Scouted Ability versus Actual Ability

Howdy everyone. I've got a pretty simple question I've been mulling over and would like to get a few more opinions on. How much weight do you place on a (good) scout's opinion of a player? For example, in my current Schalke save there's a right-back (a position I need filling) playing in the Bundesliga with an average rating of 7.78. That's obviously incredibly impressive and suggests that he's currently playing the best football out of any individual in the Bundesliga. However when I scout him he gets a rating of one and a half stars. Now I know that this means that that is relative to the reputation and ability that my club expects. A look at his individual attributes paint him as nothing more than an average full back. What I'm asking is - do you still take a punt on a player like that? Have you often had players whose attributes and scout reports are meh but somehow are having a blinder of a career? Or do you think that it is merely an inevitability that he will regress to the mean?

I trust my scouts. They find 3+ star players for me and then I judge their attributes vs their Potential and decide for myself. If they came to me with a player rated at 1.5 stars, I wouldn't bother.

If he is getting an average of 7.78 with a smaller club in the same league but only 1.5* CA I would certainly consider him.

CA wise he obviously isn't as good as other players but the high average suggests he has a good attribute spread for his position and a high consistency hidden attribute.

I find the key is in the scouts wording of the potential ability of the player. Like a good/leading/star/world class Premiership player. Obviously the higher the praise the better the player and try to put some kind of PA figure on the player. Like 180-200 for world class, 160-180 for star, 140-160 for leading, 120-140 for good.

If you have a scout you know you can trust and is fairly consistent with the reports then just looking for the wording should be enough.

I trust my scouts.

That's it.

Average ratings could be skewed by him being the pen or set piece taker. I would have a look at him to see what he is doing that is getting marked so highly, but more from a curiosity/tactical point of view than me wanting to buy him.

If you find out why you think he was getting rated so highly then please tell us.

If you find out why you think he was getting rated so highly then please tell us.

I don't know that I am particularly good at this sort of thing so if there's any other information you think I should check out let me know. Considering he's got the single goal and no assists I'm a little baffled myself.

488 tackles won in 29 games? I think that would go some way to explain it. It's close to 17 pr game. I'm guessing either the tactics the team is using is making him tackle lots (and apperantly he's good at it), or he has dives into tackles PPM.

Wouldn't mind a peak at his attributes. You say he's nothing special and only gets 2 stars, but that's some amount of tackling. 9 yellows in 29 games isn't very good (but also not terrible), but no reds A nice passing % too, though probably all very simple ones into midfield or to a central defender.

488 tackles won in 29 games? I think that would go some way to explain it. It's close to 17 pr game. I'm guessing either the tactics the team is using is making him tackle lots (and apperantly he's good at it), or he has dives into tackles PPM.

Good spot eple. We have a winner.

16.82 tackles per game is indeed the reason.

Next thing I would be doing is looking at his attributes but I am guessing that there will be nothing special there. I think I might be tempted to watch a couple of WB games and see what is going on.

Love this.

Wouldn't mind a peak at his attributes.

Hmmm. You said you're looking for a right back. He's a left back and not very good at right back...

Hmmm. You said you're looking for a right back. He's a left back and not very good at right back...

He looks decent, not amazing, considering you'll probably need to spend £20m to get him if Bremen don't want to sell. How many scout reports do you have? I often get say 3 of my scouts to check a player out to see if they agree.