Why do AI make strange offers/none at all?

I have a successful Ajax team that has reached the Quarters, Semis and most recently final of the Champions League in each of my first three seasons. Along the way I've managed to sell Balanta (£24m) Romero (£22m) Andersen (£18m) El Ghazi (£18m) Boilesen (£12m) and Fischer (£21m). However this screen shot below is what my team looks like for the majority of the season:

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At least 15 players are wanted by 2+ of the highest European Clubs, yet rarely any offers and if so they are under the players value and paid in installments. I.e Sisto who has been my best player and in the summer was the only offer besides Fischer who I sold. What makes the AI offer so much for Fischer who wasn't even playing regularly and then such a bad offer for the rest of my players? I'm not actively trying to sell my players but if I received £15m+ for 90% of my players I'd accept as I want to develop players. Is there anything I can do besides patience to receive sensible offers considering the success of my team? There are players such as Zivkovic, Barbosa, Tielemans, Sisto and Nouri who in FM terms I know have high CA/PA who I've had offers of no more than their asking price spread over installments and it is just frustrating. It's the same old story saying that X,Y & Z are interested: I say they can go provided they match the valuation and no bid comes in.

Thanks.

Edit: Oh and I have Germany, England, Italy, Spain and France top divisions loaded. Does this make a difference?

Other clubs show interest because they have a higher rep & play in a higher rep league compared to you while the players possibly also have a higher rep and certainly the ability to play in bigger leagues.

Offers don't come in because other clubs are either put off by the price, find cheaper alternatives or don't think the player will accept their offer.

EDIT

Length of contract a big sticking point on a lot of those players.

I have often wondered this and came to the conclusion that it was more like the players are wanted on a speculated basis, rather than an impending bid as old CM/FMs used to be. I haven't checked this out fully, but I wonder if there are any transfer rumours that match up? (And that's why players come to say "If so and so make a bid, please will you accept it")

Other clubs show interest because they have a higher rep & play in a higher rep league compared to you while the players possibly also have a higher rep and certainly the ability to play in bigger leagues.

Offers don't come in because other clubs are either put off by the price, find cheaper alternatives or don't think the player will accept their offer.

EDIT

Length of contract a big sticking point on a lot of those players.

Thanks for your reply...This is interesting, as I was under the impression that if they were on a too short length of contract then the offer would be less, majority of my players are on 3years+...are you saying it needs to be longer or shorter?

I find it difficult to believe that the teams interested (majority of players are wanted by Real Madrid/Man City/Dortmund/Man Utd/Bayern) would be put off by the price or find cheaper alternatives acceptable...generally if they target a player: they get them.

Thanks for your reply...This is interesting, as I was under the impression that if they were on a too short length of contract then the offer would be less, majority of my players are on 3years+...are you saying it needs to be longer or shorter?

I find it difficult to believe that the teams interested (majority of players are wanted by Real Madrid/Man City/Dortmund/Man Utd/Bayern) would be put off by the price or find cheaper alternatives acceptable...generally if they target a player: they get them.

They aren't targeting them though, they are just showing interest.

I have nearly 2,000 players on my shortlist so in FM terms it will show me as having interest in all of those players. Will I sign them all? Of course not, I might sign a 8-10 over the next 3/4 seasons but nothing like 2,000.

Longer contracts = bigger price = Other clubs put off. Once a player gets into the last 18 months of a contract you'll tend to find more clubs showing interest as they'll hope to get them for a cheaper price.

I have often wondered this and came to the conclusion that it was more like the players are wanted on a speculated basis, rather than an impending bid as old CM/FMs used to be. I haven't checked this out fully, but I wonder if there are any transfer rumours that match up? (And that's why players come to say "If so and so make a bid, please will you accept it")

I would agree but let's take Zivkovic by example:

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Nine teams are listed with crediting a 'Major Interest' in him, wouldn't you expect at least one team to 'test the waters' with an opening bit of at least £15m? As it stands I wouldn't accept anything below £25m but at least give me a bit of to and frow and test my resolve. I just had an incident with Tielemans where he came to say he wanted to leave because Man City wanted to sign him. This is Tielemans:

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Ok I know I have a high asking price set which may discourage bids. But I said I would let him leave if a club met the valuation we had of him, So I offered him out without transfer listing him, two bids came in for £6m from Dortmund and Man City....Now I know you can argue that they might think I was trying to sell him so could get him cheap (he was offered out at £25m) but under his valuation? there's no option to tell the buying team to go check into a psychiatric unit. The same incident happened with Sisto but without me offering him out.

They aren't targeting them though, they are just showing interest.

I have nearly 2,000 players on my shortlist so in FM terms it will show me as having interest in all of those players. Will I sign them all? Of course not, I might sign a 8-10 over the next 3/4 seasons but nothing like 2,000.

Longer contracts = bigger price = Other clubs put off. Once a player gets into the last 18 months of a contract you'll tend to find more clubs showing interest as they'll hope to get them for a cheaper price.

I have many players on my shortlist but unless I declare an interest in them....it doesn't even credit me with holding a minor interest in the player, I'm sure every team IRL have a long list of players who have no idea that they are on another teams shortlist. With all due respect, Man City have paid £30m+ for Mangala, Fernandinho from Porto who are of similar standard/achieve similarly in European competitions: if they want a player they generally tend to get them.

Don't get me wrong here we would all like to see more transfer activity and in the two examples above I would like to see teams making offers more often.

Also worth pointing out you are in September just after the transfer window has shut so you are unlikely to get offers atm. However had it been August or if you wait until January and you offered those two out you should get bids no problem. Should you have to offer them out? In FM15 yes but hopefully we'll see more aggressive transfer offers from the AI clubs in FM16.

I have many players on my shortlist but unless I declare an interest in them....it doesn't even credit me with holding a minor interest in the player, I'm sure every team IRL have a long list of players who have no idea that they are on another teams shortlist. With all due respect, Man City have paid £30m+ for Mangala, Fernandinho from Porto who are of similar standard/achieve similarly in European competitions: if they want a player they generally tend to get them.

You have no idea if thats the case or not IRL.

How many other players do you think big clubs watch during a year?

Anyway you have a habit of dismissing people when things are explained to you so all I'll say is AI clubs won't make offers unless they think they have a good chance of signing the players. You can disagree with that as much as you want (I'll probably agree with a lot of it) but thats the way it works atm.

You have no idea if thats the case or not IRL.

How many other players do you think big clubs watch during a year?

Anyway you have a habit of dismissing people when things are explained to you so all I'll say is AI clubs won't make offers unless they think they have a good chance of signing the players. You can disagree with that as much as you want (I'll probably agree with a lot of it) but thats the way it works atm.

I'm shocked you say that, I'm only explaining what I'm seeing in the game and asking questions as to why, if I have another question that further seeks clarify the matter I'm surprised I'm not allowed to ask it. Anyway, thank you for your input and answering where you can ...I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to increase the transfer activity but it appears not.

I'm shocked you say that, I'm only explaining what I'm seeing in the game and asking questions as to why, if I have another question that further seeks clarify the matter I'm surprised I'm not allowed to ask it. Anyway, thank you for your input and answering where you can ...I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to increase the transfer activity but it appears not.

The standard line if you get a lower bid is to negotiate upwards/downwards and don't reject it out of hand. AFAIK, the AI doesn't remember what bids it makes, so if you reject it they will eventually come back later with similar silly bids. The key is to get the bid in the first place.

Lets say in your 6mill example, you've admitted you've put £25million as a tad above his actual value. When they bid 6 million, you should be able to send an offer back with at least double that, so 12million is probably what they're going to snap your hands off with, so you negotiate say, 15-16 million just to be on the safe side, and this is at least double his contract value. That should spark a tug of war between the two of you until you can get to a region of money that they *do* have free to bid.

Obviously, you can hold out for a higher price, but you will always be negotiating downwards (usually). Getting some negotiations going is vital because it will usually cause a domino effect of getting other AI teams to bid and you might get lucky and rob one of them blind. I have, successfully set the bid low and everytime they upped their bid, increased my asking price, you need to be careful though they'll only negotiate to a price they can or are willing to pay and that's not always big bucks sadly.

I do think it is an area to be improved in FM16 though.

So I offered him out without transfer listing him, two bids came in for £6m from Dortmund and Man City....Now I know you can argue that they might think I was trying to sell him so could get him cheap (he was offered out at £25m) but under his valuation? there's no option to tell the buying team to go check into a psychiatric unit. The same incident happened with Sisto but without me offering him out.

I think there's an unofficial 'bug' where if you offer them out for more than twice their value, then the game reverts back to their original value

it may have said 25m when you offered him out, but (as 7.75x2<25) it went out as 7.75m, hence the low-ball bids

those that get big-money offers wait for the approach to be made (then you can be more aggressive, like the AI managers are) rather than offering him out every other week

unless I actually want the player out, I typically start with a 150% of value offer out (or go to x2 then press the down arrow), and then work from there (negotiate it up if a negotiable bid comes back)

or get hyper-aggressive if I'm not expecting to sell them and a bid comes in

Thanks both of you, it's nice to hear other hints/tips and points of view which is what this forum is about!

I think there's an unofficial 'bug' where if you offer them out for more than twice their value, then the game reverts back to their original value

it may have said 25m when you offered him out, but (as 7.75x2<25) it went out as 7.75m, hence the low-ball bids

I should clarify that I think this because essentially you're putting them on the 'unwanted list' which has the most expensive option of 'sell player for twice their value' but without putting them on the list itself

so the game thinks you're trying to forcibly sell them (offering them out puts them on it by default, unless you tell it otherwise) and you're capped at twice, but the game doesn't recognise the higher value and reverts back to the original value

Personally, I think that offering them out is testing the waters, rather than a 'we want you gone' mentality as the game thinks it is

Shown more so by the players sometimes going with 'blah blah blah trying to force me out'

No, I'm just testing your market value, we still plan to keep you

It's a bit irritating that there's no way to explore possible bids and values for players without the player finding out and freaking out.

I should clarify that I think this because essentially you're putting them on the 'unwanted list' which has the most expensive option of 'sell player for twice their value' but without putting them on the list itself

so the game thinks you're trying to forcibly sell them (offering them out puts them on it by default, unless you tell it otherwise) and you're capped at twice, but the game doesn't recognise the higher value and reverts back to the original value

Personally, I think that offering them out is testing the waters, rather than a 'we want you gone' mentality as the game thinks it is

Shown more so by the players sometimes going with 'blah blah blah trying to force me out'

No, I'm just testing your market value, we still plan to keep you

This is very much the idea that I wanted from it, I wouldn't really like to lose Tielemans (Although I am stockpiling approx 4 players in that position now) but from now on I'm going to offer out at just under twice the market value and then negotiate higher from that point. Thanks for the help guys!

It's a bit irritating that there's no way to explore possible bids and values for players without the player finding out and freaking out.

Yep which is exactly what happened with Tielemans I agreed he could go offered him out to test the water, derisory offers came back I rejected them and he kicked off saying the offer was perfectly fine!

This has always been a major issue in this game to me. It's been this way for many years now.

The AI will rarely, if ever offer much over the asking price for one of your players but will regularly do it when purchasing players from other AI clubs.

Well I just tried it with Richairo Zivkovic. He's worth £11.5m so offered him out at just under double his value (£22.5) and I received three offers, two at his value, but Arsenal offered £22.5m straight up which is much more encouraging. However the bid was non-negotiable so I rejected it out of hand....but certainly much better than the previous offers I've had for him, and as one previous poster said: One bid being accepted could spark a bidding war from other teams, so I might save the game try again accept Arsenals bid and see what comes of it...just to see if thats the case.

This has always been a major issue in this game to me. It's been this way for many years now.

The AI will rarely, if ever offer much over the asking price for one of your players but will regularly do it when purchasing players from other AI clubs.

Thats just not true at all tbh.

If other AI clubs are better offers than you then simply put they are working the market better than you. Rather than blaming it on the game you need to be looking at what you can be doing better.

This is very much the idea that I wanted from it, I wouldn't really like to lose Tielemans (Although I am stockpiling approx 4 players in that position now) but from now on I'm going to offer out at just under twice the market value and then negotiate higher from that point. Thanks for the help guys!

If you offer a player out, teams that meet your asking price are usually not going to negotiate. You've named a price, they've accepted. There's no room for negotiation. The only time that might not be the case in my experience is if you offer a player and get lots of offers back.

Well I just tried it with Richairo Zivkovic. He's worth £11.5m so offered him out at just under double his value (£22.5) and I received three offers, two at his value, but Arsenal offered £22.5m straight up which is much more encouraging. However the bid was non-negotiable so I rejected it out of hand....but certainly much better than the previous offers I've had for him, and as one previous poster said: One bid being accepted could spark a bidding war from other teams, so I might save the game try again accept Arsenals bid and see what comes of it...just to see if thats the case.

I didn't mention it in my earlier posts but samdiatmh did.

When you sell you always start your negotiation higher than you want to sell for as its expected the buyer will knock you down. Likewise when you buy you always start low and then negotiate upwards.

This is the way it works in the real world and you need to be aware of it when you negotiate in FM.

Don't be afraid to start high, you can always come down when you sell, you can't go up. For Zivkovic I would have started much higher than £22m, maybe around £40m and see what happened.

I didn't mention it in my earlier posts but samdiatmh did.

When you sell you always start your negotiation higher than you want to sell for as its expected the buyer will knock you down. Likewise when you buy you always start low and then negotiate upwards.

This is the way it works in the real world and you need to be aware of it when you negotiate in FM.

Don't be afraid to start high, you can always come down when you sell, you can't go up. For Zivkovic I would have started much higher than £22m, maybe around £40m and see what happened.

(WITHOUT trying to sound dismissive ) The other guys have just told me that if I offer out at more than double his value then the bug means the game sees me as offering out at his value (i.e £11.5m) so would it not be pointless to go higher than his market value (i.e £40m) due to a bug in the game? I'm not dismissing your advice and will also try that at the end of the season.... just don't understand how that would work in regards to what the others are saying.

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I suppose £22.5m for a youth player from Ajax isn't unreasonable at all..I just know from previous saves that he becomes a world class striker so reluctant to let him go for less than £30m...hmmmm!

(WITHOUT trying to sound dismissive ) The other guys have just told me that if I offer out at more than double his value then the bug means the game sees me as offering out at his value (i.e £11.5m) so would it not be pointless to go higher than his market value (i.e £40m) due to a bug in the game? I'm not dismissing your advice and will also try that at the end of the season.... just don't understand how that would work in regards to what the others are saying.

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I suppose £22.5m for a youth player from Ajax isn't unreasonable at all..I just know from previous saves that he becomes a world class striker so reluctant to let him go for less than £30m...hmmmm!

TBH I've never heard of that bug.

EDIT

I've had a better read of samdiatmh description and honestly I don't know. I can't say I've noticed it in my own gameplay but I'll keep an eye out for it. The easy way to find out would be to try it a few times and see what happens. If you get any offers more than the value then it points to it not being a bug.

TBH I've never heard of that bug and I suspect samdiatmh is just getting confused between what he calls a bug and what is basic negotiation skills.

Ok I will try with your method in January/End of the season and see...Thanks!

Well at least the Richairo Zivkovic saga has been resolved...! Offered him out for £40m as you suggested, the standard below value price came in from 8 teams, tried to negotiate with them all, Arsenal must really want him...a bit of to and frowing and managed to get £20m up front plus £10m in 12monthly installments. He had a minimum fee release clause of £34m so I'm disappointed really not to reach that, but I suppose £30m for any Ajax player is a good effort! All that's left is for him to negotiate with Arsenal!

Well I just tried it with Richairo Zivkovic. He's worth £11.5m so offered him out at just under double his value (£22.5) and I received three offers, two at his value, but Arsenal offered £22.5m straight up which is much more encouraging. However the bid was non-negotiable so I rejected it out of hand....but certainly much better than the previous offers I've had for him, and as one previous poster said: One bid being accepted could spark a bidding war from other teams, so I might save the game try again accept Arsenals bid and see what comes of it...just to see if thats the case.

You could stall it, and make the offer public.

On the other hand, and this is gamey, you can reload and offer him out at a bit higher knowing that Arsenal at least have a 22.5million bid as 'acceptable', so you can see if you can push them a bit further or not. As I said though, it is a gamey method.

I've never heard of this offered at more than double value bug either, certainly not seen it in my game where I've sold players players for more than 3 times their listed value.

Managed to get Liverpool to stump up €75m all in one for a striker listed at about €25m.

You could stall it, and make the offer public.

On the other hand, and this is gamey, you can reload and offer him out at a bit higher knowing that Arsenal at least have a 22.5million bid as 'acceptable', so you can see if you can push them a bit further or not. As I said though, it is a gamey method.

Yeah unfortunately not up for the start and reload thing besides the initial experimenting. I did something similar with an old Southampton save and kind of ruined it for me. The other idea sounds good, I have plenty of players in demand I will try some different approaches in the transfer window thanks!

I've never heard of this offered at more than double value bug either, certainly not seen it in my game where I've sold players players for more than 3 times their listed value.

Managed to get Liverpool to stump up €75m all in one for a striker listed at about €25m.

It sort of does make sense as to why I receive such rubbish opening offers and I'm going to try change tack with it a little bit. In theory Zivkovic sold for just under 3 times his value.

What tips do people have for selling world class players whose value is already high? For example, Di Maria is valued at 45m and I'm thinking about selling him. I don't want to transfer list him but I want to try and get some decent offers. I think offering him out for 90/100 would just put everyone off. For his age, I'd be willing to take 25/35m so should I offer him out for 50?

hello, yes i've had many issues trying to sell players. When teams show interest for my players i don't sit back and wait for offers, in the contract/trsansfer section of the player i see which clubs are interested and click the add team to sell player to. There is an option somewhere where it allows you to add the teams you want to sell the player. It's never failed for me, as for the price thats something that needs to be re-designed by SI.

Contract negotiations and interest from other clubs has to be considerably improved in this game, as one person said in my previous posts the scenario is taken away in an isolated scenario. The AI doesn't look at what your looking at in terms of future prosperity of the player. It's basically in the here and now and doesn't take the future and the players development into consideration. Though I do say when you spot a talent isn't it interesting how other AI teams know you have grabbed a gem which you don't get to see it's future price tag (untill you sell the player) and they do and when they offer you money for it it's garbage. But when you try to snatch a great youth player from them they ask for stupid amounts of money like 53 million.

If Monaco was able to sell Martial for 30+ million and an additional 20+ million in bonuses for the future why can't we as players do that with lower club teams. It seems to me the AI has a massive advantage over normal players which is not working in sync with reality. We are now seeing around the world young talent being snapped up for millions and it's not a joke. The best clubs know if young talent reach their mid 20's they will cost a fortune for clubs to buy and those clubs (big clubs)will be missing out if they don't buy them young causing issues for the future. So in the game this is not being reflected correctly instead the AI is the law. If future versions of this game do come out i hope they work on the contractual side of things because it's a massive area to deal with.

What tips do people have for selling world class players whose value is already high? For example, Di Maria is valued at 45m and I'm thinking about selling him. I don't want to transfer list him but I want to try and get some decent offers. I think offering him out for 90/100 would just put everyone off. For his age, I'd be willing to take 25/35m so should I offer him out for 50?

The most important thing is to be able to identify who you can sell him to & when. This means you need to attract interest as clubs will only become interested if they think you will sell & that the player will move to them.

You haven't said what year you are in or who you are but presuming the first few years and you are Man Utd then:

A) He is going to have a high rep so will only move to top clubs in similar rep leagues - This limits you initially to the likes of Barca, Real, PSG, Bayern, Juventus. A little less likely due to league rivalry are the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool & Man City. If he is prepared to drop a little further it opens up a few other Spanish, German & French clubs and maybe brings in top clubs in second tier leagues such as Russia & Turkey.

B) For each of those clubs you need to consider can they afford his transfer fee? wages? and do they have space in the squad for him (ie is he better than what they have in skill & rep).

C) If you keep playing him and he is happy with a longish contract it implies to those clubs that you don't want to sell & if he is happy then that again encourages them not to bother. So play him sometimes but not all the time, let his contract run down and hope clubs take interest. If he complains about playing time it gives you an opportunity to maybe move him on and give other clubs the idea he might be for sale.

D) You'll generally struggle to sell for a very high amount as Man Utd because you are more or less king of the hill. Big prices are achieved by a bigger club throwing money at a smaller club who don't want to sell but £25m should be achievable depending how old he is.

I'm in the third year so I think he's about 29 from memory and I've got a great young replacement coming through spp I'm thinking it's a good time to sell. He played 35, 31 and so far 3/18 games this season due to an injury. He's not currently wanted by anyone but I haven't listed him. I think his contract is up in 2 years.

Is it worth wanting until a club is interested or should I offer him out to get the interest?

Is there a best month to do this?

Reading through most posts on here I have a question...Why do we need to offer them out to get a decent offer in the first place? you don't see this happen with any team in Europe.

if that was the case you would see every team who has a player who another team is interested in and publicly offer them out, just never happens in the real world.

Why do we need to offer them out to get a decent offer in the first place?

You don't need to. I've received plenty of offers that were negotiated to a decent fee or received offers matching my asking price.

Since this thread is alive, may I ask a slightly more general question--what type of game world should one set up to have a good transfer market?

Database size, active leagues versus unplayable leagues: is there a summary of what SI knows/believes about how all these factors interact? I've searched around and can't find a definitive statement on the point anywhere...and my transfer market has always been terrible. As in: very little interest in my players. In my current game, I've moved up from C2 to Serie A without being able to sell any players. Now, even in Serie A, when interest comes, it feels very gamey.

I still cannot actively sell players; every so often the game decides to have basically every other Serie A club come in for my most promising young player, always for co-ownership. Small teams bid maybe 50-75% of what big teams big; no bids get much over half the player's value. I will get cycles of 15-20 bids in the same number of days, cycles in which the same teams sometimes return repeatedly with the same bid. No team EVER negotiates a bid: and by that I mean that they NEITHER "negotiate" using the in-game framework, NOR do they negotiate in the looser sense of returning with a better bid. Assman's advice to raise asking price has no effect.

These offers would seem to count as "strange" offers....

You don't need to. I've received plenty of offers that were negotiated to a decent fee or received offers matching my asking price.

Doesn't seem to happen to me, I hardly ever get bids, plenty of WNT signs on my players but very rarely I get a bid and if I do it's nowhere near my asking price.

Can I ask how much you set your asking price at? double/ triple players value?

Doesn't seem to happen to me, I hardly ever get bids, plenty of WNT signs on my players but very rarely I get a bid and if I do it's nowhere near my asking price.

Can I ask how much you set your asking price at? double/ triple players value?

Depends on the player, age, contract, how important he is to me and the value. If I set asking prices though, it's either for players I don't want to get rid of (so 3x or more of the value) or it is for players who can go, so 1 to 1.5x their value.

Depends on the player, age, contract, how important he is to me and the value. If I set asking prices though, it's either for players I don't want to get rid of (so 3x or more of the value) or it is for players who can go, so 1 to 1.5x their value.

Ahh right, so in my case and this is just an example with one player, I set my asking price to like you do x3 for Demarai Gray (£15.5 million ) player currently on 7.36 av rating and 4 POM, 3 teams after him all all higher profile than myself, offer him out and get no offers taking into consideration, this is just one player it happens all the time, just nothing seems to happen.

The point I was trying to make in my original post, would I even need to offer him out? wouldn't the teams interested at least make an enquiry of some sort seeming he's playing beyond expectations?

I'm just curious

Ahh right, so in my case and this is just an example with one player, I set my asking price to like you do x3 for Demarai Gray (£15.5 million ) player currently on 7.36 av rating and 4 POM, 3 teams after him all all higher profile than myself, offer him out and get no offers taking into consideration, this is just one player it happens all the time, just nothing seems to happen.

The point I was trying to make in my original post, would I even need to offer him out? wouldn't the teams interested at least make an enquiry of some sort seeming he's playing beyond expectations?

I'm just curious

Were you expecting offers at 3x his value? When I do that, I don't. I'm trying to keep my player, as I said. If a team is stupid enough to offer that, I'd take it though.

When were you offering him out? What's the in-game date?

Why were you offering him out?

Did you get a news message with info about why teams weren't making offers?

Were you expecting offers at 3x his value? When I do that, I don't. I'm trying to keep my player, as I said. If a team is stupid enough to offer that, I'd take it though.

When were you offering him out? What's the in-game date?

Why were you offering him out?

Did you get a news message with info about why teams weren't making offers?

No not at all I wasn't expecting to get that but for a team to prize away one of my assets they would need to pay that.

Usually between 1st and 2nd season

I was offering him just to see if I got any bites as time and time again I get WNT signs all the time but no bids received

Message was no club sees a deal viable

Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Message was no club sees a deal viable

Well, there's your answer. They don't see the deal as viable.

Well, there's your answer. They don't see the deal as viable.

What does that really mean though?

The 3 teams want the player in question, they know what I want but not a sorority offer offered?

When you compare it to again just an example....

Patrick Roberts to ManC - £11 million - he played 22 games in 3 seasons most as sub - scored 0 goals and he went for that much, I still don't see how transfers are realistic and this is not a knock at the game, I buy it every year and enjoy it immensely, can you see where I'm coming from?

AFAIK, the AI doesn't remember what bids it makes, so if you reject it they will eventually come back later with similar silly bids. The key is to get the bid in the first place.

I tend to agree with this theory - What would be nice would be being able to have the ability to set the folowing stratergy - reject below x, refer to me between x and y, and accept y+. Currently you can only do one of these which is a pain.

Throw in the ability of the AI to "learn" what x is, so that if it wants the player it might start raising the bids.

What does that really mean though?

The 3 teams want the player in question, they know what I want but not a sorority offer offered?

Patrick Roberts to ManC - £11 million - he played 22 games in 3 seasons most as sub - scored 0 goals and he went for that much, I still don't see how transfers are realistic and this is not a knock at the game, I buy it every year and enjoy it immensely, can you see where I'm coming from?

Have a read through this thread. It might be an eye opener: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/418710-Why-so-hard-to-get-rid-of-unwanted-players-MUST-READ-THREAD

ah, that helped me.....thanks!

You offered the player out for 3x his value. They don't see that as a viable deal, most probably because your valuation of him is far above what they would pay.

Yes, but it's the what they would pay that doesn't make any sense.

In my current Roma game, Juan Iturbe has been my starting right winger for two full seasons and through mid-January of the third. His CA is around 165, his PA 171. He's 24 years old, with a fairly friendly contract that expires in 18 months. Seven teams are listed as interested. Shakhtar are the only team to bid; they've offered me £11m six times in three weeks. They'll go to £19.25m +20% of profit, maximum. So where does that come from? Iturbe is one of the top players in his position in the world. He's the only one who's available. He's young and affordable (I mean here in wages. His contract is about £60k a week, well within the reach of the PSGs, Arsenals and Bayerns who are interested). Roma haven't performed particularly above expectations. So what gives?

Player value as a construct is flawed and unintuitive, and it's used as a stick to beat players with both ways. If you're complaining about buying, then player value is meaningless and of course you should ignore it. If you're complaining about not being able to sell, then suddenly it's well of course you're asking for too much look at the player value.

Yes, but it's the what they would pay that doesn't make any sense.

In my current Roma game, Juan Iturbe has been my starting right winger for two full seasons and through mid-January of the third. His CA is around 165, his PA 171. He's 24 years old, with a fairly friendly contract that expires in 18 months. Seven teams are listed as interested. Shakhtar are the only team to bid; they've offered me £11m six times in three weeks. They'll go to £19.25m +20% of profit, maximum. So where does that come from? Iturbe is one of the top players in his position in the world. He's the only one who's available. He's young and affordable (I mean here in wages. His contract is about £60k a week, well within the reach of the PSGs, Arsenals and Bayerns who are interested). Roma haven't performed particularly above expectations. So what gives?

Player value as a construct is flawed and unintuitive, and it's used as a stick to beat players with both ways. If you're complaining about buying, then player value is meaningless and of course you should ignore it. If you're complaining about not being able to sell, then suddenly it's well of course you're asking for too much look at the player value.

What IS his value? It can't be much if his contract expires in 18 months and he's on relatively low wages. The time remaining on the contract is quite possibly why you're getting low-ish offers and it'll also depend on how much Shakter actually have to spend and what they estimate their other targets to cost. If they can get someone for cheaper, they'll go for that rather.

You offered the player out for 3x his value. They don't see that as a viable deal, most probably because your valuation of him is far above what they would pay.

The way this all works is a bit odd, for example after Southampton were relegated I managed to sign Ward Prowse for my Crewe side for £20m. After a couple of cracking seasons he started to moan about wanting to leave he was valued at £22m, I offered him out for £50m no offers, £40m no offers, £30m no offers, £20m was followed by several offers of around £24m-ish. I then managed to negotiate one offer to £27m up front and £30m over 12 months with a small sell on. Some times all you have to do is hook the AI into a bid at a much lower value than what you actually want and you can negotiate a big deal.