Frustrations with buying players

I don't think FM12 is quite as bad as what some people have previously suggested, but one thing that really frustrates me with it is buying players.

It's been disastrous ever since SI got rid of the assistant recommendations, especially for someone like me who likes to manage in the lower leagues where you haven't got big budgets to spend.

The obvious place to turn would be the scouting system, which can be good if you're at a top club with lots of money to spend, but again, is atrocious otherwise. All the scouting recommendations I normally get back only tend to be 16-20 year olds who have great potential but are completely out of reach of my club based on budget and and aren't good enough to get into the team right now.

Even the 'filter unrealistic targets' option is utterly useless. With that ticked, I will find some suitable players to loan from bigger clubs, sometimes only a division above mine, but they will still reject the chance to join my club, saying that they have no intention of joining.

Does anybody else have this much trouble signing players? How can I make my signings more efficient in future?

What lower league side has the money to buy anyone?

I always start at the very bottom in my games, and I've never had much problems putting together a squad...

First thing to get players is to send out the scout, of course. Since I can only scout my own nation, and my scout has full knowledge of it, the scout report takes a day to complete. So, I send him out with no instructions a few times, which gives me quite a few players to work with. Then I send him out with instructions to look for a single position.

The second thing I do is check the backroom advice often and scout every suggestion. This option is better IMO than the old recommendation system.

Thirdly, I scout every player offered by agents. Always some gold there.

Lastly, I arrange a trial day, which usually gives me one or two back-up players(with potential).

By then, the squad shuld be fine, with only one or two problem areas.

Look at a club like Inter in real life ATM. Its very difficult even for 'big' clubs to find players who will join and aren't demanding astronomical wages and can improve the team.

Personally I build my teams starting w/ talented youth, but am lucky in that they do want to join the club, and the current squad is good enough that it doesn't really need big improvements in the short term.

That's part of the problem for me, my scouts do tend to bring loads of players back, but only a bunch of 18 or 19 year olds, and once I sign them they go from 5 star recommendations to a 2 star rating once I sign them, which isn't good enough - it's too potential based and doesn't focus enough on current ability. On top of that, my backroom staff never suggest more than 2 players to sign, even if I've had to let go of a lot of players because of money problems.

Agreed..it was a source of annoyance on my AFC Wimbledon game that younger players were recc'd based on potential.

With the money I had, I wanted folks who were good now, not in 2015 or so when I was hoping to be a few levels above L2.

That's part of the problem for me, my scouts do tend to bring loads of players back, but only a bunch of 18 or 19 year olds, and once I sign them they go from 5 star recommendations to a 2 star rating once I sign them, which isn't good enough - it's too potential based and doesn't focus enough on current ability. On top of that, my backroom staff never suggest more than 2 players to sign, even if I've had to let go of a lot of players because of money problems.

Ask him to only scout players older than that then.

And don't bother too mich with staff recommendations at this level, they don't have a clue. Just take a good look at their attributes and if you don't see any glaring mistakes(like <5 finishing for a striker), get him and hope for the best.

Scout by minimal current ability level and/ or age as HoreTore said.

Then when you search players, in your scouts report, player search,etc, search by scout report and then sort by current ability star rating.

When you look at a scout report you can see the scout's rating for potential and current ability, so you can still judge if they are good enough before signing them. Or just filter out the young players, as suggested above. But I actually prefer to sign younger players, get them into the team and let them progress toward that potential. Then they will either become a great player for your team or a bigger club will come calling and you'll make a tidy profit.

Personally I find it easy to sign players of a sufficient quality for whatever level I play at. In lower leagues you need to forget about your transfer budget and look at free transfers and loans.