KingCanary

Something I've never been clear on- if I make an offer for a player that includes a wage contribution from the selling team, is that included in the contract negotiation figures or added to it? So for example I bid for a player on wages I could never afford (about £35k p/w) and negotiated that the selling team would contribute £15k p/w. At the negotiation screen the player was requesting £28k p/w. Does this mean the selling team would be paying £15k of that £28k or would I be paying him £28k and his old team would pay him £15k on top of that?

Around £500 ideally but could flex.

Thanks. I literally only play FM so don't care too much re graphics card.

Thinking of changing my laptop and wanted to know- is there anything I should be looking out for in the specs that might indicate how noisy it will be playing FM? I bought a gaming laptop about 3 years ago and it is generally good but at times it sounds like a plane is about to take off and kicks out so much heat when playing FM. If I do replace it I'd want to avoid that.

Seriously, backroom advice needs so much work. I've just had someone recommend that I demote my star 20 year old central defender, rated as 4 star player with 5 star potential by my coaching team, who has an average rating of over 7.5 in the 50+ games he's played since arriving to a 'breakthrough prospect.' I'm tempted to fire the staff member on the spot.

I'm in a save where my team created a 2nd team after promotion to the top division and I'm a bit confused about how certain elements work. Contracts- I'm getting messages from the manager of the second team saying he couldn't agree terms with a player- he's usually offering terms such as youngster or breakthrough prospect (which would make sense as the second team is largely younger players) but they all want Important player or similar to reflect their status in the B team. If I give them the terms the ask for an I promote them to the first team a season later, will they want the same playing time? Am I better off promoting them to the first team or demoting them to the u19's before opening negotiations so they have more realistic playing time expectations? Homegrown status- I've noticed my players in the second team are gaining days towards being homegrown 16-21 at Metalist 2 rather than Metalist. Will this translate to if I move them up? Transfers- if I agree a transfer before the window opens (ie in May after the season ends) I usually move that player into the B team in order to make organising my squad a bit easier. However this then means when they leave they aren't listed on my 'transfer history' screen. Minor annoyance but it would be good to be able to see all moves across the teams in one place.

I think in general the board's view of things needs a bit of work. Why, for example, are the board solely interested in the financials when reviewing your transfer deals, while fans are the only ones concerned with their performance on the pitch? It seems odd that the board apparently don't evaluate a players on pitch performance when deciding if he was a good signing on my part.

I feel like I'm constantly pointing out little niggly things that need working on but there are so many that chip away at the experience of playing what is overall a very good game. My Meatlist team have just played Porto in the Champions League and drawn 1-1. The Porto manager was apparently pissed about a decision but for some reason is raging at 'the quality of refereeing in Ukraine' despite the fact that a European game would be officiated by a referee from a neutral location, so nothing to do with Ukraine. My top striker has 6 goals in 9 appearances this season, following on from seasons with 26 goals in 42 games, 29 in 42 and 29 in 31. My backroom staff's advice? 'Not good enough for the playing time he wants (important player) demote to fringe player. Just a few too many things that make you go 'huh?' and totally break the immersion.

Yes I have Brazil loaded, don't know what the other thing is. It is less the nationality (although I do agree clubs don't seem to have much of a personality when it comes to transfer profiles) but the fact they've splurged about £120m on players who all play the same positions.

AI squad building continues to need a lot of work. In January Shakhtar paid £20m for one of my central defenders. In the summer window they've now paid £32m for 29 year old Jan Bednerek in the same position. They also paid £50m for Joao Palhinha, a natural DM who can play CB before also spending £16m on Grillitsch who is also a DM that can play CB. They also laready have Matvienko, a top rated defender and Marlon who won the 'Defender of the Year' award in the league the year prior. Due to this poor squad building I'm pretty hopeful of getting my central defender back next window for less than half they paid me.

Relatively minor issue I've just noticed. When approaching a player in the last 6 months of his contract you'll sometimes get them refusing to negotiate as they want to leave their options open which is fair enough. However if you instead agree a fee with the club, the same player will happily negotiate with you and end up signing. In my opinion having agreed a fee with the club wouldn't change the players desire to consider all their options at the end of their contract.

I've found patience is super important when selling players. For example I transfer listed a couple of midfielders recently. Both had values between £1m-2.5m. I set their asking price near the top of those ranges. For the first few weeks the best bids I was getting were below the lowest part of their values and non-negotiable. So I rejected and waiting. Then I started getting bids that I could negotiate so I managed to get them to around £1.6m with some add ons which I was OK with. Accepting this then led to a couple more bids which I could negotiate up and I ended up getting just under £2m + add ons for both. Not ideally what I wanted but not too far off.

Interesting, thanks. However surely the game needs to make that apparent somewhere?

I think this scouting report is an excellent example of the confusing mixed information the game is giving people... From this screen, he's apparently a 4 star player who'd be considered a leading player in my league and reasonably affordable but he's only a C+. He's been watched for 5 games so no lack of data and knowledge. However if I click into his profile... So he's a C+ report but I should sign him whatever the price? And then even more confusingly I click on the potential ability star in the scout report tab and... He's now an A grade signing!

This is all really interesting but highlights a continued issue I have with the game and the feedback it gives to players- an awful lot of this is really unclear and thus why I'd rather do away with the stars altogether. They are given quite a lot of prominence but seem to have so many variable factors that go into them and fluctuate with such regularity that they become next to useless. Take the idea that star rating reflect how they compare to others in your squad- the text next to it gives no indication that it is based on that, just on the players ability relative the the level you're playing at. The point about scouting grades is interesting but another level of confusion- I've often wondered why a player with 4/5 star potential is given a C- but another with lesser ability sometimes gets a B and would never have put together that this is due to a lack of analytical data for the first player as the game is telling me we've got 100% knowledge. I also find it a bit strange that I'll have players who can play multiple positions with little variation in star rating across positions and roles. For example I have a player right now who is able to play RB, LWB, CM, AM, AML. According to a coaches report he's a 3 star player as a mezzela in CM but also a 3 star NNFB at RB and a 3 star trequartista. It feels off to me that this coach is suggesting he's just as good in 3 very different roles all over the pitch.

I'm currently managing in the Ukrainian league, which features an extended 6/7 week break in the middle of the calendar. I'm also experiencing some minor European success which means my first games back from the break are often knock out games against tough opposition and I'm finding it a challenge to get my team fit again to face these games. Right now I'm running an almost full preseason schedule of 4 friendly matches to try and get the team up and running but they seem slow to regain sharpness I'm wondering if there are other things I should be looking at?

Not sure if this is considered a 'hot take' but I'd be tempted to get rid of star ratings- they've largely become useless and there is so much that goes into them that isn't clearly explained that I find them more of a hinderance than anything.

I'm really anal about refusing to pay a player over £100k a week unless I absolutely have to- which often leads to having 6 or 7 players on £99kp/w and various bonuses but it helps to keep some demands in line.

Yeah exactly. I flagged the same issue where fans have really strong opinions when you sign a couple of 17 year olds on the basis they may have some potential. There is no chance these fans have seen enough of these random teenagers to form these opinions but yet the game still gives you them.

Mentioned before but fan reactions to signings often seem wildly out of proportion. I've just signed an emergency backup keeper on a free for the season as I've only got two senior keepers on the books, my backup just got injured for about 5 weeks and the window is shut so only freebies allowed. Apparently my fans are ANGRY at this signing, which feels excessive for an emergency backup who likely will be here for 6 months.

Got injured holding the scarf above his head for the website photos.

So due to the fact it was so overpowered in previous editions I've been avoiding using gengenpress tactics. I've switched recently out of curiosity and it still feels wildly overpowered. I used a very basic 4-3-3 DM wide with the gengenpress pre-sets with my Metalist Kharkiv team in the Ukranian League. Results so far have included my first ever win over Shakhtar, a 3-1 win over Celtic in CL qualifying and then a pretty staggering 8-1 two legged victory over Anderlecht in the same competition. This was with me just dropping this tactic in the day before the first of these games. It feels off to me that a tactic that relies on fitness and relentless pressing can just garner instant results with zero prep and training.