Mike J

I assume Genk aren't really raking in vast amounts of money from their domestic league, so if we assume this isn't a bug, the explanation could be that you're actually spending above your means right now. What's your wage budget and how much of it are you spending? What are the terms on the loan repayments? Some loans have terms that change over time so it may be that a loan that was once serviceable has changed to be more of a hindrance now. One problem with the game's financial planning is it doesn't really take future player sales into account, so if you're relying heavily on sales to finance the team it can cause problems eventually.

Club reputation has quite a big influence on player value. I think FM generally doesn't do a great job recognising shifts in reputation and club rep tends to rise and fall too slowly, which often leads to this sort of situation. The game is probably still treating your Cardiff team as a mid-table EPL club at best, despite your success, while Barca will be among the highest reps in the game, even if they haven't won La Liga in a while (as is the case in my save). I think things like the overall financial health of the club may also factor into a player's valuation, since a healthy bank balance will mean less need to sell to balance the books.

Others have pointed out the comparison with players promised the same amount of playing time in the league as a reason. Another could be due to one or more players receiving a pay rise as part of their contract, or a new player coming into the team and being paid closer to what a "normal" wage would be in the league for that type of player while your other players are still on their League 1 salaries. I've had a similar issue with my Boro team after getting promoted to the EPL. Wages are gradually going up as I sign better players and have to pay them higher wages. Then all the other "Important Players" see that and all want similar amounts. It's a bit annoying, but not entirely unrealistic. It's something you have to budget for if you can, or just accept as a newly promoted team you simply won't have the financial muscle to compete in the league yet and this is one aspect of that.

The squad planner is one of those relatively new additions that doesn't seem so well integrated yet, and this is one example of that. It's purely there to help with transfer planning in-game and has no effect on how your AM ranks your players in their selection advice. It's not even very good at that, as I've had suggestions to sell my star midfielder because he "doesn't feature in my plans according tot he squad planner" when he's started every game but I've forgotten to add him to the planner so he's at the bottom of the list. It's p[particularly annoying because the game already tracks playing time and that feels like something that your AM and DoF could use to effectively highlight who you're using and who you aren't.

The computer-controlled clubs do have some agency in these situations. They likely do at least a cursory analysis of your club to see if the playing time you're promising is likely. They may have decided the other teams were more likely to give their players playing time. You said yourself they'd be competing for places, rather than being a nailed-on starter. I do think reputation probably plays a little bit too much of a role in signings and that's likely what caused Hermoso to move to Southampton. I think rep should probably fluctuate more rapidly than it does and events like relegation should have a much bigger effect on it than they seem to have.

There's a box you can tick when setting up a Recruitment Focus that excludes players from other focuses. That might help. Other than that, are you sending your scouts to different locations, or keeping them in the same places the whole time? Depending on the paramters of your focuses, the quality of your team and the ability of your scouts, there may not actually be a huge pool of players to choose from.

Do they? I don't think I've ever seen any developer prove anything of the sort. You'd literally be asking most developers to reveal the secrets to what makes their games work. SI aren't going to give away the secrets of how parts of the engine work since that's the thing making them money and having people be able to copy it would potentially be corporate suicide. While I think interactions could use some work, especially around communicating the effects a little better, I've not had any real problems with praising players for training well. Not sure how much difference it makes to the engine, but it feels like praising the top trainer that week is something managers would do and it's never hurt me to do it, as far as I know, so why not?

I've never encountered this myself in over 20 years of playing FM, including managing some of the biggest clubs in the world, so I can see how it's likely not a priority for SI to fix. It may also be that the limit is intrinsic to a whole host of systems within the game so it's not as simple a fix as just increasing a number somewhere in the code. I agree with @Dagenham_Dave that the best solution here is probably to look at the mechanisms that allow clubs to generate such massive revenues in the first place as that seems like the biggest problem here.

Sometimes it's to do with wages already offered to players you're trying to sign - the board won't let you enter negotiations with 10 players and commit to offering them all high wages without placing some restrictions at some point, even if you don't intend to sign all of them. As you've just been promoted, it may also be to do with promotion wage rise clauses that are due to kick in once the season officially ticks over to the new one. I had this at Boro in my save - got promotion and a a decent wage budget increase, but that was then eaten up by all the 35% wage rise clauses in my player contracts for winning promotion. If none of those things apply, it could be a bug.

That's probably true, but it's the reasons that are frustrating. In any squad there'll be 1 or 2 players who don't like your training, a couple who want more game time, maybe a few who want new contracts or want to leave, and that probably adds up to about a third overall. The problem is when really minor or random things torpedo your dynamics for ne logical reason. I can handle a player coming to me wanting more playing time when their contract says they should be a starter but I've signed a better player in their position. That's my fault and something I can understand and attempt to fix. Having the whole squad threaten to attack you because you told them they were playing pretty well recently is just a bizarre reaction with no rhyme or reason to it. It feels like the problem is the game includes random elements in any interaction, to simulate real life, but they can sometimes lead to completely unrealistic outcomes. There should be a natural limit to how extreme certain reactions can be. If I tell a squad that's doing well that I'm happy with their form, maybe one or two don't care, a couple might think we could be doing a little better, but I wouldn't expect anything like the anger I got in my game.

I've had similar crazy reactions. Player reactions and dynamics seem like more of a lottery this year. I had a team meeting when top of the Championship as Boro, playing pretty well, just before a rivalry match with Leeds. I told the players they were doing well and to keep up the good work and the entire dressing room turned against me. I've no idea how you're supposed to predict player reactions when even praising them for being in a good position can go so horribly wrong.

I'd argue it's also fairly realistic. Many (but not all) of the best teams play a high-pressing, high-line tactic that looks to win the ball back high up the pitch. Many also play out of defence rather than going more direct. The tactic works IRL, and not just for elite teams. In FM, I've found it works about as well as it seems to IRL. It's certainly an effective way of playing, but can also be exploited by competent opposition.

Do you have future transfers coming in? Are there wage increase clauses that will likely activate? Are you negotiating with lots of free agents even if they haven't agreed to sign for you? The board will often restrict wages if you're in the middle of negotiations with multiple players in order to prevent you spending above your agreed limits. Imagine you have 3k in your budget, but you're at the contract negotiation stage with 5 players and you've offered each of them 1k a week. Even if you don't plan to sign all of them, the board will then stop you offering what you would consider normal wages in other negotiations in case all 5 of those players end up signing for you and taking you over your budget. It may also be a bug if none of those scenarios apply.

I think the problem is exacerbated by poor player interactions as well. It's really frustrating that I can't prepare a player for the fact he's only going to get a Squad Player status well before we get to contract negotiations. So he often gets annoyed when he's asking for an increase in both wages and playing time and that's the only point where I can tell him he's not going to get the playing time he wants via a conversation. It's also still too difficult to figure out the effects of upsetting a player by not giving them a new contract as well, so you're not sure if refusing their demands will lead to a player mutiny or one unhappy player for a few weeks. Theoretically their position in the social hierarchy should matter, but I've had situations where relative outsiders manage to upset the squad when they don't get their way. I think an option at the start/end of season team talk to discuss the financial ramifications of promotion or relegation would be good. Getting promoted from L1 to the Championship, for example, should give you the option to explain to the players that there's not much money for wage increases. I have also had situations where players are happy on their current contracts and behave like regular human beings, only really getting annoyed when they enter the last 18 months of their deal of if the wage structure changes around them. Player personality does enter into it a bit.

The club reputation model is probably the biggest issue with the transfer market. I'm pretty sure there's also an issue where the reputation is only updated once per season as well, leading to stupid situations where you take an unassuming club into the CL but can't attract better players until an arbitrary date in the calendar when you suddenly get a reputation boost. I'm in that position myself at the moment with Boro. I've had a fantastic second season the the EPL and a bunch of my players are getting interest from other teams. Fair enough. Liverpool and Inter have been sniffing around some of my players and I'll probably struggle to keep them. That's not a major problem, but the silly low transfer offers are becoming tiresome. Even if it's an attempt to unsettle your player, I think there should be the option to talk to your unsettled player and point out the offer was so low it's actually insulting to both the club and the player. Even more annoying is my star English CB is currently unhappy because he wants to move to West Ham. Not too unusual you think? Except I'm in the CL next season and West Ham have spent the last two seasons in the Championship. They're not even listed as a favourite club, but according to the reputation tracker they're still rated higher than me. I suspect that will change in July, but it's silly I have to wait until then for my player to realise a move to a team likely to be battling relegation next season may not be a good idea.