Player Histories

On the basis that I have no skinning ability and know no-one who does I am posting this in the hope that one of the design developers or someone who does know their way around the skins and who therefore knows that is achievable by skinning and whats not might read it and who knows act on the suggestions. I am posting this with only a fleeting view of '09 (i'm updating the graphics card prior to the game being released for real) so while i know the basics haven't changed some of the detail may have.

(NB - I work in a role that requires presentation of data so please excuse the really quite anal nature of the request ;-)

The one area of the game I have always wished to change is the player history / achievements screens and below are my suggestions for change:

1) For a start can histories be career histories - defaulted to all comps (international, continental and domestic) as opposed to simply domestic league perhaps with a filter like on the team sheet allowing users to configure the view they want? When any media talks about appearances over a career they talk about all comps i.e. Gerrard playing over 50 games for club and country in one season; clearly non competitive matches don't count and media messages can be taken from any of the stats, league, international, continental or total depending on their nature.

2) Can all competition names be loaded to the game; its really annoying to have gaps in competition names over a player's career just because you haven't loaded (through choice or PC ability) the dutch league for example. Obviously some of the really tiny lower divisions may not be possible but surely a file of competition names (for those that could realistically be played in the game) loaded as standard wouldn't add too much to the size?

3) Can we have 1 line per season per contracted club (defaulted to a closed view) where loans or appearences for B teams etc are appended under a drop down (similar to grouping on Excel) i.e

Season Club Competition Stats

2008-09 Arsenal Premiership x x x

2007-08 Arsenal Premiership x x x

+ 2007-08 Leeds League 1 x x x

In the default view you'd only see the Arsenal stats as thats the club contracted to whereas in the fully opened view (clicking on the + or a button for all) you'd see all the stats as now - over a longer FM game this would make for a far cleaner and viewable screen especially for young players who are likely to be sent out on loan on more than one occasion. (As anal as this is I hate sending players out on 3 months loans etc because it makes this screen a mess!)

Obviously where a player transfers permanently during a season you'd have two teams shown in the same season and the same process would occur with that team also; the totals at the bottom would be for the total of all the items shown and hidden

4) Achievements - For managers can this be limited to competitions won or career bests - i.e a manager taking their club further than they ever had (personally or team history) or "for the 10th season running" etc would be noteworthy in that screen (maybe added at the end of the competition run rather than after each round) as opposed to recording that Sir Alex guided his team through to the 4th round of the Carling Cup each season.

5) Transfers - can there be a separate tab for these rather than having them on the career screen? Perhaps similar to manager histories of club from, to, time spent and then fee? (on a data note can this be currency and right justified and formatted £12,000,000 etc to allow for the spurious 640,000 and 325,000 etc - this might allow for the transfer systems to have a broader allowance of figures rather than jumping to 250k increments after 5m?

From To Fee (£) Playing Records

West Brom Liverpool 12,000,000 X X X X

Arsenal West Brom 8,500,000 X X X X

Crystal Palace Arsenal 5,000,000 X X X X

Portsmouth Crystal Palace 600,000 X X X X

Cork City Portsmouth 25,000 X X X X

TOTAL 26,125,000 X X X X

Thats pretty much it; its a fairly petty thing considering how many things are in the game but it is in my view a pretty easy improvement to make - and given the superb nature of SI listening to its users I am genuienly hopeful someone might pay attention to this plea

Cheers