Contradicting Scout Reports

I've never really had that much faith in the Scout reports. I was hoping FMH14 would improve on that but I don't think it has. Let me show you what I mean.

I'm managing in the Skrill South league. I find a player that has 4 out of 5 stars on current ability and 4.5 stars on potential ability yet my Scout doesn't think he will be good enough for my club. He is clearly better than most of my current players in that position. Why would my Scout not recommend him?

And then there's this problem. I come across this player in the Player Search area of the game after setting up some filters. I looked at his stats and from what I could gather, he seemed to be a very good player for my team's level in the South Skrill. I ask my Scout to take a look at him and the report comes back.

As I suspected, the player looks good and the Scout suggests that he has the potential of being the best at my club. So I click on 'View Report'.

Again this message of him being the best player is reinforced on the report screen although the star ratings for Current Ability and Potential Ability seem to be a little low considering how highly he is recommended.

I then swipe to his Player Profile page.

His stats don't seem to be that high considering how highly recommended my Scout rates him. I also suspect that when I first viewed his Player Profile page in the Player Search area of the game, the stats were noticeably higher. So I swipe back to the initial 'View Report' screen and this happens.

I'm now told by my Scout that this player is not good enough for the club. All I did was to swipe from View Report screen to Player Profile Screen back to View Report screen and in that time, my Scout has gone from saying this player has the potential of being one of the best players in the squad to not being good enough for the squad.

This has happened a lot in my Scout reports. Is this a bug or do I need a new Scout?

Good spot! I know there's been problems with past versions with scouts comparing capable players in a position to your star ones and then making unrealistic comments. But I've not seen such a quick change of opinion on a player like in the second example. AI's gone haywire!!

Yeah it seems the scout reports are a little buggy.

For what it's worth, I trust my scouts (and coaches) absolutely. But I pay attention only to the star ratings, and ignore the written comment.

For the most part I ignore a players attributes in favour of using scout/coach reports to judge their ability/potential.

I remember in the 2012 version of the game, I signed a striker whose attributes were quite poor (I remember he was a target man with very low strength) but my scouts really rated him, so I signed him. My coaches really liked him, so I played him. And he scored a ton of goals for me. So I tend to trust the star ratings over the attribute numbers. I figure they take hidden stats into account.

Even if a player is playing poorly for me (i.e. getting low ratings) I tend to stick with him unless his star rating drops. They tend to pick up form sooner or later.