Transfer update doesn't make sense

[HUNT3R]

Errrrrrrrrrrrrmm, because he is IRL

Eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm, that's because he started the season with Chelsea.

In the update, he'll start at Man Utd so.... why would he be cup-tied?

[StretfordEnd]

Eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm, that's because he started the season with Chelsea.

In the update, he'll start at Man Utd so.... why would he be cup-tied?

And there you have the answer. He started the season with Chelsea, not Man Utd. So he shouldn't be there from the start.

[Ackter]

Then don't play with the transfer update?

[StretfordEnd]

Basically what you's are saying is, your happily for realism to be thrown out of the window because you wont sacrifice a bit of profit to fund making a realistic database. For a game that prides itself on its database, realism and supposedly a sim of real life, its ok to cut corners when it suits?

In that case why can't I recall a player that is on loan at the start of the game? If I want to recall Nick Powell I cant. Why not? Because he starts the season at Wigan and is on a season long loan? But Mata can be at United from the start? Yeh OK

[HUNT3R]

Look, SI don't have to give us a transfer updated database. They do. Don't like it or the way it has been done? Don't use it. You have the option. You cannot cup-tie a player that's at the club from the start, because he hasn't played for another team in that season. Setting them to have future transfers would create double work for SI, when it isn't necessary.

[StretfordEnd]

Then don't play with the transfer update?

Or you could include the option to not have transfer budgets for the first 2 windows and use a future transfer update from the editors forum. If the option was included to have no budget for the first season, plenty of people would make future transfer databases. They get made every year anyway, but then you still get a budget in January. Stopping that would add more realism.

You include the first window budget option because its not realistic that clubs can buy players after they have done all their summer spending by the time the game comes out and thats fair enough, but once the winter update is added, they have also spent up in the winter so why allow them a budget in that window aswell? Have an option to stop it for the entire first season. Your only adding another window. Its one more check box. And can't see it being that hard to program. Its just using the existing code and changing one window to two.

Then you either spend the entire first season with the squad that you should have (summer and winter windows) or you have transfer budgets aswell.

[borobadger]

People will defend anything. The current way of doing the transfer updates just doesn't make any sense

[Ackter]

I'd be fine with addition of a season long transfer embargo.

[StretfordEnd]

Look, SI don't have to give us a transfer updated database. They do. Don't like it or the way it has been done? Don't use it. You have the option. You cannot cup-tie a player that's at the club from the start, because he hasn't played for another team in that season. Setting them to have future transfers would create double work for SI, when it isn't necessary.

Well dont then. Plenty of update are available to download in the editors forum. And better updates at that seeing as many transfers are missed after data lock. We get the update in March already over a month behind transfer wise from the real world. If you havent the resources to include a proper update, save the budget for fixing the game breaking bugs every years that we have to wait for months to be fixed after release through various updates. Or make it as easy as possible for the community to positively work with the update to make it better for everybody. As ive pointed out, a simple thing like not allowing a transfer budget in the first 2 windows would solve the problem. That way the community can make future transfer updates without clubs getting a budget in January. Then the game is as realistic as it can get for the first season.

Seeing as the season is almost over by the time we get the winter update anyway, and many people are already using edited databases from pr0 of Nik since the window closes (with regular updates), the simple option of no budgets for both windows would improve the game no end for the people that like to have transfer happen when they happen.

[HUNT3R]

Or you could include the option to not have transfer budgets for the first 2 windows and use a future transfer update from the editors forum. If the option was included to have no budget for the first season, plenty of people would make future transfer databases. They get made every year anyway, but then you still get a budget in January. Stopping that would add more realism.

You include the first window budget option because its not realistic that clubs can buy players after they have done all their summer spending by the time the game comes out and thats fair enough, but once the winter update is added, they have also spent up in the winter so why allow them a budget in that window aswell? Have an option to stop it for the entire first season. Your only adding another window. Its one more check box. And can't see it being that hard to program. Its just using the existing code and changing one window to two.

Then you either spend the entire first season with the squad that you should have (summer and winter windows) or you have transfer budgets aswell.

Why don't you suggest it in the Wishlist thread? That has a chance of being added at least.

[Ackter]

People will defend anything. The current way of doing the transfer updates just doesn't make any sense

Why would adding transfers in January make sense? It's not possible to start the game in January with real life results as licensing issues prohibit it. Therefore all of the results would be different leading up to those transfers anyway, or is that bit fine with you?

[HUNT3R]

If you havent the resources to include a proper update, save the budget for fixing the game breaking bugs every years that we have to wait for months to be fixed after release through various updates. Or make it as easy as possible for the community to positively work with the update to make it better for everybody.

You show a real lack of understanding here. SI have to update the database anyway. That is in the "budget". They'll need the updated database for the next FM too.

[borobadger]

Why would adding transfers in January make sense? It's not possible to start the game in January with real life results as licensing issues prohibit it. Therefore all of the results would be different leading up to those transfers anyway, or is that bit fine with you?

I think you misunderstand my point. I think the real life standings thing is pointless, I want to start in July rather than January, but I want to start with the original squads, play the season as normal, then in January the already agreed signings would go through

[HUNT3R]

I think you misunderstand my point. I think the real life standings thing is pointless, I want to start in July rather than January, but I want to start with the original squads, play the season as normal, then in January the already agreed signings would go through

That still means double work for SI.

[kris0710]

so let me get this straight, many want the January transfers to go through in January, so the like of Mata wouldn't be at united when you start a game? If that is the case I can't believe people aren't moaning that when you load up a game you start in July the players that moved clubs on say transfer deadline day are already at clubs. If you want January transfers happening on the day the deal was done surely starting as Arsenal you would not want Ozil joining until the end of August? I can't recall ever seeing a thread moaning about that but surely it is exactly the same argument? No? Also what about managers? When the January update comes out there are clubs that have no manager so should that be set that they are sacked when a certain date comes round? Couldn't bare to start a save in July where a club has no manager but in real life in July 11th they did! Also imagine the time it would take to set that up for Fulham alone. Yes, the last part is mostly tongue in cheek.

[StretfordEnd]

Why would adding transfers in January make sense? It's not possible to start the game in January with real life results as licensing issues prohibit it. Therefore all of the results would be different leading up to those transfers anyway, or is that bit fine with you?

It might not make much difference to the teams at the top end of the scale but it would be a pretty decent challenge for the lower end of the table. Imagine starting with Hull. You know you need to work with what you have, and do the best you can, but you know in January you will be getting Long and Jelavic and can try and push on up the league.

If the first season embargo was in place for FM14, Imagine using an update in the summer which has the Jan transfer set as future transfers and then the summer transfers set as future transfers. You could take over Inter knowing that at the end of the season you will be getting Vidic on a free (possibly Evra and Hernandez if rumours are to be believed). It opens up a whole new world of gameplay and options for one simple thing to be included like a 2 window embargo.

[borobadger]

That still means double work for SI.

It might be double work and I understand that, but it would be such an improvement on the current system. Is it not a case of instead of moving them to the club straight away, just adding a date for a future transfer?

[HUNT3R]

It might be double work and I understand that, but it would be such an improvement on the current system. Is it not a case of instead of moving them to the club straight away, just adding a date for a future transfer?

Quoted from just a little higher up:

That's double work too. So in January, they should update the database by using future transfers. That's already quite a big task. Then they have to do it again for FM15, but this time remove the future transfers and actually transfer the players?

[StretfordEnd]

so let me get this straight, many want the January transfers to go through in January, so the like of Mata wouldn't be at united when you start a game? If that is the case I can't believe people aren't moaning that when you load up a game you start in July the players that moved clubs on say transfer deadline day are already at clubs. If you want January transfers happening on the day the deal was done surely starting as Arsenal you would not want Ozil joining until the end of August? I can't recall ever seeing a thread moaning about that but surely it is exactly the same argument? No? Also what about managers? When the January update comes out there are clubs that have no manager so should that be set that they are sacked when a certain date comes round? Couldn't bare to start a save in July where a club has no manager but in real life in July 11th they did! Also imagine the time it would take to set that up for Fulham alone. Yes, the last part is mostly tongue in cheek.

In an ideal world, SI would make the summer transfers on the day also, but they dont. So we can only work with what we buy when we buy the game. This is about future transfers being added. As the game stands, people can edit the starting database to include future January transfers. If there was a way to edit the original box database to make players join clubs on the correct dates that would be a bonus. That would be something that SI would have to include within their editor. Maybe allowing the user to start a season on June 1st so then the players join date could be changed to the real one.

[borobadger]

Quoted from just a little higher up:

It may be extra work, but surely striving to improve one of the most unrealistic aspects of the game should be high on the priority list?

[themadsheep2001]

It may be extra work, but surely striving to improve one of the most unrealistic aspects of the game should be high on the priority list?

Not if the workload is unfeasible. We could spin this every way possible, but if the workload is unfeasible they are not going to change it, and that's pretty much the bottom line.

[borobadger]

Not if the workload is unfeasible. We could spin this every way possible, but if the workload is unfeasible they are not going to change it, and that's pretty much the bottom line.

That's fair enough if that's the case. I'm not arguing saying they should definitely do it, but if it was possible it would be a such an improvement on the current system

[Ackter]

It may be extra work, but surely striving to improve one of the most unrealistic aspects of the game should be high on the priority list?

Basically, changing one field in the database takes a few seconds.

Adding a future transfer takes a few minutes to get all the details right.

Then you have to alter all the finances to make sure each team doesn't go to hell in the process.

In short, it's a hell of a lot more work to do it that way, and they're already pressed for time doing it this way.

[santy001]

Setting all transfers to 1st of January is in no way at all realistic, not even remotely so why would it be any better than the current option of having them all there from the start?

Alternatively we could do it in a way that lists every player that joins at every point through the season so when your game starts on X of July or X of June you have the squad as it was at that date and we put in all the transfers manually for Player A who joins on the 23rd of July, Player B who joins on the 2nd of August, Player C who joins on August 30th and Player D who joins at 11pm on August 31st. Then go to January, rinse and repeat.

Then we can turn our attentions to the youth levels, where players move a lot more frequently. A couple of years back we had a player at Stoke called Smajl Suljevic who joined, left and re-joined the club 3 times in the space of 12 months before being released. Should I have been putting in his join date, departure date, join date, departure date, join date and departure date in for each of those moves? It's rare but youth players may sometimes go to 3 or 4 clubs in a season, should each move be entered in advance?

Once you expand that out to multiple countries and the amount of testing involved, it quickly becomes apparent why we don't do that. It would be frustrating enough from a research perspective having to check all the dates in game are right.

[forameuss]

I doubt it's even a case of workload - they've said several times that it isn't possible to do it the way some seem to want it. Is there really any point in going any further with it knowing that?

[DamianJMcGrath]

I can see the original posters point, although obviously I hear the arguments against too.

If I start a new game, following the application of the January patch, the game starts 6 months ago (comparing FM dates to real life dates), and the game starts with team squads as at January. I can see how the FM period of July to January would appear as unrealistic to many players. They play as their favourite team to replicate the real world challenge. For example, if a player is playing as Man United, and wins a few points thanks to Mata in September/October, then it is easy to see why this is felt to be unrealistic. Players cannot accurately replicate the challenge facing Moyes between July and January.

I have read the reply from Neil Brock, but I'm not 100% sure I understand it.

The January patch requires resource to be built, and many players need to have their team changed. Instead of doing this, all SI need to do is set them up as a future transfer instead. When it comes to the database for the 2015 version of the game, SI can quickly run a query to pick up all players with a January future transfer set, and remove the future transfer and change their team to the future team, and then double check them all for accuracy. Relatively simple.

The excuse of not enough resource is frankly ridiculous. The same excuse could be used for not adding more leagues, such as Indonesia, China, etc, that must have relatively small target audiences but SI do it because they want the most realistic game ever.

There could be another option, where you tick to turn off transfer budgets, that says "Force January transfers to happen in January, not be applied immediately". If that box is ticked, then the user doesn't get a transfer budget until the summer of the following year, so in effect, the first season (squad wise) goes along a trajectory as close to real life as possible.

It's not a completely unreasonable request, to be honest, and I think it deserves a slightly more considered answer rather than "don't have the resource". I cannot imagine it would take significantly more time than it currently does.

[DamianJMcGrath]

Setting all transfers to 1st of January is in no way at all realistic, not even remotely so why would it be any better than the current option of having them all there from the start?

Alternatively we could do it in a way that lists every player that joins at every point through the season so when your game starts on X of July or X of June you have the squad as it was at that date and we put in all the transfers manually for Player A who joins on the 23rd of July, Player B who joins on the 2nd of August, Player C who joins on August 30th and Player D who joins at 11pm on August 31st. Then go to January, rinse and repeat.

Then we can turn our attentions to the youth levels, where players move a lot more frequently. A couple of years back we had a player at Stoke called Smajl Suljevic who joined, left and re-joined the club 3 times in the space of 12 months before being released. Should I have been putting in his join date, departure date, join date, departure date, join date and departure date in for each of those moves? It's rare but youth players may sometimes go to 3 or 4 clubs in a season, should each move be entered in advance?

Once you expand that out to multiple countries and the amount of testing involved, it quickly becomes apparent why we don't do that. It would be frustrating enough from a research perspective having to check all the dates in game are right.

This attitude is completely understandable, and I'm sure it has SI approval. I know you've given a complex example too, and I agree with you that it would take a long time and be frustrating to input every date and every bit of information. However, isn't it slightly dangerous ground for a researcher to say he's not inputting all of the information because it's too difficult? Isn't that basically saying SI are striving for realism, as long as it's easy to do?

[themadsheep2001]

This attitude is completely understandable, and I'm sure it has SI approval. I know you've given a complex example too, and I agree with you that it would take a long time and be frustrating to input every date and every bit of information. However, isn't it slightly dangerous ground for a researcher to say he's not inputting all of the information because it's too difficult? Isn't that basically saying SI are striving for realism, as long as it's easy to do?

It's saying they will do it as long as it's feasible to. For the the kind of data base the OP wants, santy is talking about how much info a (volunteer) researcher would have to do. Feasible and easy are not the same thing.

Resource isnt money, its manpower. And the point is as Santy points out, is that it would take considerably more time to do. Which is why it's not done

[DamianJMcGrath]

5 or 10 years ago, adding the Chinese Second Division (for example) would have been deemed unfeasible. No harm in being optimistic and ambitious.

[OxfordUnitedFC]

I can see why some may want this but surely it would be a lot of work?

As well as programming in these future dates they'd also have have to ensure that all finances were calculated correctly and that the clubs could afford the transfers even after any financial changes that happen between the summer and january windows.

Also if a player is programmed to change clubs in january but breaks his leg in december the transfer would still go through and it isn't realistic that a club would spend tens of millions on a player that's out for 7 months.

Also it would be ridiculous to take into account player changes and not manager changes so they'd also have to do these too. Given how different it is in game this could see Fulham being near the top of the league and for some reason sacking two managers during the season.

I don't think that this is such a major issue that it warrants the extra effort to be honest.

[themadsheep2001]

5 or 10 years ago, adding the Chinese Second Division (for example) would have been deemed unfeasible. No harm in being optimistic and ambitious.

Researchers give up enough free time as it is. They do have jobs and lives too

[DamianJMcGrath]

I'm sure there's people on here that have experience using the editor. As far as I know, there's people out there that create a database relatively quickly (especially taking into account it's just one person, who doesn't have professional tools) that goes down to Level 14 in England.

Based on this thread so far, could someone list out the steps needed to make a database that the original poster is after. I'm thinking off the top of my head:

1. Get a list of all January transfers in the nations you care about, or if you're after completeness, the World transfers. I'm sure there's websites out there that list them.

2. Go into the editor, and amend all of these players so their current team is their old team, and they have a future transfer to their new team on the right date, for the right amount.

3. Ensure the relevant teams have their bank balances and transfers budgets increased by the right amounts, so when the transfers go through, everyone's bank balances reflect a post January reality. (when starting a game, ensure no team can sign players until the first January window).

What else needs to be done?

Once the steps are agreed, someone can estimate the amount of resource needed, so we can have a more informed argument.

In regards to the original posters request of having all results and league tables reflect real life between July and January, I simply don't see a way of doing that, unless, as someone said, SI enhance their editor to allow users to change the game start date, and enter in results, goalscorers, etc for all dates between July and January, so that when the game is started, the first day is January 1, and the game uses the typed-in results to show the current league table. Whether an editor like this can be made possible or not is the main question.

A game that could be started on January 1st, with real-life results showing for the previous 6 months would be the ideal solution, and allow users to play the second-half of the season challenge, such as winning Europe with Man United, etc. I think everyone admits licences are involved, so this wouldn't be able to be official, but there may be scope to allow users to physically type in data themselves, such as results, etc. Might take a while, but not that long, and the end result would be perfect for some people.

[StretfordEnd]

Then we can turn our attentions to the youth levels, where players move a lot more frequently. A couple of years back we had a player at Stoke called Smajl Suljevic who joined, left and re-joined the club 3 times in the space of 12 months before being released. Should I have been putting in his join date, departure date, join date, departure date, join date and departure date in for each of those moves? It's rare but youth players may sometimes go to 3 or 4 clubs in a season, should each move be entered in advance?

What has a player moving X times got to do with anything? We already know short term loans aren't included so if your Stoke player moves 5 times in a season for 1 or 2 months loans each time thats irrelevant.

The whole testing argument doesnt wash either. If Joe Bloggs sat at home can make a transfer update from his computer, using the editor you provide and run a few test saves to make sure there are no errors, then this update gets downloaded thousands of times each having numerous saves with no problems whatsoever, you expect us to believe SI with all its employees, and probably a much better editor than we have, have to test a database update for months and months? Its ridiculous. The ME changes fair enough. But if Joe Bloggs sat at home can make thousands of changes to the database with no problems whatsoever ON THEIR OWN, whats SI's excuse with all their "resources"?

[StretfordEnd]

Basically, changing one field in the database takes a few seconds.

Adding a future transfer takes a few minutes to get all the details right.

Then you have to alter all the finances to make sure each team doesn't go to hell in the process.

In short, it's a hell of a lot more work to do it that way, and they're already pressed for time doing it this way.

In what way does it take longer?

To change a player how you do it now you would change the club they are at for a start. Then you would change their join date, and update contract details.

If you set up a future transfer, you change the join date to when they join, which club they are joining to, and their future contract details.

Not much difference at all, and definately not as much where your looking at minutes per transfer extra to change.

Even the finances you would have to change either way. Whether you set the transfer as current or future, you would still need to edit each clubs finances to replicate transfer fee's and wage budgets. The only thing changing is the join date. How much extra time does that take?

If you was talking to a load of div's it might wash, but if we can do it with the editor you provide, in the same amount of time it would take to make a normal data update, im sure SI with all their "resources" and a much better editor could do it just as easily.

[DamianJMcGrath]

My opinion on this is the debate is a little pointless because Neil has already dismissed it but I think the ideas being raised are valid, reasonable and haven't yet had a convincing counter argument against.

Its definitely doable unofficially and therefore should easily be doable officially. Its worthy of discussion and its worthy of a proper convincing reason why it can't be done.

[WeeScotsPaul]

I'm curious as to why people want to play from July then have "agreed" transfers go through in January, when those transfers were NOT agreed in July. So in game terms, Mata's transfer to Man Utd was agreed by Chelsea and David Moyes some 5-6 months AFTER "John Smith" took over the reigns at Old Trafford as a rookie manager? In what way would Juan Mata arriving to play for John Smith's club in January be "realistic", when his meeting with David Moyes can't have happened? The game becomes unrealistic as soon as John Smith arrives for his first day at work, it's the nature of the beast. :-)

[milnerpoint]

I'm curious as to why people want to play from July then have "agreed" transfers go through in January, when those transfers were NOT agreed in July. So in game terms, Mata's transfer to Man Utd was agreed by Chelsea and David Moyes some 5-6 months AFTER "John Smith" took over the reigns at Old Trafford as a rookie manager? In what way would Juan Mata arriving to play for John Smith's club in January be "realistic", when his meeting with David Moyes can't have happened? The game becomes unrealistic as soon as John Smith arrives for his first day at work, it's the nature of the beast. :-)

Exactly, its as unrealistic to have the transfers set up from day one of the game, because in reality, the transfers do not exist at that point in time.

[Dagenham_Dave]

I'm curious as to why people want to play from July then have "agreed" transfers go through in January, when those transfers were NOT agreed in July

Exactly.

[DamianJMcGrath]

That's completely missing the point. You buy the game in say November and the game start date is July but the squads are the same and you can play knowing you're exactly replicating the challenge faced by the real life manager, players wise. People like the illusion of that reality.

After the January update, people start a new game in July, and already have January's players, so the challenge isn't the same. Its either easier or more difficult and the illusion of reality is gone and players can't put themselves in Moyes' shoes.

What people are asking for is an option to delay real world January transfers to happen in January in the game, so the first FM season can replicate reality as closely as possible. Obviously the player will make his own decisions but that's the point of the game - to say "here are the cards you've been dealt, now can you manage better than Moyes?"

The "cards" for the first season is to get Mata in January and not before.

[borobadger]

That's completely missing the point. You buy the game in say November and the game start date is July but the squads are the same and you can play knowing you're exactly replicating the challenge faced by the real life manager, players wise. People like the illusion of that reality.

After the January update, people start a new game in July, and already have January's players, so the challenge isn't the same. Its either easier or more difficult and the illusion of reality is gone and players can't put themselves in Moyes' shoes.

What people are asking for is an option to delay real world January transfers to happen in January in the game, so the first FM season can replicate reality as closely as possible. Obviously the player will make his own decisions but that's the point of the game - to say "here are the cards you've been dealt, now can you manage better than Moyes?"

The "cards" for the first season is to get Mata in January and not before.

Exactly this. The current system makes no sense and as far as I can see, this is by far the best way to improve realism

[milnerpoint]

Well guys, you all have access to the editor. SI have stated they are not changing, but you have the option to do the work required by yourself, it shouldnt take too long based on what your all saying.

[DamianJMcGrath]

That's exactly the question we're asking milnerpoint.

We don't believe it will take too long, especially as the majority of the work needs to be done for the January update anyway.

That's why we're after a decent response from SI with a explanation of why its so difficult.

If one guy using the editor could do it fairly quickly, surely it wouldn't take too long to do it officially. That's our question.

[milnerpoint]

Well, then do it yourself if it wont take too much time. I can promise you, you will give up after 4 hours of pulling your hair out trying to get it right and that would be you just trying to get England done.

You also have your answer from SI further up, they dont have the resource to do it, simple really, i have no idea why this is still a discussion.

[stevemc]

I did one last year in the editor, at the end of each day in January, I'd update the transfers that happened that day, set as future transfers for January, with the transfer fee being deducted from the buying teams budget.

Was pretty easy all in to be honest and it worked, but I wouldn't have done it all in one go.

[Lawlore]

From a purely selfish perspective, I'd prefer that they didn't do one at all, and instead didn't have the pressure of this update deadline. The January data update is a nice gesture but gets treated like it's an expected necessity. It's not. The game has an accurate as possible database at the start of the season, which is exactly the same as pretty much every other football game ever released. Anything more than that released should be considered a bonus.

And I understand entirely why setting as future transfers is a non-starter- it's more work that then needs to be undone before being redone as a full, normal transfer for the FM15 database.

[a.panda]

Would it be easier to ask one of those people making unofficial transfer update pack to incorporate these suggestions? They are already doing the hard work, and the request matches the work they do. The end result would be the same, and if (a big if) this kind of update was more popular and attracted a sustainable number of people to use, then you could bring this support to the table and propose to SI to "listen to the users"?

I read the thread a few days ago and I am amazed to see this is still going on. The question, now, seems to be shifted toward the man-hour available inside the SI team. If SI says no, then it's a no, at least for the moment. If they see this idea is feasible and gathering support within the community, they would probably change their mind. I, personally, would like SI to use these man-hours for debugging and development!

[DamianJMcGrath]

The only way to evidence gathering support within the community is to continue the discussions and overcome the counter arguments and not take a no as the final answer.

[milnerpoint]

Good luck, because this wont change in a hurry.

[Dagenham_Dave]

What people are asking for is an option to delay real world January transfers to happen in January in the game, so the first FM season can replicate reality as closely as possible. Obviously the player will make his own decisions but that's the point of the game - to say "here are the cards you've been dealt, now can you manage better than Moyes?"

The "cards" for the first season is to get Mata in January and not before.

What about if you choose to go Chelsea in July? You didn't have the 'cards' of Mata leaving halfway through the season in July did you, given that wasn't agreed until much later in the season in real life. You're only looking at the 'Mata' example from one side.

[DamianJMcGrath]

When you start a new game with Chelsea after the January update has been applied, and the game starts in July (6 months previous) you know that the"cards" for the season is for you to have Mata available until January, then you lose him and you get some money in return. You also get whatever players Chelsea signed in January, and lose that money.

Therefore the entire first season is exactly reflective of the reality Mourinho went through and your first season challenge is to try and manage like him under the exact same situations, player wise. This appeals to a lot of FM players.