Tonesta78

Yeah, I will usually read the threads on players of the year, and quite closely follow the results from the big international tournaments. Every couple of months, I also do a quick trip around of all the leagues I have loaded to see how things are going (usually that's every league in about a dozen countries - although I add/delete leagues every few years just to keep things interesting) Although the players I'm most familiar with will be the players in and around the league I'm playing in, and am scouting heavily - which is sometimes the Premier League, but at other times has been the National League South or Serie C/A or even the Slovakian second division! I think the last real player I was still aware of was Jude Bellingham, who just finally retired from his final managerial position at the age of 70-odd; he lasted a couple of years longer than Christian Pulisic, who managed Man City for about 25 years and has their new 100,000 (!) seater stadium named after him!

Man, that's almost identical to me. I'm still working on my only FM21 save and am just coming to the end of the 2075/76 season. Onto my sixth club and second generation of manager now! I've said it before on here, but I really love getting deep into the game, because you're then creating your own unique footballing world, as opposed to just tinkering with the real one.

Love the discussion on local signings..... ......but wanted to add one twist. I'm still playing FM21, and doing what I would call a semi-journeyman save - I move around between clubs, but typically spend 10-15 years at each. I'm now playing the 2073/74 season. Anyways, I chose my current club when I decided to move on and noticed that Guernsey had just been promoted to the Vanarama South. Small island in the middle of the channel who had never previously played at level 6 of the pyramid before? How could I resist that? And the thing is the game imposed a local signings rule on me. When I was a half star Obscure reputation club, almost every player I tried to sign permanently told me that the wages I was offering were not sufficient for them to relocate. And loanees didn't want to come to Guernsey either. The only exceptions were players from clubs on the south coast. So Exeter, Torquay, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Brighton and Eastleigh were fair game. But try and sign a player from as far north as Crystal Palace and they weren't interested! The game seemed to have an in-built distance limit so that most lower league players wouldn't be interested in playing at a club that far from home (I don't recall ever experiencing this when I previously managed Halesowen - a club in the middle of England - at the same level) It made for a nice challenge, and I didn't even have to self-regulate. Eventually, after several seasons of building a team using nothing but Plymouth and Portsmouth academy cast-offs and the occasional Torquay loanee, I did get promoted to the Vanarama National, and then the rest of the world opened up. But although I'm now mid-table in the Premier League - I still think those early years, fighting against relegation in Tier 6, were the most enjoyable! [as an aside - as I said, I'm now in the Premier League with Guernsey, but although my academy just moved up to Level 2, after about six years at Level 3, I still haven't been invited to any of the U23 or U18 leagues. My U18s play in the FA Youth Cup, and my U23s play in the Papa John's Trophy, but I never get an invite to the leagues, and otherwise have to just arrange friendlies for my youth teams. Anyone know if this is a bug or just a function of the fact that my club basically plays home games in France and youth teams don't want to have to get on a flight or a boat to go and play their matches? Which, while it's slightly annoying for me, would probably be a realistic feature!]

It happens in FM21 as well from time to time. I view it as one step beyond the outright refusal to discuss terms. It's a "I'm not really interested, but maybe if you blow me out of the water with an offer". I've never managed to sign anyone in these cases where they won't make counter-offers....but I wonder if you made a crazy offer (Star Player, big pay raise, stepping stone etc. etc.) it might be possible?