How to not buy hot prospects?

Im managing a team in the English Blue Square North division and I have problems getting promoted (its my fourth season/try). I think that one part of the problem is that I buy way too many players, which could make it impossible to get the players to play themselves together as a team.

Transfer history:

2008/2009: 13 in/5 out

2009/2010: 10 in/11 out

2010/2011: 16 in/15 out

2011/2012 (so far): 14 in/16 out

I know it looks bad, and it all comes down to the fact that Im really weak when it comes to players that must be signed "at any cost". Every season I sent the scouts to look at unattached players, and once they find a 7-star player I feel the urge to sign him, even though I have 3 other 7-star players in that position.

How can I change this behaviour? Lately Ive been starting to ignore some players that have bad values in key attributes even though the scouts claims he would be a decent League One player, but obviously thats not enough since there are just too many good players left.

Any tips or hints are highly appreciated.

Stop sending your scouts out.

Nothing quite like the "just stop it!" advice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buaxtg4o-M

fifty three players in four years wow you are starting from scratch every season how can they gel together. i look at the squad at the end of the year and i sell my three lowest rated players in my first team and try to bring in three with better quality.

Take the advice of Grange Hill, "Just say No"

Stop sending your scouts out.

Hehe, ok, good answer . The thing is though that I want to keep my scouts out in case they stumble upon a raw diamond that actually would consider signing for me, you know these "once in a lifetime"-signings.

I realize that the title might be somewhat misleading though. I want the team to progress and in the end get promotion, and that would mean signing some key player(s), but I dont want to stop signing players all together. I guess that my problem is that I cant pick out these key players amongst all the hot prospects my scout finds, so I sign them all.

Have you used the "team report" option from the ass man to see what areas of the team he feels needs improving?

If he's happy that you have a squad capable of achieving what you should be, then doing go on such a spending spree

Stick a post-it on the top of monitor saying "regardless to how many transfer I make I will always play with only 11 guys on the field."

It is a better to have 10 very good players and 10 bad compared to having 20 good players. Also for most players, you see best of them after giving them sometime in the team.

i look at the squad at the end of the year and i sell my three lowest rated players in my first team and try to bring in three with better quality.

Interesting idea! This would be kind of the opposite way from how I do it today, I might just try this for the next season.

I start out in the first two seasons buying shed loads of players all under 23, but ideally teens.

Then I try to limit myself two 2 or 3 max in the close season and start to reduce the squad size including those who are very unhappy and or not used.

It generally takes most players 6 months to hit their peak so if you change too many of your 1st team you under perform until Xmas each year.

You do sometimes need a splurge just after a promotion unless you have a squad of improving youngsters.

Interesting idea! This would be kind of the opposite way from how I do it today, I might just try this for the next season.

What do you do then mate, sell your 3 BEST players and get in 3 that's worse?

Have you used the "team report" option from the ass man to see what areas of the team he feels needs improving?

If he's happy that you have a squad capable of achieving what you should be, then doing go on such a spending spree

Yes, I use that option often and he is "very pleased" with the depth and thinks that "we can be confident" that the players will achieve what is required of them. However, he often end his report with "Despite possessing a strong team, (name) still feels that we are weakest in (position)" and list 1-3 possible signings. This causes me to send my scouts out to find out that they must be signed at any cost, and one player is often offered a contract. Maybe I should stop reading after the first paragraph as long as he is happy.

Stick a post-it on the top of monitor saying "regardless to how many transfer I make I will always play with only 11 guys on the field."

Outstanding advice! Consider it done

What do you do then mate, sell your 3 BEST players and get in 3 that's worse?

Yeah, I want an extra challenge . No seriously, I dont sell my best players, what I meant was that bigguyinthesky seemed to improve his squad by looking at the current squad and replace the three players that are worst. I on the other hand improve the squad by looking at the available unattached players. This could mean that I end up replacing a very good AMR with a slightly better AMR but keeping a decent DL.

I bet your not as bad as me im barnet in the championship in my fm 2006 game, i have about 100 players in the whole of my squad 1st/reserve/youth team which is of course madness! My wage budget is 70k a week and im spending 95k a week on wages:S I have to sell £1.5 million worth of players every year just to break even and im stuck in a crappy stadium with about 5000 capacity which my board wont improve due to lack of funds.

I have managed to loan out about 20 of my players but i still have so many players that there are dozens of players who have no hope of playing for the youth/reserve/1st team, im going to start being ruthless and try and pull off some swap deals. I had great success in the first season swapping 6/7/8 no hopers for 1 decent player im going to try and set up some more deals like that when i play later.

Oh and i dont use scouts i do my talent spotting myself i only use scouts if there are literally no stats displayed, i have been known to spend hours at a time trawling through the squads of french and spanish teams to buy a player who will end up festering in my reserves for 6 months before i sell him I also check every single team i play i look at all their players and if i see one i like i put a bid in.

It's like when you go food shopping when you're really hungry. You know you aren't going to be able to eat it all, but you can't help but buy it all, especially if it's on special offer.

Then you end up throwing loads of good stuff away.