Wrexham the chicken house, this is where things go wrong.

[AurioDK]

Every single week, I mean every single week I get a headline about my best players, how good they are and how much everyone wants them. After a while this gets to their heads and along with very ridiculous AI bids the chicken house takes shape, 3 players who are each 60 million in value receive bids from the exact same club, Tottenham, extremely ridiculous bids at about 35 million + a thousand clauses making the total of (at most) about 55 million for each. My players look at Tottenham and they all start to drool after I refuse the bids. With talks we do agree on a sale price which is 95 million for each but their morale takes a dip and they are now as "want to leave the club" .... this is set in stone for 6 months, they are waiting for a bid that matches the agreed price. The funny thing, Tottenham are 16th place and I am first with 15 points down to second.

I win the league and lose the final in the FA cup, new season starts my new star purchase (from last January) is haunted by Chelsea in the Summer, they tell him every single week how fantastic he is, he signed a 5 year contract 6 months ago but now wants to leave a club that is fighting for the title, champions league and ... well .. a bunch of other stuff.

So, I now have 5 players waiting 6 months for a bid that will probably never come, their morale is locked at "decent" and this impacts the rest of the club as at least 4 are regarded as highly influential.

 

It´s okay for the AI to want my players, the thing is that if I really want a player who is valued at f.ex. 20 million then I know I will have to raise that by a significant margin to get him, that is if he is very important to the club. The AI doesn´t follow that pattern, they bid peanuts and hope for the best.

It´s okay for the players to want to leave to another club and to agree on a sale price but do they have to spend the rest of their lives impacting club performances with a crappy attitude? Why can´t they be happy after scoring a hattrick and securing the title?

Me: Thank you, you really made a difference with those 3 goals!!

Player: Whatever dude!! I only signed that contract 6 months ago so I could buy more weed.

 

Wrexham the Chicken House is doing relatively well though, just need to rotate the star players to avoid having too many sour grapes on the pitch, the rest are doing a good job but a bit upset about the whole chicken ordeal.

[Spurs08]

You can do the exact same thing to the AI. In fact I've done it before with players that I don't even actually want to buy. As Tottenham in the second season I was in a top 4 race, but Brighton had somehow only lost one game by January and were third in the league. So I looked at their most important player - Tariq Lamptey with 20 acceleration, 17 agility, 17 pace and 16 balance was just dashing past everyone and causing mayhem, while also getting back rapidly to help the defence.

So I promptly started to scout him, with one of my scouts going to almost every Brighton game. I even went to one myself! I got his England U21 teammate Oliver Skipp, and then Harry Kane, to mouth off to the press about how much they've love to play with Lamptey at Spurs. I told the media what a fantastic young talent he was. Then once the window opened, I made Brighton a non-negotiable offer I knew they'd reject.

Bingo. He throws a huge hissy fit and starts disrupting their dressing room. He demands to move, but I don't make another offer (I'd signed Brandon Williams in the summer and didn't really need him). He promptly sulks for the rest of the season, only gets another two assists, and Brighton promptly drop to 7th as I claim 4th. As an added bonus, Matt Doherty - who I'd been trying to get rid of - gets upset at the prospect of even more competition at RB and demands a move, allowing me to ship him off to China.

If you go to the effort of unsettling players, you can get them at a decent price as well. Of course the problem is that you're Wrexham, so your reputation is low. I think in FM it's maybe a little slower than it should be to change over time, but it shouldn't be overnight. Look at 2016, when Kante left Leicester for Chelsea and Vardy nearly moved to Arsenal despite their success. And even now, I expect Arsenal or Tottenham would be more attractive to most players despite Leicester currently doing much better. It does take quite a lot of time and success.

[kentonizking]

I agree with the OP.

It is noticeably more when you are a overachieving club (and I assume club rep hasnt quite caught up with your progress), I have had several situations similar to the one outlined above, some just flat out way off bids out of nowhere that unsettle, others a player request to leave, followed by an agreed sale fee, followed by bids way lower that that.

I know players get unsettled by bigger clubs and clubs bidding and I approve of being able to agree a set fee with a player, but sometimes the other clubs just 'take the p*ss'..

 

Also, I don't think it is as easily done for the game player, as described in the 1st response. Even using the 'declare as Top Target' option doesn't provide the same level of unsettlement (?) that the AI seems to be able to do.

 

 

And don't get me started on clubs and their non-negotiable bids!!!!

[AurioDK]

12 hours ago, kentonizking said:

I agree with the OP.

It is noticeably more when you are a overachieving club (and I assume club rep hasnt quite caught up with your progress), I have had several situations similar to the one outlined above, some just flat out way off bids out of nowhere that unsettle, others a player request to leave, followed by an agreed sale fee, followed by bids way lower that that.

I know players get unsettled by bigger clubs and clubs bidding and I approve of being able to agree a set fee with a player, but sometimes the other clubs just 'take the p*ss'..

 

I have never seen this happen in Danish football and all talks about transfers are usually done before the transfer window opens, Mount who is still at Chelsea comes in every freaking week in the news stating how much he would love to see my centerback playing for Chelsea, it´s every single week without fail.