Selling players

[dking]

I seem to constantly be getting ridiculously bad offers for quality players, and that's if anybody even decides to make a bid.

Example - Fabinho who is a leading player in the division. Not transfer listed. Worth 76m. Juve offer me 50m for him and ask me to pay 71k of his 175k wages which I obviously refuse, so they come back and offer 51m and expect me to pay 71k of his wages again.

That's just one example of many joke offers I seem to get. Just me being unlucky or is this an issue with the game?

 

Edit - Just had another terrible offer of 44m for a top 24 year old forward worth 66m. Again, not listed or offered out.

Edited August 6, 2020 by dking

[FrazT]

They are trying to unsettle the player by expressing interest and bidding even although they are not expecting for the bid to be accepted.  It is an annoying part of the game and one that you have to deal with when you are a team with a reputation lower that the world's elite ( and sometimes even when you do have a high rep). I recently turned down a bid of 100 million for a world rated wonderkid and the same club came back about 3 weeks later with a bid of about 25 million- you learn to laugh and hit reject.

[Draakon]

10 hours ago, FrazT said:

They are trying to unsettle the player by expressing interest and bidding even although they are not expecting for the bid to be accepted.  It is an annoying part of the game and one that you have to deal with when you are a team with a reputation lower that the world's elite ( and sometimes even when you do have a high rep). I recently turned down a bid of 100 million for a world rated wonderkid and the same club came back about 3 weeks later with a bid of about 25 million- you learn to laugh and hit reject.

You obviously haven't read "Godfather" or you'd think twice about the second offer 

[Prokopije]

Yup, this happens all the time. There is that "unsettling thing", but come on - it is not possible that for almost 10 years in save clubs are trying to "unsettle" my players and nothing else.

And yet, in background, clubs are not "unsettling" each other, but buying and selling players for normal and sometimes absurd amounts of money. So how about to "level" things a bit? AI to AI and AI to human player transfers are not equal. Period. For example, Burnley will buy player who's worth 20M from Brighton and will pay 30-40M for him. But that to happen to us? NEVER!

[BuryBlade]

45 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

Yup, this happens all the time. There is that "unsettling thing", but come on - it is not possible that for almost 10 years in save clubs are trying to "unsettle" my players and nothing else.

And yet, in background, clubs are not "unsettling" each other, but buying and selling players for normal and sometimes absurd amounts of money. So how about to "level" things a bit? AI to AI and AI to human player transfers are not equal. Period. For example, Burnley will buy player who's worth 20M from Brighton and will pay 30-40M for him. But that to happen to us? NEVER!

I sold a backup player last night, valued at £8 million, for £50 million to Beijing (from Midtjylland). Bidding started at £20 million from a host of clubs, before the Chinese clubs got involved and after a week or so of AI clubs increasing the bids, I sold him. 

[yolixeya]

44 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

And yet, in background, clubs are not "unsettling" each other, but buying and selling players for normal and sometimes absurd amounts of money. So how about to "level" things a bit? AI to AI and AI to human player transfers are not equal. Period. For example, Burnley will buy player who's worth 20M from Brighton and will pay 30-40M for him. But that to happen to us? NEVER!

Not true at all. They do it to each other as well and if you have player shortlisted you will get the message that the player had a fallout with his manager because of some rejected bid or something. Just this season in my current save I bought replecement for Bernardo Silva who is going to retire at the end of the season, but I left him on loan for in that club. And then I bought another one because he was unsettled by some other club and i got the message and paid their asking price. It was around €50m and I tried to buy him earlier before he was unsettled and they wanted €80m+

[Spurs08]

1 hour ago, Prokopije said:

Yup, this happens all the time. There is that "unsettling thing", but come on - it is not possible that for almost 10 years in save clubs are trying to "unsettle" my players and nothing else.

And yet, in background, clubs are not "unsettling" each other, but buying and selling players for normal and sometimes absurd amounts of money. So how about to "level" things a bit? AI to AI and AI to human player transfers are not equal. Period. For example, Burnley will buy player who's worth 20M from Brighton and will pay 30-40M for him. But that to happen to us? NEVER!

If you want to buy one specific player, the price will be high, because you're in an awful negotiating position. If you want to sell a player, the price will be low, because you're in an awful negotiation position.

If you have a shortlist of 5-10 options for a position, keep any eye on them for a few months, try to unsettle and make a bid on the most available option at the right time, the price will be low. If you just reject poor offers for your players, aren't actively trying to offer them out or transfer list them, don't pay huge wages and make sure they have at least 2 years left on their contracts, the price will be high.

Lots of players think the AI is cheating because they find it hard to buy and hard to sell. The truth is that they're making it hard by being very short-term focussed and concentrating only on their ideal outcome, while the AI will often simply not sign up to a bad deal and will move on to a Plan B instead.

 

@dking Assuming you've got on reason to want to sell those players, why not just set it to auto-reject the low bids?

Edited August 7, 2020 by Spurs08

[Prokopije]

8 minutes ago, yolixeya said:

Not true at all. They do it to each other as well and if you have player shortlisted you will get the message that the player had a fallout with his manager because of some rejected bid or something. Just this season in my current save I bought replecement for Bernardo Silva who is going to retire at the end of the season, but I left him on loan for in that club. And then I bought another one because he was unsettled by some other club and i got the message and paid their asking price. It was around €50m and I tried to buy him earlier before he was unsettled and they wanted €80m+

In my case it truth that can't be truth more. I have 30-40 players on shortlist at any point, just once in almost ten years I saw that stuff you're talking about. Just now Barcelona bought one of my shortlisted players from Liverpool for 47,5M (was valued at 30) and than later Liverpool bought another one from River Plate for 13M (was valued at 3,5M). For example, when I'm at club where players are valued around 3,5M --- 7-8M is best I can get after rounds and rounds of negotiating and slow increasing of demands. Only in case that offer is negotiable (around 60% they are not).

22 minutes ago, BuryBlade said:

I sold a backup player last night, valued at £8 million, for £50 million to Beijing (from Midtjylland). Bidding started at £20 million from a host of clubs, before the Chinese clubs got involved and after a week or so of AI clubs increasing the bids, I sold him. 

Well, good for you, but I never experienced something like that. would like, though. Had offers for players from chinese clubs, but nothing spectacular (except they don't ask for sallary contribution unlike european clubs). 

[yolixeya]

33 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

For example, when I'm at club where players are valued around 3,5M --- 7-8M is best I can get after rounds and rounds of negotiating and slow increasing of demands. Only in case that offer is negotiable (around 60% they are not).

I just keep rejecting bids and act like I don't want to sell (and I don't), and sometimes when they truly want to buy they will start increasing the offer my themselves and I still keep rejecting. This can only work if you have him on a long contract.  It is also dangerous when you are in a smaller club because what happens is that eventually your chairman will accept the offer and he will do that on the last day of a transfer window so you will lose a player and there is no time to bring replacement.

and like @BuryBlade said, keep players on a long cotracts (my nad it was @Spurs08 who mentioned this). They will not spend more money on a player that has 2 or less years on a contract. Why would they when they can play waitng game and try to bring him for free or very cheap. Also if you negotiate offers you are giving a signal that a player is sellable and not so important to you.

Edited August 7, 2020 by yolixeya

[Prokopije]

18 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

If you want to buy one specific player, the price will be high, because you're in an awful negotiating position. If you want to sell a player, the price will be low, because you're in an awful negotiation position.

If you have a shortlist of 5-10 options for a position, keep any eye on them for a few months, try to unsettle and make a bid when the timing is best, the price will be low. If you just reject poor offers for your players, aren't actively trying to offer them out or transfer list them, don't pay huge wages and make sure they have at least 2 years left on their contracts, the price will be high.

Lots of players think the AI is cheating because they find it hard to buy and hard to sell. The truth is that they're making it hard by being very short-term focussed and concentrating only on their ideal outcome, while the AI will simply not sign up to a bad deal and will move on to a Plan B instead.

What is "bad deal" for AI? It seems that 50M for 30M player from MY club is "bad deal" for AI, but 50M for 30M valued player from other AI club is not a bad deal 

Transfer listed players. Try offer anything lower than asking price - offer is rejected. When I transfer list someone (speaking about reasonable asking prices 10M for 15M valued player, etc, pretty much same pattern AI sets asking prices when club wants to get rid of someone). There is no way that any club will match that price (Unless I offer some realy nasty discount). Offers are 1-2M lower than asking price. And non negotiable. If I reject, they don't come back with better offer, their interest in player vanquishes. And when we accept those faulty offers, than (of course) both board and supporters are disappointed cause "club should get more money". 

[HUNT3R]

14 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

Try offer anything lower than asking price - offer is rejected.

I posted this recently: 

I wanted the player, didn't want to pay the asking price. The asking price wasn't fair in my view and I didn't have the money, so 2 big reasons why I wouldn't bid the asking price and would go somewhere else, like the AI would. What I did do (genius, I know ) is keep track of the player. Got him for almost half.

 

When selling, I usually see two things - either I can get 100m+ if I add installments, instead of all up front (because it's obviously rare to have that big a budget and that big of a need to spend it on 1 player) and that bids increase the closer we get to the window closing and the other team still looking to sign a player that fits the role/position on their shortlist.

[Prokopije]

I do all those stuff, but it don't work. Mostly it ends up with other club sending non negotiable offer which is far bellow reasonable. I'm not expecting from AI to throw crazy amounts of money at us for every player once a week, at the end it is needed to have "right" players at our club for nice things to happen, but some "reciprocity" would be nice. For example, if we play with X club and want to buy star player from club Y, who's valued at 50M. In most cases, game won't let us to land him for less than 80-90M. That "easy" should be for us to get 80-90M for him when we manage club Y. That is NOT the case.

I noticed, for example, Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio. In every single of my saves he ends up somewhere (during first, "at worst" during second transfer year) for some lunatic fee. Sometimes it's M. City, sometimes PSG or Real, but fee is always astronomical. Now, I never tried, but I'm wondering if it works same way if we start game with Lazio? Does AI always throw at human those same astronomical offers...

@HUNT3R, yes,that is nice case, but it seems to me it's "once in a hundred". And it is not always possible to do such things, especially from weak club.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Prokopije

[HUNT3R]

11 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

And it is not always possible to do such things, especially from weak club

Yes but that is surely obvious. Bigger clubs have the pulling power.

In my case, it's the 2nd best team in France and I was (at the time) the 4th best, with regular 3rd place finishes. So we weren't too far apart but I think that what did it for me here is that he was already unhappy. I don't expect to unsettle a player at PSG, for obvious reasons. I do expect to be able to unsettle a player at weaker clubs here and there.

 

In general, I am finding players who are on the cheaper side. I am at a third or half of the salary spend of 3 other clubs in the league and the 5th overall on the 'salary per annum' table, so I am dealing with players who are cheap, wage-wise. Only in the last couple of seasons, have I had players at ­£80k+ / week wages. My highest is now on ­£125k/week, which is at least half of what the big 2 are spending on average.

Transfer fee wise, my best defender is a player I bought for £7.5m from River, an Argentinian wonderkid at the time. My keeper cost me £2.5m and I just turned down £30-35m offers from Barcelona for him. I bought my starting left back from Bayern Munich of all clubs - for 3m. My 2 midfielders cost £15.5m and £60m, though the latter was bought when in his prime and he's avg rating is 7.77 for me over 1 and a bit seasons. I have a front 3/4 who cost me £17.5m, £12m, £3m and £42.5m (one of the better players in the world) and another superstar who cost £4.3m from Boca, is now valued at £71m and I just turned down £114m for him.

I bought a central defender last season, who was good enough to make the bench and who regularly started toward the end of that season - get this - for £58k. Not million. Thousand. He's 18 and already 'worth' 11.25m.

So, basically my entire team (or most of them) have been put together by bargain hunting. Looking for better deals - players who are not only cheap, transfer cost wise, but also not to heavy on wages. I'm regularly dismissing players who would clearly improve my team, but who would want 150-250k / week. Even letting one in, will set a standard and soon the others in my squad are going to look for similar wages, being similar in importance to the squad.

I'm not a 'weak' club, but I can't compete with the big clubs in terms of money, transfer or wages. I'm competing on the pitch because I spend the little I have, wisely. A lot of players that I bring in are either very young, so medium/long term investments or they're on the brink of making a big impact, so more short/medium term. They get sub appearances, cup appearances or starts in matches where I need to rotate a bit and still expect that I can win.

 

Now don't get me wrong - I get silly offers too. I get a 50m offer for a striker that's 'worth' (it's not that, but I see the term often) 63m. I know it's a player that I can get 100m for, minimum. So... I reject. I doesn't bother me at all. The offer isn't good enough and I get to keep one of my best players. Life is good. Offer me 80m and I might ask for 120-140m (obviously not all up front) depending on how I feel and if I have someone to replace him. If I don't get that, I reject and move on.

For my better players, there are lots of others in the world who are similar, so there's usually someone cheaper and that's fine with me. I don't need to sell and keeping my squad together has given me a very gelled team and a first league win against bigger, better and richer teams. When it comes to my 2 'superstar' players, I can see the offers being higher as if they're a tier above. Fewer of those players around and those who are, aren't cheap. I have 3 of those players and 2 have had big offers. The other has only been with me for a season, so I don't think he's looking around... yet. So far, I'm not selling (even though offers are 100m+) until I'm satisfied they can be adequately replaced.

--

The TL;DR is that there are plenty of players available. Some expensive, some cheaper. That works for and against you. Great when buying, though you need some patience. Bad when selling, but some patience helps and waiting toward the end of a window. And installments help! Even the 'rich' teams spend, so they don't always have enough up front.

[turnip]

As someone else said, sometimes you've got to move on to the next player on the list if you can't get your first choice.

As a manager in Serbia, I managed to have bids of £80m and ~£70m for players who shouldn't really have commanded fees that big. I did that through the one weird trick of rejecting every bid that came in (including those bids, since I didn't have a replacement lined up). It certainly was possible to sign them for much much cheaper, since they were sold for ~20% of those fees after I left the club.

[yolixeya]

3 hours ago, Prokopije said:

yes,that is nice case, but it seems to me it's "once in a hundred". And it is not always possible to do such things, especially from weak club.

Yes and it makes sense that it's harder to unsettle them when you are weaker reputation club. But when you are in a club with good reputation it's not really "once in a hundred" and it+s fairly easy to unsettle them. I have a few of them signed just this season.

My playmaker I already mentioned. Unsettled by AI and I bought him for €56m.

My other DLP. Unsettled and bought for €20m and left him on loan for another year with Benfica. He has a 4 star+1black star PA so it's a robbery.

 

My CB, bought him for €45m. They wanted way more before I unsettled him. I could maybe play around and lower that more but I didn't want to as it was urgent to get a new CB.

Another player with full potential like Drago. Unsettled him and bought for €17m and left him on loan for another season.

This guy I don't even need but I unsettled him and bought from Atletico just because club culture is "sign young players and sell for profit". Bought him for €12m and sent him on loan. 

These were all signed in one transfer window and I didn't even have to work that hard. All it took was declaring intrest, answering media question about it, then lowballing one offer. So like I said, it's really not that hard when you are in a big club.

[Nacaw]

5 hours ago, Prokopije said:

I do all those stuff, but it don't work. Mostly it ends up with other club sending non negotiable offer which is far bellow reasonable. I'm not expecting from AI to throw crazy amounts of money at us for every player once a week, at the end it is needed to have "right" players at our club for nice things to happen, but some "reciprocity" would be nice. For example, if we play with X club and want to buy star player from club Y, who's valued at 50M. In most cases, game won't let us to land him for less than 80-90M. That "easy" should be for us to get 80-90M for him when we manage club Y. That is NOT the case.

I noticed, for example, Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio. In every single of my saves he ends up somewhere (during first, "at worst" during second transfer year) for some lunatic fee. Sometimes it's M. City, sometimes PSG or Real, but fee is always astronomical. Now, I never tried, but I'm wondering if it works same way if we start game with Lazio? Does AI always throw at human those same astronomical offers...

 

I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of nonsense. The AI isn't conspiring to make transfers more difficult for you, and you can't just say that a specific player worth 50 mill should be sold for the same amount every game. Demand is everything. If you are actively trying to sell a player, never expect more than his value. Sometimes you can get lucky and get more, but it's rare. The only way to consistently sell a player for more than his value, is to create interest in him naturally. You do this by playing him in your first team, or loaning him out to play first team football somewhere else. Once the first bids come in, you reject them. As time passes, they will increase their bids or switch target. That's how the AI can sell a 30 mill value player for 50+ million. You don't see that whole process when the AI buy from another AI. If you have a back-up player worth 30 mill that barely gets on the pitch, on high wages, you'll never get 50 mill for him. Maybe you can offload him close to his value, but the AI isn't going to bid up that sort of player. Why would it? Sure, it's an okay player, but there's no demand for him and since he doesn't play much you're more likely to want to sell him. Perfectly reasonable behaviour. 

Players at the top clubs also have an inflated value, which again makes comparing them to random AI sales problematic. Two players with a value of £30 mill could be Utd's 5th best centre back and Crystal Palace's star striker. I think it's pretty clear which player you'll need to overpay for? That's the root of your problem, because value alone is an imperfect indicator of how much a player will or should cost. 

Why does Milinkovic-Savic go for so much? It's really simple. He's on a long term contract, has high ability, plays often, performs well (almost always) and the AI doesn't want to sell him. Unless something happens to make him unhappy, the only way Lazio will sell is if they get those very high bids. 

[Bunkerossian]

How to sell a high-earning player that is performing okay-ish, but the club need to trim the wage bill? Dressing room would react poorly to directly forcing the player out.

[Bielsa1975]

On 07/08/2020 at 12:28, Prokopije said:

Yup, this happens all the time. There is that "unsettling thing", but come on - it is not possible that for almost 10 years in save clubs are trying to "unsettle" my players and nothing else.

And yet, in background, clubs are not "unsettling" each other, but buying and selling players for normal and sometimes absurd amounts of money. So how about to "level" things a bit? AI to AI and AI to human player transfers are not equal. Period. For example, Burnley will buy player who's worth 20M from Brighton and will pay 30-40M for him. But that to happen to us? NEVER!

Talking to a brickwall mate ,it does happen all the time but only to me and you , they try  to unsettle your player ,you try the same not a chance you can unsettle 

[Prokopije]

On 08/08/2020 at 00:37, Nacaw said:

I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of nonsense. The AI isn't conspiring to make transfers more difficult for you, and you can't just say that a specific player worth 50 mill should be sold for the same amount every game. Demand is everything. If you are actively trying to sell a player, never expect more than his value. Sometimes you can get lucky and get more, but it's rare. The only way to consistently sell a player for more than his value, is to create interest in him naturally. You do this by playing him in your first team, or loaning him out to play first team football somewhere else. Once the first bids come in, you reject them. As time passes, they will increase their bids or switch target. That's how the AI can sell a 30 mill value player for 50+ million. You don't see that whole process when the AI buy from another AI. If you have a back-up player worth 30 mill that barely gets on the pitch, on high wages, you'll never get 50 mill for him. Maybe you can offload him close to his value, but the AI isn't going to bid up that sort of player. Why would it? Sure, it's an okay player, but there's no demand for him and since he doesn't play much you're more likely to want to sell him. Perfectly reasonable behaviour. 

Players at the top clubs also have an inflated value, which again makes comparing them to random AI sales problematic. Two players with a value of £30 mill could be Utd's 5th best centre back and Crystal Palace's star striker. I think it's pretty clear which player you'll need to overpay for? That's the root of your problem, because value alone is an imperfect indicator of how much a player will or should cost. 

Why does Milinkovic-Savic go for so much? It's really simple. He's on a long term contract, has high ability, plays often, performs well (almost always) and the AI doesn't want to sell him. Unless something happens to make him unhappy, the only way Lazio will sell is if they get those very high bids. 

It's not a "bunch of nonsense" it's fact. At least in my case. I'm speaking about players who are regular starters. Best in team. For example, atm I have player who's good. Striker, 20 years old, two seasons in a row 20+ scored goals in EPL, became national team player, scored there as weel, got bunch of awards, young player of the season, few player of the month etc. When transfer window came, there's 10+ interested clubs (most of them major interest). And none of them offers good money. Slightly under his value and separated into million of instalments and clauses. I have no intention in selling him anyway, just giving an example. I'm declining offers, cause I want to keep him, and guess what? They're not increasing. Not much, at least. They raise it for 100-200K per round, and after few rounds, they send one final non negotiable offer and that's it.  And he's not the only one. And it's not just in this club. 

It's also interesting that once I leave the club, most of those folks are beeing sold for amounts much larger than I ever saw in incoming transfer offers. But I guess, that's jut "bad timing"... I move to another club just before AI decides "it's right time to make those players someone's top priority to buy"...

As for Milinkovic-Savic, question was not why he goes for so much, that's clear. Question was, if we start with Lazio, do we get those crazy offers from AI as well (150M transfer to M.City, early july, etc). Or is it slightly under value, separated into million of clauses and instalments? 

 

[Nacaw]

35 minutes ago, Prokopije said:

It's not a "bunch of nonsense" it's fact. At least in my case. I'm speaking about players who are regular starters. Best in team. For example, atm I have player who's good. Striker, 20 years old, two seasons in a row 20+ scored goals in EPL, became national team player, scored there as weel, got bunch of awards, young player of the season, few player of the month etc. When transfer window came, there's 10+ interested clubs (most of them major interest). And none of them offers good money. Slightly under his value and separated into million of instalments and clauses. I have no intention in selling him anyway, just giving an example. I'm declining offers, cause I want to keep him, and guess what? They're not increasing. Not much, at least. They raise it for 100-200K per round, and after few rounds, they send one final non negotiable offer and that's it.  And he's not the only one. And it's not just in this club. 

It's also interesting that once I leave the club, most of those folks are beeing sold for amounts much larger than I ever saw in incoming transfer offers. But I guess, that's jut "bad timing"... I move to another club just before AI decides "it's right time to make those players someone's top priority to buy"...

As for Milinkovic-Savic, question was not why he goes for so much, that's clear. Question was, if we start with Lazio, do we get those crazy offers from AI as well (150M transfer to M.City, early july, etc). Or is it slightly under value, separated into million of clauses and instalments? 

 

There can be a hundred reasons why the AI will bid like that, but none of them have anything to do with the AI conspiring to make transfers more difficult for human players. Saying that this happens in some cases, doesn't mean you can claim such a broad statement as fact.

If your player is in demand, set an asking price you are comfortable with and reject anything below that, same as the AI will do when you bid. Don't negotiate, just flat out reject. 

The AI transfers will almost always have clauses and instalments, but the news item isn't giving you such details. You can absolutely get 150M for SMS, but there are too many variables needed for it to happen every game, regardless if Lazio is managed by an AI or a human.

Look, I understand it sucks not to get good offers for your players. I don't always feel like I get good offers for mine either. I'm certain that's also realistic though. It's maybe a little bit harder (or more complex at least) to sell your players for big profit, compared to previous versions of the game. 

 

[HUNT3R]

I received weak offers for my left winger for about 2 seasons. He was valued between 45m and 60m during that time and the offers were often around 50-70m and not more. Tbf, I noticed that other, similar prospects were also going to cost that much so a) there was little point in me selling (replacing  similar players for similar fees) and b) I couldn't expect more since anyone looking at these targets would then leave my player to rather buy someone else who is cheaper. In 3rd season of getting big offers, I finally started getting bigger ones. I held out for 95m (was valued around 60m at the time) and I bought 2 players with that money. One, a player at his peak and at DLP, has 4 goals in 7 matches while still obviously being new. He can speak the language at least. The other, a rough diamond at 22yo, but he has 3(2) appearances in the league with 3 goals and 5 assists. Also obviously new and still settling in, but can also speak the language, so communication isn't an issue.

 

Transfer prices seem to vary quite a bit in my save. Some years there are a bunch of 120m + transfers happening. Other years, the fees struggle to break 100m.

[Prokopije]

On 12/08/2020 at 23:17, Nacaw said:

There can be a hundred reasons why the AI will bid like that, but none of them have anything to do with the AI conspiring to make transfers more difficult for human players. Saying that this happens in some cases, doesn't mean you can claim such a broad statement as fact.

If your player is in demand, set an asking price you are comfortable with and reject anything below that, same as the AI will do when you bid. Don't negotiate, just flat out reject. 

The AI transfers will almost always have clauses and instalments, but the news item isn't giving you such details. You can absolutely get 150M for SMS, but there are too many variables needed for it to happen every game, regardless if Lazio is managed by an AI or a human.

Look, I understand it sucks not to get good offers for your players. I don't always feel like I get good offers for mine either. I'm certain that's also realistic though. It's maybe a little bit harder (or more complex at least) to sell your players for big profit, compared to previous versions of the game. 

 

I am making statements based on personal excperience with game. Year after year, club after club. If you, for example, getting offers around 35 M for certain player, and than first window after you switch club, that player is beeing sold for 60M. And if you see that few times (with different but proportional fees), than in my opinion, something's not right there...

 Also, no bidding wars - all interested clubs send almost identical offers, like they communicated between them and make mutual agrement how much to offer. 

 

[turnip]

You say that, but when I left Partizan in my save, they sold a DC for £7.25m when I'd rejected bids of more than £50m the season before (I mean, they sold basically everyone for a pittance, but whatever).

A new manager is going to look at the squad in a different way from you. Maybe you flat-out rejected bids of £35m, while the new manager negotiated to £80m and the other club got the hint that a deal was possible, so bothered to negotiate?

[sporadicsmiles]

First the AI does this to each other all the time. You are not privy to the process because you are not seeing the rejected bids (unless you follow the player), but very frequency you will see an AI team bid for the player of another AI team, have it rejected, the player get unhappy and ask to leave, and get sold for less than the original asking price. You should be keeping track of this happening in the player search screen because you can also join bidding for unhappy players you normally would not be able to get. So the AI is just doing the same to you. Which makes absolute sense, if you can get a player for cheaper by unsettling them, you should absolutely do that. And big clubs do this to each other often. Real Madrid in particular are known for making their interest in a player known so that they can get their players cheaper. 

Indeed, a player should also do this, because the AI will respond exactly as you do. Reject the silly transfer offer and then deal with player unhappiness as best they can, which is often the player asking to leave and being listed for less than their value. This is how I get many of the expensive players in my save. You have to time it right and be patient is all. That way you can avoid paying over the odds for a player. 

If you want to avoid this being a big problem as a user, manage your contracts well. A key player you know you do not want to sell should always be kept with at least 2 years on their contract. That way you do not care so much if they are unsettled for a transfer window. They will almost always get over it once the interest is gone (I cannot think of a single example where this did not happen in my saves). What you do not want to happen is to have a player being unsettled when they have a short time on their contract and their being unsettled gets in the way of a do or die contract negotiation. So the player should be making sure that does not happen. Don't wait until the last year of a contract to negotiate with a key player. Ever. 

[fivetwelvepony]

I can't understand why I can't sell my attacking midfielder. 24 yo, EU eligible, lots of green numbers in the key attributes. It's been several years since I've received any offer at all, and I now have a logjam developing at the position. I offer him to clubs with an unspecified asking price and no one submits a bid. Any suggestions? Is my only option to transfer list him and sell him for less than value?

[HUNT3R]

7 minutes ago, fivetwelvepony said:

I can't understand why I can't sell my attacking midfielder. 24 yo, EU eligible, lots of green numbers in the key attributes. It's been several years since I've received any offer at all, and I now have a logjam developing at the position. I offer him to clubs with an unspecified asking price and no one submits a bid. Any suggestions? Is my only option to transfer list him and sell him for less than value?

Would need a LOT more info.

Which club are you managing and which league are you in now? What's his wages and is it high in general? What leagues do you have loaded? Were you recently promoted? Did he recently sign a new contract?

Basically, give all the info you can around this. Teams might be interested, but if he's not interested in a move, they won't bid. If his wages (and so his wage demands) are too high, they will find someone cheaper. Not sure what you mean by EU eligible, but will he require a work permit? Might that be an issue for teams? Is there a reason he'd rather stay, ie already at the best league and club, just promoted and wants a chance in the better league etc?

[fivetwelvepony]

I'm in France, so there is a maximum 4 slots for non-EU players and EU eligibility is pretty valuable. He has 3 caps for Argentina, but has French second nationality. I guess he would need a wp for England, not sure if that would be a problem.

His contract began two years ago and has two years remaining. It is for $7.4m/year, not bargain basement but I think reasonable for his production.

We won Ligue 1 last season, so we are a high reputation team but certainly not in the best league. He's not asking for a move but claims he is interested in speaking to other clubs. 

[HUNT3R]

13 minutes ago, fivetwelvepony said:

I'm in France, so there is a maximum 4 slots for non-EU players and EU eligibility is pretty valuable. He has 3 caps for Argentina, but has French second nationality. I guess he would need a wp for England, not sure if that would be a problem.

His contract began two years ago and has two years remaining. It is for $7.4m/year, not bargain basement but I think reasonable for his production.

We won Ligue 1 last season, so we are a high reputation team but certainly not in the best league. He's not asking for a move but claims he is interested in speaking to other clubs. 

Difficult to say. I'm in a similar spot and those are high wages for France (PSG and Lyon excluded) but I've had offers for all my similar players on similar wages. First time you're in the CL? That might limit the clubs that he'd want to go to. Sounds like he also is relatively unknown outside of France? If it is your first CL, he'll get more exposure and gain more rep, so may be more in demand then.

[fivetwelvepony]

Thanks for your replies.

We've been in the CL for three or four years running. We managed to win it season before last (maybe that's for the thread about the game being too easy!). So he should be well known in Europe. Consistently strong performer -- led the league in assists one season, average ratings the last three years in the league are 7.48 , 7.32, and 7.70.

You might be wondering at this point why I want to sell. Well I have two other guys I could rotate into the AMC slot who are about as good, plus one more out on loan, and this guy is the only one interested in leaving.

[Spurs08]

35 minutes ago, fivetwelvepony said:

Thanks for your replies.

We've been in the CL for three or four years running. We managed to win it season before last (maybe that's for the thread about the game being too easy!). So he should be well known in Europe. Consistently strong performer -- led the league in assists one season, average ratings the last three years in the league are 7.48 , 7.32, and 7.70.

You might be wondering at this point why I want to sell. Well I have two other guys I could rotate into the AMC slot who are about as good, plus one more out on loan, and this guy is the only one interested in leaving.

It does seem harsh, but I can kinda see it. Probably safe to say he only wants to move to another CL club, and only the English ones plus a select few others (e.g. Munich, Juventus, Real and Barca) may be able to meet the demands for both likely transfer fee + wages (with him likely to ask for a significant bump above his already big wage). He is a very good player, but I'd say borderline to be a starter at such a club. It might be one worth posting in the bugs forum and uploading for SI to have a look at, but equally it might just be a fairly odd situation.

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, fivetwelvepony said:

I'm in France, so there is a maximum 4 slots for non-EU players and EU eligibility is pretty valuable. He has 3 caps for Argentina, but has French second nationality.

Wait, these don't make sense, unless I'm misunderstanding the rules. If he has a French 2nd Nationality, he shouldn't be a foreign player? It's hard for me to check. I have 2 Argentinians, but due to them being in France for 5 years, they picked up the 2nd Nationality and they're not Foreign anymore.

[fivetwelvepony]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. That's what I am saying -- he counts as EU because of his French second nationality.

Spurs08 I think you are probably right -- I'd be hoping for something north of $70 million, which limits the number of suitors. I doubt it's a bug. Sounds like I might be stuck.

It's just a mystery to me why some guys have everyone from Schalke to Valencia to Huddersfield coming in hot for them every year, and others of seemingly similar ability it's just crickets.

[Spurs08]

1 hour ago, fivetwelvepony said:

Sorry if I wasn't clear. That's what I am saying -- he counts as EU because of his French second nationality.

Spurs08 I think you are probably right -- I'd be hoping for something north of $70 million, which limits the number of suitors. I doubt it's a bug. Sounds like I might be stuck.

It's just a mystery to me why some guys have everyone from Schalke to Valencia to Huddersfield coming in hot for them every year, and others of seemingly similar ability it's just crickets.

Yeah, I don't think the game logic is brilliant there to be honest. To me it basically looks like it lacks variety - most AI managers broadly 'think' the same way and therefore reach the same decision on which targets to go for, whereas in real life some would have different priorities and therefore prefer a different option the FM algorithm has decided is very marginally less attractive such as your player. That does mean that you can sometimes have more luck later in the window though once those prior targets are gone, so keep trying!

[yolixeya]

16 hours ago, fivetwelvepony said:

I can't understand why I can't sell my attacking midfielder. 24 yo, EU eligible, lots of green numbers in the key attributes. It's been several years since I've received any offer at all, and I now have a logjam developing at the position. I offer him to clubs with an unspecified asking price and no one submits a bid. Any suggestions? Is my only option to transfer list him and sell him for less than value?

I had a similiar thing happen to me a few times where nobody was intrested in a player. Sometimes I knew the reason like in FM19 when i was trying to get rid of old Donnarumma. Clubs were interested but he was on high wage and no one wanted to give him what he demands. Then again example from FM19 where I had a winger who was good and part of my CL winning team. I didn't want to much money for him, just for someone to pay his value because he counted towards EU slot that I wanted to free. But there was no interest in him not even from clubs where EU slot is not the problem which I can't really explain. No one was intrested even when I offered him for less money. Ended up loaning him out of the country for 2 seasons and then Juve bought him for his value. Sometimes, it pays off just to be patient.

[yolixeya]

I have founf 18 year old wonderkid who is in the last year of contract. I manage Man City and he is in Breast and his value is €16,75M. So I made couple of non-negotiable offers of €30m and €35M and they rejected it. Then they transfer listed him and set the asking price to €52M. But then I made another offer it was only 10m but it was negotiable and I included loan back clause until the end of the season and they negotiated it to €16.75M.

Do you think this is a some kind of a bug or a exploit or is this a reasonable decision by the club because they will get how much he is currently worth and have him for another season? They are not really in position to make rules because his contract is expiring but I was really suprised they weren't stubborn and demanded €52M. Didn't expect that from AI.

[KingCanary]

11 minutes ago, yolixeya said:

I have founf 18 year old wonderkid who is in the last year of contract. I manage Man City and he is in Breast and his value is €16,75M. So I made couple of non-negotiable offers of €30m and €35M and they rejected it. Then they transfer listed him and set the asking price to €52M. But then I made another offer it was only 10m but it was negotiable and I included loan back clause until the end of the season and they negotiated it to €16.75M.

Do you think this is a some kind of a bug or a exploit or is this a reasonable decision by the club because they will get how much he is currently worth and have him for another season? They are not really in position to make rules because his contract is expiring but I was really suprised they weren't stubborn and demanded €52M. Didn't expect that from AI.

Loan back clasues to seem to help drop values quite a bit.

I had a bid accepted for a 5 star 18 year old at £24m with a loan back clause, Liverpool had to bid £40m to get their bid accepted with no loan back clause.

Of course, he signed for Liverpool but hey ho.

[yolixeya]

1 hour ago, KingCanary said:

Loan back clasues to seem to help drop values quite a bit.

I often sign young players with it but I have never seen that they accept a bid below their asking price. That is why I asked. But it was probably due to him being in the last year of contract. 

[CaptCanuck]

On 16/08/2020 at 22:41, sporadicsmiles said:

First the AI does this to each other all the time. You are not privy to the process because you are not seeing the rejected bids (unless you follow the player), but very frequency you will see an AI team bid for the player of another AI team, have it rejected, the player get unhappy and ask to leave, and get sold for less than the original asking price. You should be keeping track of this happening in the player search screen because you can also join bidding for unhappy players you normally would not be able to get. So the AI is just doing the same to you. Which makes absolute sense, if you can get a player for cheaper by unsettling them, you should absolutely do that. And big clubs do this to each other often. Real Madrid in particular are known for making their interest in a player known so that they can get their players cheaper. 

Indeed, a player should also do this, because the AI will respond exactly as you do. Reject the silly transfer offer and then deal with player unhappiness as best they can, which is often the player asking to leave and being listed for less than their value. This is how I get many of the expensive players in my save. You have to time it right and be patient is all. That way you can avoid paying over the odds for a player. 

If you want to avoid this being a big problem as a user, manage your contracts well. A key player you know you do not want to sell should always be kept with at least 2 years on their contract. That way you do not care so much if they are unsettled for a transfer window. They will almost always get over it once the interest is gone (I cannot think of a single example where this did not happen in my saves). What you do not want to happen is to have a player being unsettled when they have a short time on their contract and their being unsettled gets in the way of a do or die contract negotiation. So the player should be making sure that does not happen. Don't wait until the last year of a contract to negotiate with a key player. Ever. 

This! For players I want to keep or who I think can get a good transfer fee, by Dec - 18 months before their contract expires - at the latest I will negotiate a new contract. I'm now in July 2025 and looking to redo contracts for June 2027 expiration of my key players.

It can also bubble up contracts you don't want to make and gives you a bigger window to sell the player before they run it down. Dean Henderson was my #1 and developed into England's #1, when I went to renegotiate his contract in Dec he wanted a ridiculous raise to 200k/week. No way I was paying that, so I used that upcoming Jan transfer window to sell him on for good/not great fee.

[HUNT3R]

7 minutes ago, CaptCanuck said:

Dean Henderson was my #1 and developed into England's #1, when I went to renegotiate his contract in Dec he wanted a ridiculous raise to 200k/week. No way I was paying that, so I used that upcoming Jan transfer window to sell him on for good/not great fee.

I'm in a similar spot right now. I've been keeping my spend on wages quite low. I've raised the max for a key player from 95k/week to 125k week as we've risen from predicted 5th in the league (top of 'the rest') to now being part of the 'big 3' in the league. My average wage spend is still half of the other 2 clubs, competing for the top 3 spots. My top striker (and one of the best in the world) now wants and increase from £57k/week to £190k/week, which isn't ridiculous in terms of what he'll earn at another top club. I've just negotiated for him to be on £150k/week. That's a fair jump from my self imposed 125k cap and I expect the other key players to want similar wages. I'm on the fence right now, but I'm strongly considering selling him when it's the off-season. It's January now, so there should be more money floating around then. He's amazing, but raising others' wages may be too much for my budget.

He's a top player, valued at 87m, so I should be getting 120m+ for him. I have already turned down ±105m a season or so ago.

[CaptCanuck]

31 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I'm in a similar spot right now. I've been keeping my spend on wages quite low. I've raised the max for a key player from 95k/week to 125k week as we've risen from predicted 5th in the league (top of 'the rest') to now being part of the 'big 3' in the league. My average wage spend is still half of the other 2 clubs, competing for the top 3 spots. My top striker (and one of the best in the world) now wants and increase from £57k/week to £190k/week, which isn't ridiculous in terms of what he'll earn at another top club. I've just negotiated for him to be on £150k/week. That's a fair jump from my self imposed 125k cap and I expect the other key players to want similar wages. I'm on the fence right now, but I'm strongly considering selling him when it's the off-season. It's January now, so there should be more money floating around then. He's amazing, but raising others' wages may be too much for my budget.

He's a top player, valued at 87m, so I should be getting 120m+ for him. I have already turned down ±105m a season or so ago.

I like your attempted discipline :-) Being a tad frugal is one of the things I enjoy on the management side of FM and trying to maintain a cap. And like you once I have someone on silly wages I definitely am more open to selling them. I have Tonali on 215k/week (which blew up that cap) and since then I would listen to offers, whereas before, no way, as he's been an asst cap/capt since his 2nd season with the club and his competitive mental attributes are awesome. But now? Sure Liverpool, sure Madrid... back up the truck.

Now that I have back-to-back Champions League campaigns (including a finals loss) and a 2nd/3rd in the league the past two seasons I see better teams interested in my players. But I guess I still need their reps to go up to really cash in?

Regarding Henderson, he was only valued at 38mil IIRC, so the 200k/week totally caught me by surprise.

[HUNT3R]

Just now, CaptCanuck said:

I like your attempted discipline :-) Being a tad frugal is one of the things I enjoy on the management side of FM and trying to maintain a cap. And like you once I have someone on silly wages I definitely am more open to selling them. I have Tonali on 215k/week (which blew up that cap) and since then I would listen to offers, whereas before, no way, as he's been an asst cap/capt since his 2nd season with the club and his competitive mental attributes are awesome. But now? Sure Liverpool, sure Madrid... back up the truck.

Now that I have back-to-back Champions League campaigns (including a finals loss) and a 2nd/3rd in the league the past two seasons I see better teams interested in my players. But I guess I still need their reps to go up to really cash in?

Regarding Henderson, he was only valued at 38mil IIRC, so the 200k/week totally caught me by surprise.

I've found on previous FMs that players wanted similar wages to other players with the same squad status. It seems to be similar in terms of 'playing time' in this FM.

I have posted earlier in the thread that transfer prices seem to differ from year to year. It depends on who is available and what the teams have in terms of transfer budgets. Sometimes the top transfer is 'only' 90 something million where other times it's as high as 140m. I'm in 2032 now and I've found the same in terms of looking at who to buy. Sometimes there are quality players knocking about for 20-60m and other times you 'need' to pay more than that. So, supply and demand. In seasons where there aren't a lot of players available (of a certain 'class' or skill level) at a decent price, you could get a lot for your own players. Other years, when there are more options for cheaper, you struggle to sell (for obvious reasons) your own, similar, players for 'good' money.

[Justin Tomlinson]

On 18/08/2020 at 17:35, fivetwelvepony said:

I can't understand why I can't sell my attacking midfielder. 24 yo, EU eligible, lots of green numbers in the key attributes. It's been several years since I've received any offer at all, and I now have a logjam developing at the position. I offer him to clubs with an unspecified asking price and no one submits a bid. Any suggestions? Is my only option to transfer list him and sell him for less than value?

I could do with signing him!

[CaptCanuck]

52 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I've found on previous FMs that players wanted similar wages to other players with the same squad status. It seems to be similar in terms of 'playing time' in this FM.

I have posted earlier in the thread that transfer prices seem to differ from year to year. It depends on who is available and what the teams have in terms of transfer budgets. Sometimes the top transfer is 'only' 90 something million where other times it's as high as 140m. I'm in 2032 now and I've found the same in terms of looking at who to buy. Sometimes there are quality players knocking about for 20-60m and other times you 'need' to pay more than that. So, supply and demand. In seasons where there aren't a lot of players available (of a certain 'class' or skill level) at a decent price, you could get a lot for your own players. Other years, when there are more options for cheaper, you struggle to sell (for obvious reasons) your own, similar, players for 'good' money.

Good point on supply/demand! My first two seasons I had CBs poached (White then Webster) for really good money versus their 'value', as who doesn't want a sturdy, improving, young English CB in the Prem.

I think if you have a 'less important' player (wingers maybe?) who has a high value you are naturally going to have a smaller group willing and able to pay and will get potential fees accordingly. Really need to find that sweet spot (for me in 2025 anyways) of the first generation of real players getting old and needing to be replaced vs the newgens coming into their own, as I have a bunch of 'real' players entering that 23-27 age where they should be maxing out their transfer fee potential.

[HUNT3R]

8 minutes ago, CaptCanuck said:

Good point on supply/demand! My first two seasons I had CBs poached (White then Webster) for really good money versus their 'value', as who doesn't want a sturdy, improving, young English CB in the Prem.

I think if you have a 'less important' player (wingers maybe?) who has a high value you are naturally going to have a smaller group willing and able to pay and will get potential fees accordingly. Really need to find that sweet spot (for me in 2025 anyways) of the first generation of real players getting old and needing to be replaced vs the newgens coming into their own, as I have a bunch of 'real' players entering that 23-27 age where they should be maxing out their transfer fee potential.

I love these situations. IMO, it's not something that's set in stone, so we as managers need to come up with a solution. The actual solution can be different from user to user and that affects the game world too. Where I may set my cap at 125k... others may not. That will have different consequences and depending on the players available and the money available, different costs etc. It's why I love thinking on my feet and handling the situation as it presents itself, rather than a gaming 'if x then y' approach. It may not even always work in my favour, but then I have to deal with it.

[CaptCanuck]

1 hour ago, HUNT3R said:

I love these situations. IMO, it's not something that's set in stone, so we as managers need to come up with a solution. The actual solution can be different from user to user and that affects the game world too. Where I may set my cap at 125k... others may not. That will have different consequences and depending on the players available and the money available, different costs etc. It's why I love thinking on my feet and handling the situation as it presents itself, rather than a gaming 'if x then y' approach. It may not even always work in my favour, but then I have to deal with it.

Absolutely! If it was buy Player X with scouting reco of 81 in 2020, sell Player X in 2025 for 75mil as expected, rinse repeat, it would be boring.

I bought a 20yr old wonderkid DLP this preseason because he's class and wants to join the Seagulls, and isn't asking for too much in wages; but I also bought him to hedge my bets if someone does come in for Tonali or one of two other awesome CMs I have. If no team does do that, they I have an imbalance to manage around which is part of the fun.

Conversely I didn't get a 19yr old wonderkid striker because my contract offer was 'only' for 75k/week with an easy raise to 90k/week, as Everton trumped it with 120k/week from the off. And now I am thinking - darnit maybe had I gone 90k with clause to 105k he'd have signed.

Definitely all part of the fun! So while I can commiserate with folks that cannot shift guys (I have a few of my own that I'd rather be shot of still) I'll take the frustration over having a guaranteed conveyor belt style sign-develop-sell.

[fivetwelvepony]

1 hour ago, Justin Tomlinson said:

I could do with signing him!

I'm sure we could settle on a transfer fee. Mail me a bottle of scotch and you have my permission to create him in editor. 

[CaptCanuck]

On 24/08/2020 at 12:37, HUNT3R said:

I love these situations. IMO, it's not something that's set in stone, so we as managers need to come up with a solution. The actual solution can be different from user to user and that affects the game world too. Where I may set my cap at 125k... others may not. That will have different consequences and depending on the players available and the money available, different costs etc. It's why I love thinking on my feet and handling the situation as it presents itself, rather than a gaming 'if x then y' approach. It may not even always work in my favour, but then I have to deal with it.

That supply and demand thing is fun :-)

After selling 30mil-valued Gouri (IF/AF) for 30mil early in the window, later Fulham were apparently really keen for a striker and while interested in a Salcedo transfer, were also interested in loaning one of my promising newgen attacking players. I loaned him out to another team and eventually got 47.5mil for 32mil-valued Salcedo! I bumped it up from 45mil, because they want me contributing 25k/week for the next two seasons. I did also get rid of my 200k+/week player Tonali, valued at 55mil for 80mil to rivals Liverpool admittedly (but they are so stacked, what's one more).

Definitely makes up for some of the lower valued guys in the high teens/twenties mil that are maybe not getting the offers.

[Prokopije]

And of course, one more to go. First transfer window after I left Swansea. I did not get offer above 36-37M (which was aprox his value).

Btw, there was no negotiations, I keep him on shortlist. First there was offer from Chelsea at 60M( non neg.), they rejected, than L'pool came with with non neg. 79M. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Prokopije

[Aizawa]

On 25/08/2020 at 01:40, HUNT3R said:

I'm in a similar spot right now. I've been keeping my spend on wages quite low. I've raised the max for a key player from 95k/week to 125k week as we've risen from predicted 5th in the league (top of 'the rest') to now being part of the 'big 3' in the league. My average wage spend is still half of the other 2 clubs, competing for the top 3 spots. My top striker (and one of the best in the world) now wants and increase from £57k/week to £190k/week, which isn't ridiculous in terms of what he'll earn at another top club. I've just negotiated for him to be on £150k/week. That's a fair jump from my self imposed 125k cap and I expect the other key players to want similar wages. I'm on the fence right now, but I'm strongly considering selling him when it's the off-season. It's January now, so there should be more money floating around then. He's amazing, but raising others' wages may be too much for my budget.

He's a top player, valued at 87m, so I should be getting 120m+ for him. I have already turned down ±105m a season or so ago.

I do not understand how you managed to keep such low wages. I always dreaded contract renewals negotiations. Most of the time they always ask for absurdly high wages, especially young players. Marco Kana, 21 year old, squad player, who's on £30k/week wants 160k/week to which I eventually negotiated down to 130k. Negotiations broke down 3 times (his agent dislike me now, and it goes two ways, he's effin impatient) I started on November, and finally got him to sign on February after I caved. Meanwhile, Ki Jana Hoever, is even worst. While I tend to rotate most other positions without qualms, Trent is basically non replaceable in my team, as in no other right back perform as well as him so he plays a lot. So I have only sparingly use Hoever. But from earning £17.25k/week on his current contract right now, he asked for £165k/week and bumping to £205k/week after 5 league games (Hoever's agent is also impatient like Kana's) I eventually settled on £140k/week, but it's utterly ridiculous considering Vinicius Junior who I have just signed in January for £70m is on £145k/w, a regular starter. In another comparison, Curtis Jones willing to accept £85k/week which is reasonable considering he's already played a lot and is an established squad player. I'm thinking I will try to sell Hoever later, hopefully can get at least £65m for him (he's valued at £54m).

[HUNT3R]

13 hours ago, Aizawa said:

I do not understand how you managed to keep such low wages. I always dreaded contract renewals negotiations. Most of the time they always ask for absurdly high wages, especially young players. Marco Kana, 21 year old, squad player, who's on £30k/week wants 160k/week to which I eventually negotiated down to 130k. Negotiations broke down 3 times (his agent dislike me now, and it goes two ways, he's effin impatient) I started on November, and finally got him to sign on February after I caved. Meanwhile, Ki Jana Hoever, is even worst. While I tend to rotate most other positions without qualms, Trent is basically non replaceable in my team, as in no other right back perform as well as him so he plays a lot. So I have only sparingly use Hoever. But from earning £17.25k/week on his current contract right now, he asked for £165k/week and bumping to £205k/week after 5 league games (Hoever's agent is also impatient like Kana's) I eventually settled on £140k/week, but it's utterly ridiculous considering Vinicius Junior who I have just signed in January for £70m is on £145k/w, a regular starter. In another comparison, Curtis Jones willing to accept £85k/week which is reasonable considering he's already played a lot and is an established squad player. I'm thinking I will try to sell Hoever later, hopefully can get at least £65m for him (he's valued at £54m).

I'm not sure what to add. I have kept my entire team under that cap. You mention Trent - are you managing Liverpool? Their wage structure is obviously different and higher than that, so players will want different salaries and higher ones. It'll depend on the actual wage structure and the playing time offered etc.