A transfers issue that I'm not sure is properly resolved

With FM08, one thing that annoyed me was that the fans and the board were not able to understand the purpose of various transfers you make. They'd get miffed if you signed a 17 year old who played five minutes of about five games in a season, and although they always get over it, it still makes you feel crap and what was even worse was that, at the end of the season, you had the chance of him being declared the worst signing of the season. What the game couldn't recognise was that he'd been bought with an eye toward the future. It was even worse when you brought in players for a backup role. Because they would only play parts of games most of the time, they'd get a poor average rating and be considered poor business. The game, again, didn't know why you'd bought them.

The thing is, with FM09, I'm still regularly getting messages from the board telling me that certain players were a poor piece of business. The problem seems to be that the players they refer to are always ones who hardly get a game, and when they do, it's from the bench. It still seems that the game doesn't get why you bought that player. We know that you can make it clear because you can set a player to "backup" or "rotation" or whatever when you are negotiating his contract. I just think it would be better if the game as a whole could recognise this.

What I think that should happen is that, in most cases, fans and the board should see that the player was bought in as backup or as one for the future, and not be too critical. This could be weighted against what you pay for him and what wages you pay him, so that you don't get free reign to overspend and not get pulled up on it.

i got that i spent £1.5m on a 17 year old portuguesse player, and the board have decided that his signing was a bad one?? hes in my reserves i bought him for the future!

You're right, I also wrote about it somewhere. This is a game flaw. Not a serious one but something that should be dealt with. I mean, I get a 16 year old for free, very raw but promising, what is he doing on the transfer listing, being rated together with the "real" signings?

This doesn't make any sense. IRL everybody would recognise what it means: investment for the future. Most of the time the player is even classified (by me, at signing time) as a Young and Promising player.

A possible solution would be for the human player to classify what type of signing it is: for first-team football, for the reserves, for the U-18s, etc. Oh, wait, but we already do it!!! When offering the contract we already tell what role he'll play on the club (Key player, First team, rotation, reserve, etc). Why doesn't the game take this onto consideration? For example: if I get a guy for the reserves, why are the fans, or whatever, saying that they are waiting for him to play some games? He's playing them already!!! But in the reserves, that's what he was bought for, right? Same for the youngsters, etc.

Come one, SI, have a look at this, you know it makes sense.

I think the problem is that the Board has to have 1 thing they state they are happy with, and 1 they are unhappy with, regardless of how the club is doing. If everything is going well, in terms of players, competitions and finances then what they chose to be unhappy with is usually a headscratcher. My goalie is often chosen, simply because my team is strong and he rarely has to make many saves. So his ratings are a bit lower than his talent deserves.

I posted in repsonse to this a couple of days ago.

It should either be based on their squad status, like you said or you should be able to announce it in a press conference type situation.

Agreed... Apparently the fans regard the signing of Jack Rodwell as a poor piece of business :|

Even though tbh the whole "the signing of **** is regarded as ****" thing hasnt convinced me yet. 1.1 difference in rating makes the difference between a fantastic buy and an aberration (7.3 -> 6.2)

It's very annoying but fortunately it is only really cosmetic.

It still needs fixing as it leaves you feeling bemused. It is made clear by the squad status so why not simply link it to that?

I think a press confernce is defintly a good idea