The curious case of the young striker and the transfer system in FM

[eple]

I love this game in all it's glory, but there are a few things that could be improved and I assumed they will be in time. The following is an example of one of those things. It is not an extreme example at all. I'm sure plenty of you have experience similar things as this has been an issue for a long time in my opinion.

Let's pretend for the sake of argument that this is real life football.

You have just been appointed the manager of a club playing in League One. This club is renowned for it's great work in helping young players grow as footballers. The best ones usually leave at a fairly young age though, as their reputation outgrows the club and their salary demands would be too much to deal with.

You are expected to finish mid to lower half in the league. In your team, which is a decent one, you have a 17 year old striker with three years left on his contract. He was brought in to the first team last season and played about half the league games, scoring a few goals, mostly playing as an advanced winger, I believe. No doubt a big talent.

In your first season you decide to rotate said striker, using him in various roles and often putting him on the wing. Game time is important for his development, but at the same time you don't want to hang your hopes on a 17 year old to be the main source of goals. Despite being on the fringe he has a very good season, scoring a total of 13 goals and getting 11 assists in 25 starts and 14 sub appearances, helping your team win the league in comfortable fashion. At this point he is by far the most valuable player at the club, a regular in the England U-19 and your coaches believe he has the potential to become a decent Premier League player. Can he cope with the level of Championship football though and will you be able to chase away interested clubs?

Renewing his contract will be a problem, as this is a small club and he wants twice as much as the budget will allow, in addition he wants clauses that guarantee a yearly wage rise and him being the highest payed player in the club for the duration of the contract. You decide to postpone the negotiations for a year to see if the club can avoid relegation. You don't want to be stuck with such a highly payed player in the lower leagues and if his demands next season are unreasonable you could surly cash in and spend that money to strengthen.

Again, you use him as rotation but he seems to cope well with the level. The club has some pretty erratic form and hangs just above the relegation zone until November-December, when consistency sees the club slowly climb up to the middle of the table come January. A flux of players are now interested in joining your club, but as finances are not the best, you decide to bring in some quality loans. This has a major influence and for the rest of the season you are in flying form, climbing the table in spectacular fashion, and a fantastic 3-2 win away against Everton in the 45th round seals the Championship title!

Your young striker has had another decent season, scoring 12 and assisting 6 in 21 starts and 21 sub appearances, and in the latter stages he was called up to the England U-21. So, lets take stock of the situation.

Your club is playing well beyond it's level, and paying out a total of only £3m in salaries a year. Now you will receive close to £60m in TV-money. Your young striker is still by far the most valuable player in the squad, but he has just a year left on his contract. His demands are still the same and his coaches now believe that he will become a good PL-player in the future, but you as the manager knows that he will likely struggle for a few years in the PL before producing the goods and in that time you will look to bring in a lot of players that will ask for big wagers. However, his demands are still the same, expecting key status and clauses that seems unreasonable. Now you can afford to pay him, but is he worth it? In your mind he is a great prospect, not a key player.

I was in this situation and after carefully considering my options I decided to cash in rather then to conform to his agent's demands. I transfer listed him, expecting big interest. After all, he is a proven goal scorer, only 19 year old, a regular in the U-21s, on a very small wage of only £1.4pr week and in a low reputation club. Surely a few lower table Premier league clubs would be keen on taking a chance on him, and definitely a few Championships clubs. This was just after the budgets were given out and at this time I had been offered the managing job of 3 different Championship clubs and they all had budget of above £5m.

To my surprise only a few clubs were interested and it was a mix of League One and low reputation Championship clubs. His value at the time was £3.4m. I offered him out for that with 20% of profit from next sale. There were no takers (asking price too high). I try again, this time only £2.5m. I get no feedback at all. I try again, with £1m on 48 months installments. I finally get a bid. It's League One club Charlton. They want to take him on a loan for 6 months and they are willing to pay his wages, but want him for free.

This is one of the problems with the transfer system in FM for me. If this was in real life I would have had host of clubs chasing this player from day one, and the intrest would only grow as he continued to prove himself. Why did no clubs come in for him though? I could be wrong, but my guess is they are predominantly looking at his PA, and the AI clubs knows a little bit more about this then my coaches does. They say he can be a good PL-player, and at 19 years old, what club would not be interested in him, considering he is available for a knock down price due to his contract and would accept a very low wage.

His potential in my opinion should be unknown to some some extent, and in any case out-shown by his current ability, which is surely very high for a player of his age. In the following months I re-transfer listed him multiple times to try and sell him, but they same non-interest happened.

As an example in real life Fabian Delph broke into Leeds' first team at a similar age. He played one season and did very well for them and was chased by a host of clubs. Villa signed him for £6m. Did they know he was going to suffer a succession of career threatening injuries? Did they know his potential down to detail level of 1/200th? No, not at all.

[Herbert Fandel]

This is one of the problems with the transfer system in FM for me. If this was in real life I would have had host of clubs chasing this player from day one, and the intrest would only grow as he continued to prove himself. Why did no clubs come in for him though? I could be wrong, but my guess is they are predominantly looking at his PA, and the AI clubs knows a little bit more about this then my coaches does. They say he can be a good PL-player, and at 19 years old, what club would not be interested in him, considering he is available for a knock down price due to his contract and would accept a very low wage.

His potential in my opinion should be unknown to some some extent, and in any case out-shown by his current ability, which is surely very high for a player of his age. In the following months I re-transfer listed him multiple times to try and sell him, but they same non-interest happened.

As an example in real life Fabian Delph broke into Leeds' first team at a similar age. He played one season and did very well for them and was chased by a host of clubs. Villa signed him for £6m. Did they know he was going to suffer a succession of career threatening injuries? Did they know his potential down to detail level of 1/200th? No, not at all.

I agree completely, and fixing it is my biggest wish for FM14. The AI in general isn't good enough, too many stupid transfers in some areas, and too much transfer inactivity in other.

[Erimus1876]

Big clubs didn't come in for him because one of the first things the AI checks is a players reputation. If his rep is low it doesn't really matter how good his performances and ratings are, he won't get spotted. Its one of the biggest flaws in AI team building. If you keep playing him and he has a good season in the top league his rep will begin to rise and eventually bigger clubs will notice him.

In real life he'd be spotted in an instant since reputation means little for unknown young players, its talent and potential that counts and the AI in FM needs to have more emphasis on those - unfortunately it still relies too much on the reputation system when decision making.

[Erimus1876]

Just to add to that, I did an experiment back in FM11 or 12 (can't remember which) in the editor to try and figure out how the AI decided who to buy and who not to buy. I modified Barry Robson (and aging Middlesbrough FC midfielder at the time) and gave him a massive rep boost but lowered his skills, and the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea put bids in for him. Dropping his rep but boosting his skills did nothing - no bids from big clubs at all. That said it all to me.

[Herbert Fandel]

In real life he'd be spotted in an instant since reputation means little for unknown young players, its talent and potential that counts and the AI in FM needs to have more emphasis on those - unfortunately it still relies too much on the reputation system when decision making.

I agree, but also agree with eple that for a young player playing well in the lower leagues 'potential' would seem to anyone to be high. Even if in the FM DB it was set to a low figure, IRL you can (more or less) only see a young player playing well and assume he has good potential. There are slight exceptions of course, but as a blanket rule this is how it should work in FM too, within reason. If a young player is playing well, the whole world shouldnt just know instantly he isn't up to much just because their magical access to the supposedly hidden PA attribute tells them so.

[Guest]

Just to add to that, I did an experiment back in FM11 or 12 (can't remember which) in the editor to try and figure out how the AI decided who to buy and who not to buy. I modified Barry Robson (and aging Middlesbrough FC midfielder at the time) and gave him a massive rep boost but lowered his skills, and the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea put bids in for him. Dropping his rep but boosting his skills did nothing - no bids from big clubs at all. That said it all to me.

^^WHS, I'd guess that his starting rep was quite low & it hasn't increase sufficiently enough to get on the radar of other Premier league sides, if a young player is showing great promise with his performances in the lower leagues his home rep should increase much more than it currently does, this will not only aid in seeing the cream rise to the top but could also see clubs get it wrong when they spend good money on the flavour of the month only for them to not work out at the higher level.

I agree, but also agree with eple that for a young player playing well in the lower leagues 'potential' would seem to anyone to be high. Even if in the FM DB it was set to a low figure, IRL you can (more or less) only see a young player playing well and assume he has good potential. There are slight exceptions of course, but as a blanket rule this is how it should work in FM too, within reason. If a young player is playing well, the whole world shouldnt just know instantly he isn't up to much just because their magical access to the supposedly hidden PA attribute tells them so.

AI transfer decisions aren't just based on CA/PPA, there are other factors that go into assessing the player & rep is an important part of that calculation, this is why in any save there will be players with high PA values coupled with good playing statistics getting stuck at lower league clubs.

[jayahr]

Big clubs didn't come in for him because one of the first things the AI checks is a players reputation. If his rep is low it doesn't really matter how good his performances and ratings are, he won't get spotted. Its one of the biggest flaws in AI team building. If you keep playing him and he has a good season in the top league his rep will begin to rise and eventually bigger clubs will notice him.

In real life he'd be spotted in an instant since reputation means little for unknown young players, its talent and potential that counts and the AI in FM needs to have more emphasis on those - unfortunately it still relies too much on the reputation system when decision making.

Well, nothing wrong with clubs looking at reputation as the most important value as long as reputation works properly.

I am actually very much in favour, and happy to hear, of the fact that the AI does not look at PA/CA values primarily, but at reputation. I think this is very realistic.

What went wrong for the OP was that the reputation of his young striker was obviously way lower than it should have been. IRL an English U21 striker who got game time and excelled in the Championship would be a sought gem and have a high reputation in the business, maybe even be hyped by the press. Apparently that was not the case here.

However that means that the issue is not reputation being too important for AI transfers, but the logics behind the calculation of the reputation value. That is what needs to be sorted.

[eple]

Big clubs didn't come in for him because one of the first things the AI checks is a players reputation. If his rep is low it doesn't really matter how good his performances and ratings are, he won't get spotted. Its one of the biggest flaws in AI team building. If you keep playing him and he has a good season in the top league his rep will begin to rise and eventually bigger clubs will notice him.

In real life he'd be spotted in an instant since reputation means little for unknown young players, its talent and potential that counts and the AI in FM needs to have more emphasis on those - unfortunately it still relies too much on the reputation system when decision making.

By big clubs do you mean Man Utd and the like, or PL clubs in general? It might be that reputation has something to do with it, but doesn't his value of £3.4m suggest his reputation is rather high though? What would give a 19 year old striker in FM-terms high reputation? Is it not enough to have hit double figures two seasons running and be a regular for the national U-21 side? It would certainly be enough in real life football.

I'm gonna try what you suggest.. and see what happens. I can't sell him anyway I'll wait until he has 7-8 months left on his contract before I renew. Hopefully by that time he will understand that he is not a key player. You argument makes sense, but I frequently see examples of reputation not being important though, as big clubs sign up young new-gens that are worth below £50k and have not done anything in the game at all, but they pay millions, suggesting that the clubs know this is a high PA-player.

[Herbert Fandel]

AI transfer decisions aren't just based on CA/PPA, there are other factors that go into assessing the player & rep is an important part of that calculation, this is why in any save there will be players with high PA values coupled with good playing statistics getting stuck at lower league clubs.

Yeh I got my arguments slightly mixed up, trying to shoehorn in my gripe about PA being magically visible to all in where it didnt really fit into this discussion.

[eple]

Just to illustrate his reputation being high I just did a player search on my game filtering out players above 20 years old. There is only 22 players from the age of 20 and below worth more than him and they are all recognized wonderkids. Great english prospect such as Chalobah, Redmond and Barkley are all worth less.

[Guest]

Value is not as directly linked to CA/PA & reputation as it was on previous versions so I wouldn't say that a high profile value automatically indicates a high rep value, I assume you are playing FM13 btw?

[eple]

Yes, FM13. The player value is admittedly a mystery to me. Especially playing in the lower league it seems to fluctuate a lot. I had a player rise and drop from £1m to £2m on a weekly basis playing in the Championship.

I'll just see how it goes with this guy. Maybe a decent season in the PL would make all the difference, as Erimus suggested.

[Erimus1876]

The Barry Robson test I ran was on older versions of FM. I'm was hoping FM13 had took on board the issues people were raising last year with the way the AI looks at transfer targets.

Since your player was generated at a League 1 club his rep will be lower than your average PL newgen anyway - I think that's how it works, but I could be off on that with '13. But in any case a players value is made up of lots of different aspects, reputation just being one of them. The fact that your player possibly has a low reputation since no one decent is looking at him, yet is still valued at £3.4m means he probably has a hell of a lot more going for him in other areas... his PA could be sky high for example.

I'd actually pay him what he wants if you can afford it. He may be worth multi-multi-millions in a few seasons time

The one way to find out for sure though would be to use something like FMRTE which will show you exactly what his reputation is. It can be a game spoiler though so wouldn't recommend it if you want it to remain a mystery and not spoil the game immersion.

[eple]

Following up on that I had a thought..

If his performances are boosting his profile value and his wage demands are rising with it, but his reputation has stayed low, maybe that is what is causing this issue?

To me it is clear he should have a high reputation, but if he doesn't, something else is causing his value to be high.

[eple]

The one way to find out for sure though would be to use something like FMRTE which will show you exactly what his reputation is. It can be a game spoiler though so wouldn't recommend it if you want it to remain a mystery and not spoil the game immersion.

I really want to find out what's going on here, so I'll do that. I shall squint though so as to not catch a glance of his PA

Repuation

Home: 6305

Current: 6343

World: 4423

Comparing that to another England U-21 that Swansea just signed in my game for £7m after two good seasons in the championship.

Home: 6747

Current: 6987

World: 5981

Edit: And to a 18 year old newgen that Real Madrid just signed from Brazil for £3m (clause) after playing 18 games for Corinthians

Home: 6628

Current: 6800

World: 4513

[Herbert Fandel]

I really want to find out what's going on here, so I'll do that. I shall squint though so as to not catch a glance of his PA

Comparing that to another England U-21 that Swansea just signed in my game for £7m after two good seasons in the championship.

Hmmm, to be honest what you just posted restores my faith slightly. I'm glad Swansea signed someone from championship for money (are they still in EPL? Was he at championship club or on loan from prem club?)

[Erimus1876]

I really want to find out what's going on here, so I'll do that. I shall squint though so as to not catch a glance of his PA

Repuation

Home: 6305

Current: 6343

World: 4423

Comparing that to another England U-21 that Swansea just signed in my game for £7m after two good seasons in the championship.

Home: 6747

Current: 6987

World: 5981

So the emphasis could be on home reputation where there's a 400+ difference?

If you want to repeat the Barry Robson experiment I'd be really interested to see if SI addressed this issue in '13.

What you'd need to do is backup your save, and significantly boost the rep of your player while lowering his CA and see what clubs come in for him.

If he garners a ton of interested big clubs then nothing much has changed from FM11/12 unfortunately.

[eple]

Hmmm, to be honest what you just posted restores my faith slightly. I'm glad Swansea signed someone from championship for money (are they still in EPL? Was he at championship club or on loan from prem club?)

Yes, still in the PL. Though I would say the difference between the two players is that Swansea's signing is more of a recognized talent and likely had a much higher reputation at game start than my player. Signed from Derby, if that tell you something

[eple]

So the emphasis could be on home reputation where there's a 400+ difference?

If you want to repeat the Barry Robson experiment I'd be really interested to see if SI addressed this issue in '13.

What you'd need to do is backup your save, and significantly boost the rep of your player while lowering his CA and see what clubs come in for him.

If he garners a ton of interested big clubs then nothing much has changed from FM11/12 unfortunately.

Or perhaps the World reputation. I'll try that and do two tests where I edit his home and world reputation separately, and then perhaps a 3rd one where I boost them all. I don't want to look at his CA/PA so I'll leave that intact.

[Herbert Fandel]

Yes, still in the PL. Though I would say the difference between the two players is that Swansea's signing is more of a recognized talent and likely had a much higher reputation at game start than my player. Signed from Derby, if that tell you something

Ah, enthusiasm re-extinguished then.

[Erimus1876]

Or perhaps the World reputation. I'll try that and do two tests where I edit his home and world reputation separately, and then perhaps a 3rd one where I boost them all. I don't want to look at his CA/PA so I'll leave that intact.

I think world rep is how likely he'll be spotted by foreign clubs. Its worth boosting it significantly to see if Europe's elite clubs spot him

[eple]

Okay, here are the results. For all tests I changed the values and advanced the game with one day then transfer listing him.

Test one

Changes made: Boosted Home reputation by 1000

Result: Two clubs initially interested (Hull, Cardiff - both Championship)

Offered him out for £3.4m - Hull says Doesn't represent value for money.

Test two

Changes made: Boosted world reputation by 1500 (to match Swansea's signing)

Result: No clubs initially interested

Offered him out for £3.4m - No offers.

Test three

Changes made: Boosted all reputation values by 1500

Result: For some reason his asking price was set to £13.4m, but player value remained unchanged. No clubs interested.

Offered him out for £3.4m - No offers. (reason given: no clubs sees it as viable)

Test four

Changes made: Gave him PA of 175. I don't know what it was initially but I guesstimate somewhere between 125 and 150.

Result: Coach report changes to leading PL striker immidiatly. Two clubs initially interested (Hull, Cardiff - both Championship)

Offered him out for £3.4m - Hull says Doesn't represent value for money.

Test five

Changes made: Dropped his reputation by 1000 (just for fun).

Result: One club interested (Bristol City - League one)

Offered him out for £3.4m - Not in a financial position to make an offer

Test six

Changes made: Edited his contract to 4 years, to see if that was causing this.

Result: Two club interested (Hull, Cardiff - both Championship)

Offered him out for £3.4m - Hull says lower your demands.

Test seven

Changes made: Edited CA to 150 / PA to 175. Note: Left reputation as it was

Result: Seven club interested (Bolton, Everton, Hull, Leicester, Wigan + Minor interest: Man City, Liverpool)

Offer him out for £3.4m - Four clubs come back with bids (Everton, Liverpool, Man City, Wigan)

I guess the only conclusion one could make from this is that his CA is too low for this current scenario. Add that to the fact that he is playing at a high level and is worth a lot of money you get a situation where the only clubs that would want to buy him can't afford him and/or he is not interested in joining. I have created a monster!

[eple]

Just for fun I did a final test where I gave him worldwide rep. No clubs were interested. I think it's safe to say that unless it's a long term thing that needs to take effect AI don't want to bite just for the sake of reputation if the player is perceived to have a high percentage of horse meat.

[Erimus1876]

Ok, I've just ran a quick experiment and found not much has changed from FM11 in regards to AI transfer policy and player reputation.

I picked a player at random and using FMRTE I made him a legend (basically boosted every skill to 20), with CA & PA = 200, but lowered his reputation to local reputation.

The game automatically set his valuation to £1K. This despite him being the greatest player in the world (attribute-wise).

Despite the low valuation I put him up for sale for £30m and Liverpool & Man Utd instantly offered the full £30m for him.

Here he is...

I then reduced his skills to very poor in FMRTE (each attribute = 5), with CA = 50 & PA = 100 but increased his reputation to worldwide.

The game automatically revalued him at £38m

This time Liverpool & Man Utd, as well as WBA put bids in for him.

Here he is...

So at one end the AI will recognise player brilliance over reputations, but at the other end they throw away silly money on a player who has world wide rep but wouldn't get a game in the Northern League because he's useless in the skill department.

[Erimus1876]

I guess the only conclusion one could make from this is that his CA is too low for this current scenario. Add that to the fact that he is playing at a high level and is worth a lot of money you get a situation where the only clubs that would want to buy him can't afford him and/or he is not interested in joining. I have created a monster!

Yeah, my test was using the two extremes of these examples. It doesn't show what's really going on but does show why big clubs often pay lots of money for players that end up rotting in the reserves. The rep gets the better of them in some cases.

[eple]

Strange that it didn't happen with my player when I changed his reputation. Maybe there is more at play here?

[Erimus1876]

Strange that it didn't happen with my player when I changed his reputation. Maybe there is more at play here?

Club reputation may be a factor too. This guy plays for Arsenal whose current game rep is still over 9000 (season 2033/34). He's also a full international (for Wales). So I guess stuff like that could influence things.

It saddens me that Man Utd would spend £38m on a player who has 5 skills in each department. I think that's the crux of the matter.

[soccer.joel]

This has long been an issue with FM

[Herbert Fandel]

It saddens me that Man Utd would spend £38m on a player who has 5 skills in each department. I think that's the crux of the matter.

If said player had been playing well it wouldn't disappoint me. (Ok maybe not £38 mill, but you know what I mean)

Of course by extension a player with those attributes would very rarely play well but if, if, he had been, I would want teams to at least gamble on that ahead of his 'invisible' CA

[Erimus1876]

I've always said the AI should only look at player attributes when team building. Its the only way the AI will ever realistically challenge the human player in the long term.

We humans don't give a toss about player rep when we're buying players, the AI obviously does. That's why we can rake in all the quality players while the AI wastes its money on expensive reserves.

[Guest]

Strange that it didn't happen with my player when I changed his reputation. Maybe there is more at play here?

How far did you progress the game before offering the player out? You might need to give it a week or two for the increased rep to be recognised by every club as they update their transfer targets.

We humans don't give a toss about player rep when we're buying players, the AI obviously does. That's why we can rake in all the quality players while the AI wastes its money on expensive reserves.

That's true & to an extent we are not acting in a realistic manner as there is a reasonable amount of evidence that real life managers will bring in a player based on their reputation.

[Herbert Fandel]

That's true & to an extent we are not acting in a realistic manner as there is a reasonable amount of evidence that real life managers will bring in a player based on their reputation.

I agree, and the reason we act in an unrealistic manner is that our scouts tell us their PA instantly, even if they have no rep, due to never playing a game.

[eple]

Yeah, maybe that's why. I changed it, continued until one day had gone by then transfer listed him. Continued another day and then offered him out to clubs.

The interest in him after changing his CA was instantaneous though, but not so when only changing his PA.

[Erimus1876]

I agree, and the reason we act in an unrealistic manner is that our scouts tell us their PA instantly, even if they have no rep, due to never playing a game.

You can hide PA and CA stars with a simple mod I made. I wouldn't go back to playing FM without it now. Its a simple work around to this 'advantage' we have but again its the whole rep, CA, PA based system as a whole that needs to be re-thought out imho.

[Guest]

I would advance the game a week or two just to be sure that every club has reassessed his potential value to them, I assume all this is being done once the transfer window is open & new budgets have been set.

[eple]

To sum this up I feel fairly comfortable with the situation now. I don't understand what goes on under the hood in terms of player values and the interest in players from AI clubs, but I can understand what has happened.

Basically I have a tactic that to some extent gives me an advantage. This guy is performing very well in this system, and perhaps after adapting to this tactic, gelling with his team mates, being motivated by my yelling and such, he is performing as a very good striker.

What the game sees though is different. It doesn't really look at performance, but rather a combination of visible and invisible values, and sees a striker that is good enough for a bottom half Championship side, and I'm guessing potentially a good striker for a top side in that league in the future. The clubs that would be interested in such a player have little to no chance of signing him, given that he is in a PL-club and worth too much for them.

[Herbert Fandel]

You can hide PA and CA stars with a simple mod I made. I wouldn't go back to playing FM without it now. Its a simple work around to this 'advantage' we have but again its the whole rep, CA, PA based system as a whole that needs to be re-thought out imho.

Don't worry, I am well aware of your mod, and it is very useful. But you can still sort by the 'empty' star columns, so in that way they still exist. Until sorting is impossible it is still in game. The mod also doesn't address the fact that a scout can know that a 16 year old in Uganda who hasn't ever played a game will be a 'leading premiership player' after click of the continue button, even if the stars are hidden.

[jayahr]

Well, in the end I would suggest that you make him extend the contract without the match highest earner clause. You will have to spend more to make him drop the clause but that's entirely possible and seems to be the most viable option in the absence of the opportunity to cash in on him.

Another alternative is to keep waiting until after the summer transfer period before offering him a new deal. By then you should have enough players of higher ability and reputation to make him aware that demanding the match highest earner clause (which is the main stumbling block as I understand) is not viable in his current position.

[eple]

Yeah, just renewed his contract now at the end of october. It was actually no problem. I changed his status to backup and only used him as a sub for a month or so. I think it's also helped that I had brought in a few proper high class players. After a while all the stars had been adjusted down. He accepted a rotation role on only £8.5k even though at this point his agent had a fierce dislike of me

[Svenc]

I'm stilll on an 2012 save, and as 2011 before, this has never been fundamentally different. Currently I'm managing a 3. Liga side in debt, and could get ahold of a promising German Under 19 and an Austrian Under 19 international for nothing without any competition. Having long since given up on the in-game "Player search", which only makes it easier to scout talent (really, filtering out everyone above 23 years of age and sorting the result by value is enough), those were recommended to me by my entirelly average staff of scouts during the season before - and let go by their former clubs. If I'd even look at free agents myself anymore, I could easily strengthen the squad plenty more. Meanwhile league rivals happily fork out plenty cash for average at best players. Usually loading up no more than 16+ leagues in my save but the biggest possible database of players, I wonder if that multiplies the issue - too many players, too few clubs actually competing.

It's not just the transfer marktet. As posted in various other threads, set your reputation to "casual footie fan", sign a contract with Barcelona on FM 2013, put Xavi in the reserves, sell Messi for nothing - the fans won't object, and the chat that might be triggered with Xavi has a fat chance of becoming a bit of comedy gold: "Okay boss, fine." Oh, really? On my current FM 2012 save I applied to the job with the lowest possible reputation, I am still not respected by anyone, had a mid-season slump of not winning a single game for eleven matches, missed the board's expecations and... was happily offered a contract extension of two years during Summer break. For all the people taking jabs at the ME (justified and at least equally as often wholly unjustified... and unfounded), it is the off-pitch parts of the game in which FM is the most detached from actual football managing. It's impossible to recreate the pressure of actually having the job in a computer game, as in real-life every transfer gone bad could be your last one. But AI at least a tad better, a board, media and fans at least a tad more aggressively actually pushing it, depending on the club your sign to anyway, might go a long way in taking FM that crucial step further to bloody bliss.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

Touching on reputation it is a bit weird. As an international manager you'll see the impact it has a lot more closely than at club level, the AI seriously mishandles the transition of youth to the main team - Rio Ferdinand will still be classed as an automatic choice for England in 2014-15 if he hasn't been sacked by United for the AI/assistants over more serious and better defenders in the game.

There's also some bizarre annoyances with club reps, for example, Wales are severely overrated, expected to beat teams comfortably (i.e. Mexico et al) when in reality expectations are far lower. If I'm not on full-detail (where quality beats reputation occasionally) then I quite often see Wales flying high alongside England in international tournaments. While I'm not saying it's impossible, they do have a group of excellent youth prospects for the future, it is a bit OTT.

Reputation is always going to come in for flak in FM though, no one's really come up with a better idea to be honest.

[thethe]

I had a newgen, Gianluigi Falbo, at Juventus. Undoubtedly talented, but never really managed to fulfil his potential. He's 22, and I let him join Sampdoria on loan. He plays nine games from August to December, scoring zero goals. After trying to sell him throughout January, I send him on loan to my feeder club in the Championship on the last day of the transfer window. He scores 13 goals in 15 matches, singlehandedly lifting Plymouth out of the relegation battle and only five points shy of the playoffs. The following summer, I once again try selling him. Not a single club in England's even remotely interested, and he ends up joining a Serie B side for close to nothing. You'd think that, for less than £500,000, at least a couple of English clubs would make an attempt to sign an extremely skillful 23 year old who's already performed in the country. Not necessarily the exact same thing, but there is an issue here.

[eple]

Exactly, that's a good example of it not working as it should.

[Herbert Fandel]

Agreed, 13 goals in 15 games in the championship and anyone in that league with that money to spare would be interested, regardless of 'reputation' or the IRL untangible definite and absolute PA figure.

[Rupert1105]

Kind of unrelated... but this was about Max Clayton right? I had the same issue when I managed Crewe and ended up letting him go on a free because I wouldn't bow to his wage demands.

[eple]

A bit of an odd one. It was indeed him. I am having a lot of issues on this save with selling players.

Manny Smith, excellent season in the championship. played 8 PL-games and done alright (7.07 AVR). Player value £2.2m. Tried my best to sell him but even at £350k there was no takers. Eventually managed to loan him out for 20% of his £2,600 week salary and the only club bidding was Bury, currently in League 2.

Mark Ellis, excellent in league one and did well enough in the championship. Player value around £2m. Eventually managed to sell him for £425k.

Same with Harry Davis.. Eventually got £575k

Leitch-Smith, Pogba, Osman, Moore, West and Dugdale. Had to give them away for free.

[Guest]

I wonder whether there is an issue with the Crewe, on my save the lad stayed at the club until the end of the 2016/16 season while improving his performance figures every year before a £200,000 move to Premier league Burnley. He only managed 6 goals in 31 appearances 18(13) but this was still enough to earn him a £4.1m move to Leicester who are also in the Premier League.

[Shakes]

My biggest problem with this scenario is that a player can be "valued" at 3.4 million yet nobody offers it. If you offer a player out at their listed value there should always be an offer. That's the definition of value! If nobody is prepared to pay that price, then clearly they are not actually valued at that amount.

[Herbert Fandel]

My biggest problem with this scenario is that a player can be "valued" at 3.4 million yet nobody offers it. If you offer a player out at their listed value there should always be an offer. That's the definition of value! If nobody is prepared to pay that price, then clearly they are not actually valued at that amount.

It isn't the definition of 'fm' value though. I think it would make the game too easy if you could just instantly look at a player and know exactly what you could get for them at any given moment, it would make the decision to sell players far too simple. It is MUCH MUCH better as is, where the value is a rough estimate based on a range of factors, but what you can sell them for is a 'hidden' value of what teams are actually willing to pay. IRL clubs won't just know automatically what they can sell a player for. Every time they set a value themselves they will always risk either putting teams off or undercutting what other teams would actually pay.

[hursty2]

Yeah, the AI hardly make 'Nick Powell' esque signings. He was a revelation for them in League Two, playing a major part in their promotion winning side, even scoring in the playoff final and finishing with 15 goals for the season.

United realised these performances half way through the season and made a very lucrative offer to Crewe of 6M. Nothing like this happens in FM.