Garrlor

I'm still playing FM18, where I am relatively happy with the level of player interaction that I am forced to undergo. Generally players are easier to talk to and they don't fly off the handle for no real reason. You do get some positive/negative reactions from the squad at times but its not over the top and it at least makes sense. I owned FM19 and loved the training overhaul, but hated the constant requests for new contracts and temper tantrums when they didn't get their way. Year by year I have seen these get worse, press conferences get more tedious and other nonsense creep in. This means that I haven't gone beyond the demo versions of FM since FM19, which is telling all of itself.

Interestingly, my first FM18 save used a 4-2-3-1 with Mata playing from the right as a creative winger, Pogba as a SV (A) from deep and Matic in the midfielder strata as a BWM. Very similar concepts to what you are talking about here and it created some fantastic football at the time. I only dropped it as the patches were released.

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony! You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!! Never too early for some Monty Python. Though this mandate from the masses is how we got Boris, Truss and Trump so maybe some moistened bint lobbing a Scimitar has merit.

Followed up with some Coldplay and Keane.

Going strong even in real life!

IIRC you were playing in Brazil in FM18 and also trying to get a SV working well without attributes.

For me the second one means the coach/scout has no confidence in what he is predicting. Often on my initial scout reports they will be 2.5 star CA and max of 4 to 5 star PA (Manchester United, Top scouts). But they will predict championship level despite the apparent 4 to 5 star potential from the initial scouring, which is normally proved right after a more in depth scouting. If its a player in your side like that, your coaches just aren't sure. He might have been developing slower than predicted, meaning they are guessing at his potential level and they are pitching it lower than his maximum possible. I agree it can be frustrating, but if you treat them purely as rough guides its not a huge issue.

4-1-3-2 with the Central midfielder attacking the box. Similar to the Diablo tactic from CM03/04.

Just to clarify, there is no incompatability with 1 and 3. In picture 1, he is is clearly at the standard required for Majors, with the potential for a little bit more growth. When compared to number 3, your coaches/scouts are informing you that he could reach 4*, which would match the actual ability of player 1, but that they aren't 100% sure that he will actually make it that far. Hence the potentially Majors standard tag, even though he is a Prime level player right now. They arent 100% sure on his actual ability level right now, which means that they cant say with confidence what level he is at. More scouting would help here. As for image 2, the coaches/scouts are making a judgement call that even though he potentially has a high celing, he wont make it as far as Majors standard for a number of reasons (age etc). Hence the Championship designation, with a potential tag. The English description is designed to indicate the ambiguity, if they were 100% set in stone then you may as well use FM Scout. You need to make your own judgement based on stat profile, age, current training level, match experience to date, PPA's etc etc. You may find a player that your scouts reccomend highly, but he is a right wing back with terrible physical stats, poor teamwork etc. But he has really high values for stuff that you might not want, or a lot of his current ability has been taken up by PPA's that contradict each other (Gets Forward and Stays Back for example). Rated well, but too much effort to retrain and get right. But your coaches/scouts are telling you he is Potentially Majors standard. TLDR: The white stars dictate the text for both Current and Potential ability, as it is the theoretical maximum based on your scouts/coaches judgement. As a side note, if you have a 14 year old player who starts off at 40 CA and has a 145 PA, he will appear to scouts and coaches as someone who is high potential ability regardless of his actual standard, because he has a lot of potential growth. As he ages, if his CA doesnt improve much his potential ability prediction will slowly catch up to his actual ability level until eventually they will be the same. In this example, he is 28 now and his CA is 80 as he was ruined due to injuries and lack of playing time. He will probably always be a player who has a little bit of "spare" potential that the coaches/scouts pick up on because in theory he still has a lot of points spare, which would probably gives you a player similar to example 3's text description, based on whichever league structure and level you are playing at. Does that help?

Potential is normally relative to your squad and league, for example a 2.5 star potential player at Manchester United would likely be a 5 star potential player at a League 1 club. The main difference between the gold and white stars is that the gold stars are where the coaches/scouts think the player is with some certainty. The white stars are the fudge factor, indicating that the coaches arent sure if they player could reach that level or not. In this example the coaches think the player is pretty much at the limits of his development (be that CA/PA or because of his age so development is slow). There may still be a few points of growth in there but he is pretty much a fully developed player. This guy the coaches are less sure of his celing, he is young enough that he could still develop further if there is potential there but they arent 100% hence the fudge factor. Hence why his current ability is Prime Division Northeast, but if he does have the potential spare he could "potentially" make it all the way up to Majors but its not certain.