form is how well you've been playing over the last month or two. It's true that in real life you won't find many transfers - and certainly not many well thought-out transfers - based on a string of good performances over a few weeks, or even a few months.

But transfers are almost exclusively based on a good season, or two good seasons. That's what the CP stat represents - a player's performances over his last few seasons. That is what is the basis of virtually all real-life transfers and should be the same for in-game transfers.

So, now to the PA problem.

The main problem is that it's very difficult to judge someone's maximum potential ability in real life. Neji says that it's a research flaw not a system flaw if the PA is got wrong. But I have to disagree.

The sytem relies on a totally subjective value. Obviously all the values in the game are subjective when they are researched because different researchers have different views.

But this value is subjective beyond the pale. As has been repeatedly stated, it's almost impossible for anyone to judge someone's potential ability. Potential, anywhere in life, is a mystery because nobody knows how you will turn out. Now, the system demands of researchers - usually without any experience in football as a coach or player, and almost always volunteers - to produce an absolute value for the best a player will ever be.

I'm not against the idea of a fixed-PA in theory, so I don't really agree with the OP.

In theory.

The problem is that it's impossible to get right. In practice, those values will never be exactly right. That may be a flaw in the research, but it's a flaw in the system that it demands of human beings to produce an absolute value which will never realistically be precisely correct.

The system itself isn't flawed - once the PA values are inputted, there is no problem and the system ticks along smoothly. Unfortunately the PA values simply can't be correct. That isn't a flaw in the system per se, but certainly you have to consider whether a system that relies on data that will never be accurate is the kind of system we should have.

Unfortunately, without PA my system has an obvious flaw as well - there is no way of capping player development. In theory that means that a nobody playing for a nothing club could be picked up by a big team and trained up to all 20s.

I'm unable to think of a satisfactory way of dealing with this that doesn't require the type of arbitrary yet inaccurate value that is PA. That will be the major stumbling block of any new system.

Any ideas?

PA is really just about guess work from the researchers, but without it the game just wouldn't work in my view. In the end, I think it's needed if only just for development of players and not scouting and transfers. But maybe if the PA could be increased in game by consistent well above average performances on the pitch and in training, which would put more emphasis on coaching and building up of training facilities.

That's the main problem - it's guesswork, and the core system of a game like this shouldn't have to rely on guesswork. That's why some other measure is needed, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a stat to cap player improvement that isn't based on guesswork.

Unfortunately, without PA my system has an obvious flaw as well - there is no way of capping player development. In theory that means that a nobody playing for a nothing club could be picked up by a big team and trained up to all 20s.

I'm unable to think of a satisfactory way of dealing with this that doesn't require the type of arbitrary yet inaccurate value that is PA. That will be the major stumbling block of any new system.

Any ideas?

An interesting thread. I've tended to ignore this kind of thread because it seems like the same arguments over and over again, but I must admit I've never been satisfied with the CA/PA system myself, and have been thinking much along the same lines as you Kewell.

I guess I'd say that I like the CA/PA system, but that I can see numerous ways of doing it differently that could be pretty great. Also, I agree that the arbitrariness of PA seems a bit of a clumsy hindrance somehow.

To answer the problem of 'capping' development, theoretically, PA could be broken out into several sub-attributes that contribute to PA. I'll just list a few that come to mind:

1. Genetic ability: fast muscle twitch, reaction speed (somewhat), intelligence (somewhat), temperament (somewhat), injury prone-ness (somewhat), etc.., max speed, max endurance, max agility/adroitness

2. Personality: Most people have a somewhat limited range of 'further development' in terms of their core personalities. If they are workmanlike, ambitious, curious, insightful, conservative, close-minded, etc.., all these things can change, but some (people and attributes) are more maleable than others, and many of these will contribute in determining who will reach their potential. Sometimes an athlete will have an insight that takes their ability to the next level, and sometimes people peak at lower plateaus for failure to make that next leap.

3. Life: All the relationships and kinds of challenges that a person encounters/handles/survives/masters can significantly impact on whether they go on to make the most of their training. As a statistic this would be neigh on impossible to put a number to, but could be reflected in some why by listing things that inspire or limit a given individual, by rounding this off as some 'luck of the draw' number, or by using existing personality attributes to relate the player with his environment and have this impact training/development.

I'm sure everyone sees these things a bit differently, but I think we might agree that PA isn't a hard limit of genetics alone. That limit matters very little compared with how the person develops.

To put that another way, it seems to me that for every C. Ronaldo there must be 1000 footballing people with similar physical potential who will never make it quite so far. Maybe they are put off by experience in training, or are less inspired to train well as youth, or don't have the kind of father complex it takes to be so egocentric as to focus entirely on one's own dreams. (Oh wait, did I say that out loud?) Or they believe someone when they are told "You'll never make it" and then just enjoy themselves in non-league.

Likewise, there must be incredible professionals with decent genetics who never make it because they fail to gain some sort of body/mind insight at a key time. Or perhaps have more of a teamwork attitude when if their creativity were encouraged, would blossom.

Etc..

So, to do away with PA, other things have to come in, and I do think these things would cap the likelihood of a particular person going on to greatness, but perhaps wouldn't entirely prevent it the way PA does.

The truth seems to be that many players who are correctly adjudged to have "extremely bright potential" go on to not live up to this billing. And that is balanced by those players who defy the odds and turn "workmanlike thug" into "Roy Keane", or "waif of a ballerina" into "Damarcus Beasly", etc..

Not to say that alternatives to PA should be implemented, just that I can see how they could be implemented. The current system is really nice in its simplicity. Perhaps if the man-management side of the game is developed further, the game will be ready for a more nuanced PA system. But the way things are, man-management has to take one of many chairs alongside team development, tactics, finances, etc.. In this milieu regular attributes are given primacy over the long-term 'hidden attributes' that would have to come to the fore for developing players as persons alongside immediate game form.

Would be nifty though.

I hate it, at least the way it is in the game, any 15 year old always goes to a top club straight away meaning hes guaranteed to become world class.

Id like to see a lot more possible great players but with another stat which is the likelyhood of them reaching their ceiling. Id love to see more big things that turn out to be complete busts.

Interesting to read your thoughts Smac.

Something I posted earlier about doing away with CA links into some of what you said. Without CA as an all-encompassing attribute, work actually has to be done to see what exactly someone has improved/worsened at.

What you've said about PA is similar - breaking it down into more specific sections makes it much easier to quantify what you want. The value would still be subjective as any potential value is, but broken down into smaller sections the scope for subjectiveness is reduced. Guesswork is still involved, but broken into more specific areas makes it much easier to be accurate.

I feel this is because Joe has obviously had a bloody brilliant season IRL and so his PA improves in the next game. Look at Ronaldo, before last season no-one was talking about him as best player in the world and someone who would score 42 goals. Next thing you know he has scored 42 goals and is being talked about as a younger version of Pele, Best, Maradona etc. Surely in 09 Ronaldo is going to be much better than he was in 08, because SI will have improved his PA and CA because he has got better IRL.

Hense why i would like to rid of PA. Because it does happen IRL and the PA restriction stops improvement in the game.

Hense why i would like to rid of PA. Because it does happen IRL and the PA restriction stops improvement in the game.

Yeah buy you dont want everyone to be world beaters in the game.