Sunstrikuuu

Hell of a month. 26-0 aggregate score in a three-games-in-six-days run.

With my luck they'd keep being the same.

That's also how wage negotiation works. The agent says £30,000/week, but what he means is £30kpw, plus a 10% annual wage increase plus kicker clauses that double his wage at 5 and 15 club appearances, and if you tell him you'll pay £30kpw he'll close negotiations.

In the screenshot above, my right attacking midfielder is assigned to tightly mark the right of two DMs. As Atletico play out from the back, you can see that he's there. Nice. My CAM, though, is wide right, but is assigned to tightly mark the left of the two DMs, so he's on the wrong side of the pitch. The LAM is assigned to mark tightly the left of the two centerbacks, and he's way too deep, marking another player entirely. And then we get that classic passing move where the ball goes tap-tap-tap down the pitch as players 'mark' their assignments by standing behind them. When the ball gets into the final third, the Atletico attacker turns into an idiot and trips over the ball, letting a defender take it away.

Even the way the game has you speaking with coaches is over-aggressive. If you ask a coach to teach a player a PPM that's critical to your tactic -- let's say a technical DM/CM with high passing, and you want to teach them to come deep to get the ball and to dictate tempo -- and the coach doesn't think it will work, your options are 'don't start the training', 'what do you think we should do?' or 'shut your absolute hole you complete incompetent, just do what i tell you'. Seriously, imagine being a manager with, like, Daniele de Rossi as your coach and saying "I have much greater experience of what benefits a player's game". And then imagine that coach saying 'ok but it's going to be a waste of time'.

They sound like children. Not like 'teenagers are children' but like five or six year olds. And you're right, it's not just player interactions. Your board will deny you something tiny -- an extra scout, say -- then tell you they'll listen if you 'put forward a compelling case', then whatever you say they'll tell you not to waste their time in the future. Waste your time? I've won the first European trophy in the history of the club! I've gotten you promoted five times! I built your stadium! What the fork do you mean, don't waste my time? You shouldn't be wasting my time!

In Arsenal's last three matches IRL, they've conceded six goals from 2.5 xGA and scored 1 from 6.47 xG. It's super frustrating but does happen.

"I'd rather get what I want without much of a discussion about it" yeah that's cool, that's nice, my player is a six year old. Who thought this was a good idea?

I haven't found one.

That's interesting. After starting a new Real World save and holidaying to September 1, Raya comes in as First Choice. Nelson is a Regular Starter (maybe a consequence of his contract renewal? I'm not sure). Kieran Tierney has Important Player status too, though he goes out on loan in the Real World game mode. Saliba, Gabriel, White, Zinchenko and Timber are all Regular Starter or higher. Kiwior, Vieira and Smith Rowe all have Regular Starter agreed future playing time as well. Looking at playing time expectations for the next five matches, both Raya and Ramsdale expect to be first-choice; Zinchenko, White and Saliba expect to be Important Players, with Tomiyasu and Gabriel expecting to be Regular Starters; Rice expects to be a Star Player, Odegaard and Partey expect to be Important Players and Havertz and Jorginho expect to be Regular Starters; Saka expects to be a Star Player, Martinelli and Jesus expect to be Important Players, and Trossard expects to be a Regular Starter (Reiss Nelson has Regular Starter agreed playing time but expects to be a Squad Player, and Vieira and Smith Rowe are Squad Players who expect Squad Player playing time, but have future agreements to become Regular Starters). Eddie Nketiah is the only player with Squad Player agreed playing time who expects to remain one, as far as I can tell.

@Zachary Whyte All of these are the defaults when the game is started. At game start, Arsenal has two GKs with First Choice+ squad status, seven defenders with Regular Starter or higher squad status, and at least five AML/AMR players -- possibly six -- with Regular Starter or higher squad status. This is an issue with the game, not with promises the player has made. Dan Ornsby said in the Data forum that he thinks those starting statuses are set automatically 'based on a combination of factors' as everything is, and that they are not assigned manually by the research team. Is the expectation that the player is going to come in and have a day-one squad revolt by manually adjusting all these playing time expectations that are set on your end?

I don't understand why this is considered impossible to resolve in this cycle. Shouldn't you just remove his injury in the starting database? He was injured during the season, not in pre-season. He didn't arrive injured. Hard-coding his injury doesn't seem any more appropriate than hard-coding the match result from that first game. What is the argument for keeping his injury in place?

What I always get is the player being transfer-listed for the same asking price, then the player and the manager kiss and make up six months later and they're removed from the transfer list.

I'll be honest: I have never seen this happen. I've seen unhappy players get transfer-listed, but I've never tapped up a player and had their price drop as a result.

All of those players are on contracts to 2030 or 2031, so 4 or 5 years. It's not obvious to me which way it's contributing to valuation. In terms of performance... who knows? It hasn't seemed to affect things in the past with the AI being interested in buying players who outperform their CA/PA.