Is the transfer AI still very poor for anyone else?

[91427]

Interested to hear what people's thoughts are on the supposedly improved transfer AI this year.

Have only done a couple of seasons in my save so far but there's so many transfers that seem incredibly unrealistic.

The first issue I had was how absolutely nobody was interested in Ozil or Sanchez, despite both of them leaving on frees. I eventually decided to pick them up and was surprised at their relatively reasonable wage demands, both less than £150k/w, so I can't understand why no club like PSG, Juventus, Barcelona or Bayern Munich showed even the slightest interest in either of them.

Leon Goretska, despite looking like one of the best young midfield all-rounders in the game, also drew interest from absolutely nobody until late July where mid table finishers Hertha Berlin picked him up. In real life he's been linked to Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Also surely he'd sign a new contract for Schalke if he realised no bigger club was interested?

And for all the talk of adjusting transfer fees so they match the inflation that's occurred in real life I'm still not sure they're quite at realistic levels. Icardi and Belotti left for £75m and ~£60m respectively, both massive fees obviously but given how much even average strikers cost nowadays you'd think two of the best in the game would go for a bit more, especially cause they'd both had very good seasons in game. Torino wanted €100m for Belotti last summer and Inter would surely want more for Icardi

Juve also let the best left back in the game in Alex Sandro go for just £44m to me, particularly ridiculous as it was mid season and just a few days before I played them in the CL quarter finals. Obviously he couldn't join until the summer but I'm sure you can imagine that wouldn't go down well at all irl. He was on around an 8.0 average rating for the season and was Juve's key player in the club screen. Then in the summer they were willing to pay £32m to buy Luke Shaw (on the last year of his contract) off me. I can't understand why they'd take such a massive downgrade for the sake of £12m, less when you include agent fees. I didn't unsettle the player at all

Then there's stuff I've seen on YouTube where someone was able to sign Hazard cause Chelsea missed out on Europe but did it as Europa League Arsenal. I can't help but think the chances of Chelsea letting their best player go to Arsenal and the chances of Hazard wanting to go Arsenal are next to nil. It seems to me to be the sort of transfer you'd see in FIFA career mode and not a game trying to be a serious football simulator.

However, as I've said I've played very little of FM18 so please tell me if I'm being too harsh

[upthetoon]

Well this needs to be really improved. even in FM17, the relegated clubs with great performing players are unable to move and still playing in Championship. SI has added many features but the AI logic of squad building and transfers is really still very very poor.

[vrbnjak]

Agreed.

And it is also really difficult to sell players for a reasonable price. For example, I play with AC Milan and Suso was my best player and the player of the season in Serie A (12 goals, 21 assists). Then he wanted to leave and I decided to sell him. Couldn't get more than 30million € for him. Which is totally unrealistic. So I sold him for 30million to Chelsea and then in an instant he was worth 57million. 

Same with Bacca. Ok, he was 31 years old, but scored 30 goals in Serie A. Had to sell him for 3,5M. 

[mbchuz]

The general squad-building aspect is a bit concerning to me for two reasons: Excellent players are often transfer listed; but no other clubs buy them, even at bargain prices!

I'm not entirely sure what the underlying cause is, but if you keep a frequent eye on the transfer list, you'll be amazed by the players there. I've started a couple games so far and both times Bakayoko has been listed by Chelsea within about 6 months for a pittance (~£15m).

In my other game, Leroy Sane has played 5 games in 4 years for City, transfer listed the whole time (decreasing to £10m or less), with no clubs interested! Zouma at 27 and van Ginkel at Chelsea, having played about 10 games between them for Chelsea in the last 2 years, have not received as much as a loan offer! Why wouldn't a team snap them up for £7m each? Alberto Moreno, 5 games in 3 years, listed for £9m... no offers. Oxlade-Chamberlain, not many more games, listed for £12m. 

These guys sit on the AI club's transfer lists for years without a bite and without any real aggressive effort to get rid of them (woudn't they be desperate to get these guys off the wage bill?).  

Sometimes players mysteriously pop up briefly too, I've noticed. Check in August 31st, for example, and there could be one or two players there for the day. 

 

[XaW]

12 minutes ago, mbchuz said:

I'm not entirely sure what the underlying cause is

If I'm not mistaken, some of the cause is that AI-teams will not try to buy players who won't join them. This means that if the player in question have too high wage demands, or will not go to a club with lower reputation, then the clubs won't offer for him. We as human managers do not know if that is the case, we might have a certain idea based on scouting reports and such, but not a definitive answer for every player. Then, as the player is out of contract his demands lower and reputation decreased and suddenly he gets picked up. I agree this might need a slight tweaking, but I don't think it's that far off.

For my own games I haven't seen much of an issue here and it seems clubs try to do transfer that I would find plausible in real life as well. Maybe one or two might be a bit weird, but that stuff happens in real life as well.

[Guest El Payaso]

This is a good thread and really legit points raised. 

I would already raise the Alba transfer to Chelsea as a problem even though majority of people don't feel like it's an issue but for me it is. If Chelsea would have been able to sign him IRL and especially for under £60M they probably would have as they did want a new left wingback. But it wouldn't have happened because Alba for Barcelona is invaluable player that they cannot replace, Barcelona are bigger club than Chelsea and I think Alba is completely happy at Barcelona. If this summer I had written to some football forum that Chelsea will sign Alba, people would have laughed at me because there was no chance for this to happen. I think that on FM though this is a transfer that always happens. Something like Hazard moving to Arsenal is even more laughable.

I have raised many of these points in the suggestion forum and for example SI to nullify some searching tools from us as we seem to have huge advantage in signing players as the AI is not good enough holding onto their best players or competing in signing of them. Good example of this now is the fact that teams seem to have rotation/backup options transfer listed in beginning of the game (Sturaro for example) and we all know that it is the human user who can freely pick them up with a cheap price. 

The AI simply needs to keep hold of their best players better and people actually failing to ever sign such players as Icardi and Griezmann for example. Inter and Atletico have been able to keep hold of them for a long time already so why not being able to do that also in the future or at least trying harder. Same with bargains: if there is a player like Sturaro available for peanuts then there should be a long list of AI clubs also bidding for him instead of the player just there waiting to be signed by the human user.

What I have noticed with Las Palmas is that in my "realistic transfers" there is a long list of those former top quality footballers like Oscar, Lavezzi etc. who are in China solely for the money. By all means my team should  have nothing to offer for them to make them tempted to move back to Europe.

Would like signing of players to be even too hard rather than it currently is. Teams fighting for their players like Liverpool are doing with Coutinho and even Southampton fighting for van Dijk as these are players that the teams cannot replace. 

[91427]

Some more examples that I've found annoying:

Jake Livermore to Arsenal for ~£25m

Casemiro leaving a Real Madrid team that walked La Liga with over 100 points where he made 40 starts and 13 sub appearances to go to Manchester City who finished 4th and won nothing

Manchester City signing Icardi despite already having Aguero and Jesus. This resulted in Aguero, who had scored 30+ goals the previous season, being forced onto the left, something I can't imagine Guardiola doing irl

Monaco, a club seemingly entirely focused on buying young talent irl, spending £23m to bring in a 32 year old Antonio Valencia

A decent AI is imo the most important thing in a strategy game, very frustrating that it seems I'm not the only one who's having significant problems with it

[bababooey]

Horrible still.

Example:  Man City spent an absolute boatload of money on players this summer. Particularly at fullback.  

Started a few test saves in FM18, in EACH of them City bought Alex Sandro for an insane amount of money.  1st, why would Juventus sell? And 2nd, wouldn't City prioritize a defensive mid or center back?  They just spent a RECORD fee on Kyle Walker, and now they're going to spend (potentially even more) on Alex Sandro to play LB ?   Come on now.  

[Cougar2010]

1 hour ago, bababooey said:

Horrible still.

Example:  Man City spent an absolute boatload of money on players this summer. Particularly at fullback.  

Started a few test saves in FM18, in EACH of them City bought Alex Sandro for an insane amount of money.  1st, why would Juventus sell? And 2nd, wouldn't City prioritize a defensive mid or center back?  They just spent a RECORD fee on Kyle Walker, and now they're going to spend (potentially even more) on Alex Sandro to play LB ?   Come on now.  

Are you serious???

I would have thought it would plainly obvious why they would buy a DL - They only have one in their squad FFS.

[BigRoboCrouch]

1 hour ago, bababooey said:

Horrible still.

Example:  Man City spent an absolute boatload of money on players this summer. Particularly at fullback.  

Started a few test saves in FM18, in EACH of them City bought Alex Sandro for an insane amount of money.  1st, why would Juventus sell? And 2nd, wouldn't City prioritize a defensive mid or center back?  They just spent a RECORD fee on Kyle Walker, and now they're going to spend (potentially even more) on Alex Sandro to play LB ?   Come on now.  

What's strange about Juventus selling Alex Sandro for a lot of money? They were close to selling him last summer, and probably will sell him next year. And City is one of the few teams with almost unlimited money.

[Sticx]

After the first youth intake managing liverpool I looked around England for the top youth regens. I made offers to City and Man United's top prospect and both clubs were willing to sell them to me for just slightly over market value. Both players actually turned me down because they just signed a contract recently but I found it very odd behavior that the clubs were not only willing to sell their top prospect for almost market value, but to a league rival no less.

[tajj7]

I think the moves from La Liga and especially Serie A clubs to PL teams is pretty obvious, the PL are flushed with cash and generally those other teams less so.  I mean Pogba IRL moved from Champions league challenging, several titles in a row Juve to Man Utd who have been bumping it around 5th/6th for the last 3-4 years and are still miles away from challenging for the Champions League. 

PL cash is dominating IRL and it dominates in game. 

I'd say the transfer listed thing is a good point, I saw that Sturaro in my save listed basically from the first window for around £6 million and he only got bought at the end of the second season. I mean he is a 4 star rated (for PL teams), 24 year old Italian international and isn't on massive wages but no one takes a punt on him in two years?  

I've also seen players like Mane and Coutinho listed by request because Liverpool have dropped out of Europe, listed for about £50-60 million but no takers which seems odd to me seeing as they would be sort after players.  

Icardi on most of my saves goes for around £70-80 million most games, that seems realistic to me and Bellotti seems to go for about £60 million, maybe a little low but not that bad. I've Alaba go for about £80 million.

I'd say more the issue is AI squad building is terrible.  But then you could probably question the big clubs squad building IRL.  I mean Liverpool buy the likes of Oxlade-Chamberlain who they don't need but don't buy centre-backs, full backs and a keeper who they clearly DO need.  How long have Arsenal neglected buying players in areas they clearly need. Man Utd spend millions but still have Ashley Young and Phil Jones playing.....

Man City in game just seem to buy a plethora of wingers/attacking mids that they can't play, so last years purchase just ends up being transfer listed. 

EDIT: Goeretzka has ended up at Bayern and Dortmund in my last two saves and I signed him to Liverpool in the one before that, the clubs interested all seem to be Champs league level clubs.  What seems to happen is his contract expires and not many are interested and then suddenly like 30 clubs want him, so I think his agent touts him around. 

Further EDIT: Regards that Hazard to Arsenal thing, that was DrBenjyFM and he made a good point that whilst it might be a little unrealistic (though if Chelsea were performing poorly and he wasn't happy, Arsenal throwing lots of money at him might make him move) it is at the end of the day a game and we play to have fun so if it was super strict realism I doubt it would be as fun. 

[Robioto]

I'm going to come at it from a different angle, but I've grown some what frustrated with the lack of interest in my best players in my Salford City save. I'm in League 1 after consecutive promotions (I promise this isn't a brag, this is some very rare success for me) and I have players who have consistently performed over a season/seasons which no clubs are interested in at all. My main striker Jack Redshaw scored over 40 goals a season in the Confernce North, Conference and League 2, his wage is this period was between £750 and £2000 p/w as I went up through the leagues, so pretty low really.

I've had zero interest in him, absolutely none, in real life if a player had scored over 130 goals in three seasons guiding his team to 3 back to back promotions, teams higher up the leagues would surely be interested? I ended up letting him go on a free at the end of my third season as his wage demands were too high (for me, not relative to other teams in my league) and had the dreaded max highest earner clause. I can think of several real life examples of where players in the lower leagues have had great scoring records and have made big moves - Jamie Vardy, Aaron McClean, George Boyd, Geoff Horsefield, Charlie Austin, Rickie Lambert and many more, all went for a decent fee based on form and goals.

I've had this problem with FM for many years now, all the background AI calculations on whether to bid for a players don't seem to based on form, I'm making the assumption that Jack Redshaw's hidden stats aren't good enough for teams to want to bid. But this shouldn't be how it works, the AI should also look at form and take calculated punts on players. The AI should look at players and think, 'that player has scored 40 goals+ per season for three years, we should bid for him' instead of 'this players CA/PA is too low so we will ignore the amazing real life performance'.

This is one player there are many other instances of this (I have a superb RB and CM as well, which are in the same boat), in fact in my 3 and a half years, I've had bids for 3 players that are not transfer listed and to be honest not players I regard as key. A team that has gone up three divisons in a row has had interest in just 3 players in 3 and a half years. I should be fighting teams off for my players, yet I'm not. It's also frustrating as selling players and getting good fees for my best players are how my team should survive, I've really struggled finnacially but thankfully Salford have a background sugar daddy so he was keeping the club afloat, he has gone now though following a takeover so we'll see what happens.

Sorry for the long post and it being on a different tangent to the OP, but these are my negative experiences with the transfer market in FM2018. I just hope this trend doesn't continue as I get up through the divisions more (assuming my success continues).

[Ji-Sung Park]

Earlier I have defended the new system, or at least provided some examples that at the time made sense.

Now I've had a two year test save with Leipzig and can report the following:

• Timo Werner scored a goal per game in this save, totalling 80 goals across two full seasons. His contract in this save has a BO clause of €80m, no bids, no clubs wanting buy, nothing. Market value €75m as I left the save.
• Yussuf Paulsen, a frequent scorer and high avg rating player wanted to join Atl Madrid. I was happy to oblige and we both said a fee of €26M was reasonable, a whopping 10M less than his market value. No bid, only interest.
• Bruma was rampant for two seasons straight, regularly scoring and getting assists/high ratings. Came to see about joining United, this time I know nothing was going to happen so I agreed to a market value move (€45m), nothing happened.
• I did sell Sabitzer to Bayern the first January window for €50m, 13 more than the market value.

Spoiler

Those in-the-know will know the Paulsen case is blatant, as his in-game CA/PA is not very high. His reputation in my save greatly exceeds his ability, which should mean I'd receive bids on him if the new system was working.

Conclusion: It remains similar to earlier editions, except the fees are generally higher. Please correct me if you guys have any other experiences.

[Codename47]

And this is yet another reason why I am reluctant to purchase FM18.

These are the kind of issues that I would like fixing on future FM versions instead of all the glitzy rubbish that has no impact.

AI transfers still the same - poor.

[91427]

1 hour ago, Ji-Sung Park said:

Earlier I have defended the new system, or at least provided some examples that at the time made sense.

Now I've had a two year test save with Leipzig and can report the following:

• Timo Werner scored a goal per game in this save, totalling 80 goals across two full seasons. His contract in this save has a BO clause of €80m, no bids, no clubs wanting buy, nothing. Market value €75m as I left the save.

Had a similar issue with a player in FM17, really hoped it would be fixed this year when they started talking about how the new transfer AI took form into account more. In reality I imagine multiple clubs would be willing to pay that release clause even if he was only scoring a goal every other game

[tomzo_2]

Agree with a lot of points raised in this thread. I'm second in the league with Liverpool and qualified through the group in the UCL.

Now I have had interest for my Stars players and understand this. Can, Firmino, Mane, Coutinho.

All became unhappy before a bid was made and the one bid I did receive for Matip was for 24 million. This was built as 12 million up front.

Now Matip was valued at 30 million and playing regularly, so how do I warrant selling him. Answer is, I cant. So went through the conversation with Matip of naming a price I said 45 million was acceptable. No chance. He thinks a reasonable value for himself is 30 mill.

I understand big clubs should be able to unsettle players but the prices offered are never really negotiable. I suggested 40 million  - £20 mill up front - as by this time the squad were supporting the player. Still no.

Buying is similar, Van Dijk is unhappy at Southampton and TL by request. I wasn't involved with that and nobody seems interested. Southampton want £60 mill. Acceptable in my eyes for the player so how is Matip worth half? Big clubs can afford these prices but the old system of having a transfer budget for the whole year is antiquated, it should be negotiable before each window and also be dependant upon targets identified.

Jack Wilshere was being sold for 5 million and no clubs were interested (probably due to his wage demands) no club of Europa League standards are going to say no to that deal in January as he is a good footballer and very versatile.

I had a bid accepted but wanted to sign him as a rotation option. Therefore in my squad those are wages of between 50k and 70k. He was very interested but wouldn't accept less than 130K a week. Why? You've finished a season at Bournemouth where you didn't set the world alight and have a bad injury record? I tried offering a 70 K package with 30k appearance fee and a good goals/ subs appearance fee still no?.

[Guest El Payaso]

4 hours ago, tajj7 said:

Further EDIT: Regards that Hazard to Arsenal thing, that was DrBenjyFM and he made a good point that whilst it might be a little unrealistic (though if Chelsea were performing poorly and he wasn't happy, Arsenal throwing lots of money at him might make him move) it is at the end of the day a game and we play to have fun so if it was super strict realism I doubt it would be as fun. 

But is it fun anymore if the transfer system is like: the AI is just waiting so that the human user can buy whoever he wants and then maybe at some point sign someone? FM should be designed to be a game where you play long careers with a club but currently (mainly because of the AI both) you already have a dynasty with someone like West Bromwich in season two or three.

[tajj7]

19 minutes ago, El Payaso said:

But is it fun anymore if the transfer system is like: the AI is just waiting so that the human user can buy whoever he wants and then maybe at some point sign someone? FM should be designed to be a game where you play long careers with a club but currently (mainly because of the AI both) you already have a dynasty with someone like West Bromwich in season two or three.

The AI seems to buy a lot of players in my save, like I said, PL teams in particular stockpile talent they don't really need. 

I'm not sure I have had the AI beat me to a player that often but that is because I generally try to do my business quickly and get deals settled quickly.

It has also been said that the AI in this version of the game is more likely go after players performing well for their clubs, rather than on valuation/reputation etc. which I think you see quite often, certainly with their interest in my players but also in the rumoured deals.

I'd also imagine that many people start new games with first window transfers on where most clubs don't need any players as they have already signed several in real life and probably don't need many the next window either. 

Also it's quite easy to buy a lot with PL clubs because of their finances. 

[Guest El Payaso]

41 minutes ago, tajj7 said:

I'm not sure I have had the AI beat me to a player that often but that is because I generally try to do my business quickly and get deals settled quickly.

It has also been said that the AI in this version of the game is more likely go after players performing well for their clubs, rather than on valuation/reputation etc. which I think you see quite often, certainly with their interest in my players but also in the rumoured deals.

Also it's quite easy to buy a lot with PL clubs because of their finances. 

I've never experienced the AI actually competing with me for a player in the last couple of versions while for example in FM 2007 when you offered for a player basically all the AI teams interested in that same player also bidded and you were always likely to lose this race. Absolutely loved it. 

That second one actually is bad for me as it already was in the game and it makes it even more likely for the world class AI teams to be buying good or decent players for big money from human user and never using them and then you can buy the player back with 20% of the original price which makes it super easy to make "good business". 

I would say that it is quite easy to master the transfer market with any club as the AI simply doesn't perform there and you have a huge advantage in signing any of those players that you want. 

When looking at the team guide forums you can clearly see that players are able to make really big deals and complete like 10 big transfers inside one window and that tells you a story. For example these De Vrij, van Dijk, Dolberg etc. deals always seem to go through without any opposing from the owning team, the player opting to stay or some bigger club stepping in just like "okay it's a good player, you're not having him". Real Madrid and PSG should have a bigger tendency to do just that and on the other hand Southampton and Lazio should be a lot less willing to sell those players. Lazio IRL have rejected bigger bids than £20M for De Vrij.

[endtime]

4 hours ago, Robioto said:

I'm going to come at it from a different angle, but I've grown some what frustrated with the lack of interest in my best players in my Salford City save. I'm in League 1 after consecutive promotions (I promise this isn't a brag, this is some very rare success for me) and I have players who have consistently performed over a season/seasons which no clubs are interested in at all. My main striker Jack Redshaw scored over 40 goals a season in the Confernce North, Conference and League 2, his wage is this period was between £750 and £2000 p/w as I went up through the leagues, so pretty low really.

I've had zero interest in him, absolutely none, in real life if a player had scored over 130 goals in three seasons guiding his team to 3 back to back promotions, teams higher up the leagues would surely be interested? I ended up letting him go on a free at the end of my third season as his wage demands were too high (for me, not relative to other teams in my league) and had the dreaded max highest earner clause. I can think of several real life examples of where players in the lower leagues have had great scoring records and have made big moves - Jamie Vardy, Aaron McClean, George Boyd, Geoff Horsefield, Charlie Austin, Rickie Lambert and many more, all went for a decent fee based on form and goals.

I've had this problem with FM for many years now, all the background AI calculations on whether to bid for a players don't seem to based on form, I'm making the assumption that Jack Redshaw's hidden stats aren't good enough for teams to want to bid. But this shouldn't be how it works, the AI should also look at form and take calculated punts on players. The AI should look at players and think, 'that player has scored 40 goals+ per season for three years, we should bid for him' instead of 'this players CA/PA is too low so we will ignore the amazing real life performance'.

This is one player there are many other instances of this (I have a superb RB and CM as well, which are in the same boat), in fact in my 3 and a half years, I've had bids for 3 players that are not transfer listed and to be honest not players I regard as key. A team that has gone up three divisons in a row has had interest in just 3 players in 3 and a half years. I should be fighting teams off for my players, yet I'm not. It's also frustrating as selling players and getting good fees for my best players are how my team should survive, I've really struggled finnacially but thankfully Salford have a background sugar daddy so he was keeping the club afloat, he has gone now though following a takeover so we'll see what happens.

Sorry for the long post and it being on a different tangent to the OP, but these are my negative experiences with the transfer market in FM2018. I just hope this trend doesn't continue as I get up through the divisions more (assuming my success continues).

This is a rather tricky area to balance, because players in FM are rated differently to real life. In FM you have attributes that clearly indicate just how good a player is, while judging a player's ability in real life is nowhere as clear cut. Now, I don't know how good Jack Redshaw is, but he's probably not a world beater in terms of ability or attributes. The fact that he performed so well means that his reputation is probably quite high, so he'd ask for a big wage and you as the manager would probably ask for quite a large transfer fee on top of that. Meanwhile, I'm 99% certain that there are other players on your save with a similar ability to Redshaw, but available on the cheap or for free and with much, much lower wage demands. This means that were the AI to prioritise signing players purely on recent form, it would be at a further disadvantage in comparison to human players - it would shell out huge amounts in transfer fees and wages when it's quite likely that a player of comparable ability will be available for much cheaper and players would be able to game the system too easily.

This is a problem inherently connected with the way players are portrayed on FM and I see no easy way to fix this, short of completely hiding player attributes and devising some new way of assessing players; in real life, you are as good as you play, but in FM you are as good as your attributes, which means that human managers are instantly able to spot which player is the best value for money. Ask yourself: would you sign Jack Redshaw for a Prem or even Championship team if he played for an AI club, had the attributes of a good L1-L2 player and no room to grow due to being 29-30? You probably wouldn't, because there are players who are better/have potential to grow and are available for less. 

[enigmatic]

6 hours ago, tajj7 said:

I'd say more the issue is AI squad building is terrible.  But then you could probably question the big clubs squad building IRL.  I mean Liverpool buy the likes of Oxlade-Chamberlain who they don't need but don't buy centre-backs, full backs and a keeper who they clearly DO need.  How long have Arsenal neglected buying players in areas they clearly need. Man Utd spend millions but still have Ashley Young and Phil Jones playing.....

I think that's part of the issue, and the same applies to decisions by players that look a bit odd

I mean, Oxlade Chamberlain's decision doesn't make any more sense from his point of view: he complains about not being played in his preferred position then moves to a similar sized rival who is obviously not going to play him in his preferred position.

Di Maria moved from being the top assister in La Liga and creative force between a Champions League win to a downwardly mobile Man Utd who weren't even playing European football. Which is exactly the sort of transfer that gets flagged up as being ridiculous here. Ozil did much the same thing after successfully proving he could fight Modric for a place and top the assists table. Pogba, who'd stormed out of United on a free, was bought back from a Champions League club that was built around him after Man Utd had gone downhill. Bundesliga Player of the Season Mhkitaryan went from the Champions League to fighting for his place in a Europa League side. 

But Ashley Young's a great squad player though  

 

So these slightly weird transfers happen more than people think. Which is good, because the problem highlighted of the AI being too fussy about perfect matches for the team has historically been much bigger and probably requires the game being more aggressive about forcing moves, overfilling squads and downgrading players' expectations. You see players make unusual sideways moves all the time, whereas fit top class internationals being clubless for months at a time hardly ever happens, especially not if they've voluntarily left a club they don't have any particular animosity towards (unlike released players at lower levels, who might take months to accept they're only getting a Conference contract and it might even only be semi pro)

A good starting point would be making inactive clubs more aggressive about picking up released or transfer listed players. City adding Ozil, Sanchez and Goretzka to the roster might unbalance their Premier League squad, whereas an inactive Bayern or Guangzhou Evergrande's squad composition and financial soundness doesn't matter nearly so much

 

[Robioto]

2 hours ago, endtime said:

This is a rather tricky area to balance, because players in FM are rated differently to real life. In FM you have attributes that clearly indicate just how good a player is, while judging a player's ability in real life is nowhere as clear cut. Now, I don't know how good Jack Redshaw is, but he's probably not a world beater in terms of ability or attributes. The fact that he performed so well means that his reputation is probably quite high, so he'd ask for a big wage and you as the manager would probably ask for quite a large transfer fee on top of that. Meanwhile, I'm 99% certain that there are other players on your save with a similar ability to Redshaw, but available on the cheap or for free and with much, much lower wage demands. This means that were the AI to prioritise signing players purely on recent form, it would be at a further disadvantage in comparison to human players - it would shell out huge amounts in transfer fees and wages when it's quite likely that a player of comparable ability will be available for much cheaper and players would be able to game the system too easily.

This is a problem inherently connected with the way players are portrayed on FM and I see no easy way to fix this, short of completely hiding player attributes and devising some new way of assessing players; in real life, you are as good as you play, but in FM you are as good as your attributes, which means that human managers are instantly able to spot which player is the best value for money. Ask yourself: would you sign Jack Redshaw for a Prem or even Championship team if he played for an AI club, had the attributes of a good L1-L2 player and no room to grow due to being 29-30? You probably wouldn't, because there are players who are better/have potential to grow and are available for less. 

This is a great post and counter argument to my post. It's still a major issue though which I appreciate is hard to solve. Maybe after many years it might be time for SI to ditch CA and PA and maybe introduce a dynamic PA with a soft and hard cap, one which can alter over a players career based on thier actual form, this would give excelling lower league players the flexibility to get better over thier career based on form and the chance for a late bloomer Jamie Vardy type player to make it in the Premier League or England.

It's hard to explain how this may work... But surely we are approaching a time where this staple in the FM/CM series needs to be looked at? This is greatly affecting my current save and my immersion and has done many times in past games with LLM saves...

[Guest El Payaso]

2 hours ago, enigmatic said:

Di Maria moved from being the top assister in La Liga and creative force between a Champions League win to a downwardly mobile Man Utd who weren't even playing European football. Which is exactly the sort of transfer that gets flagged up as being ridiculous here. Ozil did much the same thing after successfully proving he could fight Modric for a place and top the assists table. 

I think that there was clear reasoning behind both of these transfers. Özil for example:

Ozil initially had his reservations about the switch to Arsenal and, last Wednesday, he said he would be staying at Real. He was talked round, however, by Wenger, after also realising that his chances stood to be restricted at Real. The Spanish club have not only signed Bale but Isco, from Málaga, to supplement their existing options. Manchester United and Paris St-Germain had monitored Ozil's situation over the previous days but it was Arsenal who acted decisively.

While I think that Di Maria was basically forced out of the club by Florentino Perez if I'm not totally wrong. This is a quote from Carlo Ancelotti:

“Di Maria asked for a lot of money and preferred to leave to go find it. The club couldn’t give him the money he wanted. 

[enigmatic]

45 minutes ago, Robioto said:

This is a great post and counter argument to my post. It's still a major issue though which I appreciate is hard to solve. Maybe after many years it might be time for SI to ditch CA and PA and maybe introduce a dynamic PA with a soft and hard cap, one which can alter over a players career based on thier actual form, this would give excelling lower league players the flexibility to get better over thier career based on form and the chance for a late bloomer Jamie Vardy type player to make it in the Premier League or England.

It's hard to explain how this may work... But surely we are approaching a time where this staple in the FM/CM series needs to be looked at? This is greatly affecting my current save and my immersion and has done many times in past games with LLM saves...

There's a long thread about this in the "requests" forum from others who have requested it, but the short version of the responses it's getting are (i) the best lower league players already have potential to play at a much higher level including possibly even for England (ii) 99.9% of the rest won't make it anyway, and if they do get signed based on their form they won't be good enough for the higher level, and any sensible game has to reflect that (iii) players playing well is an indication they're already good, not that they have suddenly acquired the capability to become better than they previously had the capability to become (iv) it could be really easy to game and (v) the players that might get better using that sort of mechanism almost certainly won't be the few who actually surprise everyone with their late development in real life anyway.

It really shouldn't be affecting your immersion that most of your players don't continue to get better except for the ones that big clubs snatch away from you because that's what real life LLM is all about...

-

@ElPayaso Sure, I'm not suggesting the real life transfers happened at random. But big clubs just letting star players go and star players being willing to move to much less appealing clubs even though they've actually played regularly and are not exactly unsettled is exactly what people are saying shouldn't happen in FM. If those transfers happened in FM before real life you'd definitely have had people complaining about it being "unrealistic". And similarly, it's not exactly outside the realms of plausibility that Alba could be as keen on a pay rise as Di Maria or Pogba were, or have a really interesting conversation with Conte about the joys of playing wingback rather than fullback.

The idea that nobody would be interested in signing a fit Sanchez on a free, on the other hand, is patently ludicrous.

[Guest El Payaso]

23 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

 

@ElPayaso Sure, I'm not suggesting the real life transfers happened at random. But big clubs just letting star players go and star players being willing to move to much less appealing clubs even though they've actually played regularly and are not exactly unsettled is exactly what people are saying shouldn't happen in FM. If those transfers happened in FM before real life you'd definitely have had people complaining about it being "unrealistic". And similarly, it's not exactly outside the realms of plausibility that Alba could be as keen on a pay rise as Di Maria or Pogba were, or have a really interesting conversation with Conte about the joys of playing wingback rather than fullback.

But with Alba there is no reasoning especially in season one as Barcelona are bigger club than Chelsea, Alba is happy at Barcelona and Barcelona really don't have options to replace him. Alba though probably is not the best example but something like Hazard moving to Europa league Arsenal surely is. Arsenal should be able to sign players for Chelsea if they are fringe players or players that won't have use in the team anymore. I wouldn't see a problem with someone like Victor Moses or even Pedro moving to Arsenal in couple of seasons but Hazard is a world class player that should be seeking a move to a world class club such as Real Madrid or Barcelona if he is going to move. Even a move to Manchester City would be really odd as Chelsea should be looking only to sell him outside England and Hazard also should have some loyalty towards Chelsea and prefer not to move to one of the rivals.

And yes we have seen Fabregas moving to Chelsea but that also had reasoning: Wenger not wanting him, him being unsettled at Barcelona and offered a key role in Chelsea with good finances behind it for Cesc. And Petr Cech, again a clear reasoning with him wanting to be a starting keeper and Chelsea showing loyalty to him. 

If I was dealing with these in SI I would make players a lot less willing to change club even to bigger clubs as the AI will never be able to compete with human users in terms of bidding for players and offering new contracts to players that have been bidded by other club to keep hold of him. Even someone like Dolberg should be snubbing clubs and say to the teams that for now Ajax is the best place for me to improve. I tend to re-create this behavior by upping the 'loyalty' attribute for players in my save games which sees Griezmann and Ferreira-Carrasco for example snubbing moves to Premier league and Atlético being able to retain them with new contracts which is the thing that keeps happening in real life.

[enigmatic]

Di Maria was at a much bigger club than Man Utd but wanted more money. Arguably so was Pogba, who didn't really have an equivalent replacement. I don't see how you can programme a game that allows for that sort of thing but rules out the possibility for Alba to take a smaller downwards step also probably for a lot more money. 

Similarly, I don't really see any issue with Barcelona allowing a 28 year old fullback to leave for a world record fee (for the position) when they have a younger fullback with comparable potential and can easily pick up cover. Spurs let Kyle Walker move to a title rival in similar circumstances...

The problem with the Hazard move is nobody else making a bid for him. Could definitely see Hazard getting fed up with Chelsea missing out on European football again and moving to the best club available to him; the problem is that with nobody else bidding that happened to be Arsenal. But again, Arsenal have attracted world class players before without having the recent title credentials to show for it.

[Guest El Payaso]

23 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Di Maria was at a much bigger club than Man Utd but wanted more money. Arguably so was Pogba, who didn't really have an equivalent replacement. I don't see how you can programme a game that allows for that sort of thing but rules out the possibility for Alba to take a smaller downwards step also probably for a lot more money. 

Similarly, I don't really see Barcelona allowing a 28 year old fullback to leave for a world record fee (for the position) when they have one of the best young fullbacks in the game that plays in that position and can easily pick up cover. Spurs let Kyle Walker move to a title rival in similar circumstances...

The problem with the Hazard move is nobody else making a bid for him. Could definitely see Hazard getting fed up with Chelsea missing out on European football again and moving to the best club available to him; the problem is that with nobody else bidding that happened to be Arsenal. But again, Arsenal have attracted world class players before without having the recent title credentials to show for it.

I wouldn't say that Real Madrid are a much bigger club than Manchester United in terms of reputation and Manchester United as a club for many players is a team that they "want to represent one day". Di Maria became unhappy at Real Madrid as he was denied a new contract and Manchester United had both the reputation and the money to offer for him and for Real Madrid he wasn't exactly a player that they cannot replace. About Pogba I don't know: I guess that United are one of his favorite club and did offer him much more money than Juventus and also it was impossible for Juventus to turn down that much money. 

I wouldn't say that Alba makes a smaller step to wrong direction here and the amount that Chelsea pays for him is 'only' 59 million pounds. Barcelona are in no position to have to sell their best players to Chelsea. Of course if Alba would be demanding a new contract that Barcelona don't want to give him then this would make sense but without any unhappiness it makes no sense to me. Spurs letting Kyle Walker go is again a player moving to bigger club for huge fee that they couldn't turn down and they do have a replacement. Tottenham as a club haven't won anything major for... Don't know how long time and they are in a position where they have to take the money.

For Hazard a move to Arsenal in Europa league in any circumstances makes no sense. He should look to move for a world class club if Chelsea with no European qualification is a problem for him. Someone like 'world class' Özil signing for Arsenal was a good career move for him: a big club with key player status when he was in verge of dropping to rotation or backup option with Real Madrid.

This has also of course lot do with what SI aim to achieve with the game: I think that they are marketing the game as a realistic football simulation but currently achieving an arcade version of the game where people are easily able to take over the footballing world with Everton or even Watford in 2-3 years. I did ask this from SI: what they are aiming to achieve with the difficulty level of the game without any answer. If someone from SI would directly tell me that "well the aim is to make a game that everybody can enjoy and because of that we don't want it to be that challenging" then I will stop complaining about these and also stop playing the game and buying it. But currently as small part of me still believes that the aim is to simulate real football world I'm still here whining and providing feedback and bug reports well lets just say whining as I don't have interest in reporting bugs anymore. 

[enigmatic]

I think you're holding the game to different standards of realism than reality

The gap between European Champions Real Madrid and a Man Utd team in need of a rebuild that finished in seventh place and didn't even get European football was a much bigger step down than from the team that finished second in La Liga to the team that won the Premier League, Alba is just as dispensable as Di Maria was (admired but not iconic, not integral to the style of play, not uniquely talented and perfectly good alternative in Digne) and £60m is a world record fee for a fullback, which is not a bad thing to get for a 28 year old who relies heavily on pace. 

How can one be so explicable it actually happened and the other an affront to common sense that could only happen in an arcade game?

 

[Guest El Payaso]

10 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

 

 

I have no interest in continuing this pointless conversation. We just need to agree to disagree on these. I believe that if IRL Chelsea thought that they could get Alba for £59M last summer they would have tried to seal this deal. And also you have to take into account the unhappiness factor with Di Maria and Manchester United having to offer what he wanted. Also a bad spell for United doesn't make them not a major side that so many players respect, they will always have high reputation and they are always a team that players want to represent. 

But currently the transfer system in total is too easy for human users to master and we are having huge advantages compared to the AI and I did present my view already. No need to write anything more. 

[mack4ever]

On 21/11/2017 at 11:29, vrbnjak said:

Agreed.

And it is also really difficult to sell players for a reasonable price. For example, I play with AC Milan and Suso was my best player and the player of the season in Serie A (12 goals, 21 assists). Then he wanted to leave and I decided to sell him. Couldn't get more than 30million € for him. Which is totally unrealistic. So I sold him for 30million to Chelsea and then in an instant he was worth 57million. 

Same with Bacca. Ok, he was 31 years old, but scored 30 goals in Serie A. Had to sell him for 3,5M. 

Of course he's worth more after moving to Chelsea. There's a lot that goes into calculating a players value and most of those factors have changed in a way that will result in his value increasing.

He's moved to a higher reputation club, on a higher wage and with a greater amount of time left on his contract and as a result his value is calculated to be much greater.

As for the £30m transfer fee, what did you expect? If he wants to leave then your hand is forced and clubs know this. You don't want to keep an unhappy player around because you won't get them to perform as well and there's a good chance of them upsetting the rest of the team so you have an incentive to get rid, and therefore other clubs can low ball you and you don't have much choice but to accept their offer.

[tajj7]

IMO Hazard moving from Chelsea (who were out of Europe and I believe lost their manager and were therefore looking to rebuild) to an Arsenal side in Europe, who were also spending/had spent a lot at the same time (I believe he signed Mahrez, Danny Rose, and Van Dijk for a total spend of over £150 million) and he gets a pay rise (plus probably a healthy signing on fee and big fee for his agent) whilst not having to actually move and still living in London, is not that unrealistic IMO. 

If you factor in all those items - Big pay rise/signing on fee + spending on other players for a challenge + euro football + not having to move + disruption/uncertainty at Chelsea then it seems a logical transfer to me, or at least I could see Hazrd being talked round to it. 

Others, like Man City, PSG, Real etc, not also getting involved might be more of an issue, but again the transfer was pretty high £85 million so they might not have the budget available at the time and Arsenal are a very cash rich club. 

 

[XaW]

On 22.11.2017 at 10:55, Robioto said:

I'm going to come at it from a different angle, but I've grown some what frustrated with the lack of interest in my best players in my Salford City save. I'm in League 1 after consecutive promotions (I promise this isn't a brag, this is some very rare success for me) and I have players who have consistently performed over a season/seasons which no clubs are interested in at all. My main striker Jack Redshaw scored over 40 goals a season in the Confernce North, Conference and League 2, his wage is this period was between £750 and £2000 p/w as I went up through the leagues, so pretty low really.

I've had zero interest in him, absolutely none, in real life if a player had scored over 130 goals in three seasons guiding his team to 3 back to back promotions, teams higher up the leagues would surely be interested? I ended up letting him go on a free at the end of my third season as his wage demands were too high (for me, not relative to other teams in my league) and had the dreaded max highest earner clause. I can think of several real life examples of where players in the lower leagues have had great scoring records and have made big moves - Jamie Vardy, Aaron McClean, George Boyd, Geoff Horsefield, Charlie Austin, Rickie Lambert and many more, all went for a decent fee based on form and goals.

I've had this problem with FM for many years now, all the background AI calculations on whether to bid for a players don't seem to based on form, I'm making the assumption that Jack Redshaw's hidden stats aren't good enough for teams to want to bid. But this shouldn't be how it works, the AI should also look at form and take calculated punts on players. The AI should look at players and think, 'that player has scored 40 goals+ per season for three years, we should bid for him' instead of 'this players CA/PA is too low so we will ignore the amazing real life performance'.

This is one player there are many other instances of this (I have a superb RB and CM as well, which are in the same boat), in fact in my 3 and a half years, I've had bids for 3 players that are not transfer listed and to be honest not players I regard as key. A team that has gone up three divisons in a row has had interest in just 3 players in 3 and a half years. I should be fighting teams off for my players, yet I'm not. It's also frustrating as selling players and getting good fees for my best players are how my team should survive, I've really struggled finnacially but thankfully Salford have a background sugar daddy so he was keeping the club afloat, he has gone now though following a takeover so we'll see what happens.

Sorry for the long post and it being on a different tangent to the OP, but these are my negative experiences with the transfer market in FM2018. I just hope this trend doesn't continue as I get up through the divisions more (assuming my success continues).

I'm actually experiencing the very thing you are looking for. I'm playing with Marine and are currently in the Championship and I need to fend of teams with torches and weapons! And it's not just the really performing players that gets hunted. Even my rotation players are hunted by other clubs. Examples:

Playing in Vanarama North I sold a good performer to Championship Bolton for £16k + clauses
Playing in Vanarama National I sold a talented Man City reject I picked up for almost £100k +  clauses
Same season as above I sold my rotation left back to Dag & Red in League Two for £5k (he wanted more game time, so at least some money)
Playing in League Two, I sold an academy talent to Championship Cardiff for almost £300k + clauses
Sold first choice goalkeeper to Sheffield Utd in League One for £150k.
Even this current season I sold by 2nd choice left back to Sheffield Utd for almost £300k and they are a league below us now!

And many many more. And I have had to chase of suitors for pretty much every one of my players.

How big of a database do you have? I have a medium one and only the English leagues loaded. I find that balance is good. Why is this important? Well, the number of players you load into your game directly impacts the transfer system. To few clubs and too many players causes fewer teams to chase the same players. Too few players and too many leagues causes a real battle for signings. This goes for both you and the AI teams of course. This might not be applicable to your save, but it can have an impact.

[jonnyfresh]

On my game I'm currently managing ajax. I had the first window transfers disabled and the al seems better prepared in the transfer market than previous games.

danny van beer was playing great and the key player in my team that was winning Dutch league and qualified into champs league knock out stages. 

Jose and conte were spotted in the stands on a few of my games and when Herrera broke his leg united bid   A total of 46m non neg for van been as they were short a midfielder. He was worth 11m but had a really high average rating. 

For me the AI is better at buying the top level players but it either can't or won't buy back up players from the top 6 clubs.

the issue is either high reputation players on big wages who arnt playing won't play for lower rep teams. Fellaini transfer listed and in manu reserves is left to rott for a yet rather than take a loan to a rep lower club or a transfer to get game time.

its almost impossible to buy a high rep player who is transfer listed as their wage demands are crazy and they just sit there not playing.

 

 

[jonnyfresh]

Issue for me is the lower rep teams in the prem never gamble on lower rep teams unused players at bargain prices. For me u should see panic buying in the jan window for teams struggling to survive and al should try and buy back up players from prem sides (for example ake from chelsea) to stay up rather than random punts on foreign players

[Robioto]

1 hour ago, XaW said:

I'm actually experiencing the very thing you are looking for. I'm playing with Marine and are currently in the Championship and I need to fend of teams with torches and weapons! And it's not just the really performing players that gets hunted. Even my rotation players are hunted by other clubs. Examples:

Playing in Vanarama North I sold a good performer to Championship Bolton for £16k + clauses
Playing in Vanarama National I sold a talented Man City reject I picked up for almost £100k +  clauses
Same season as above I sold my rotation left back to Dag & Red in League Two for £5k (he wanted more game time, so at least some money)
Playing in League Two, I sold an academy talent to Championship Cardiff for almost £300k + clauses
Sold first choice goalkeeper to Sheffield Utd in League One for £150k.
Even this current season I sold by 2nd choice left back to Sheffield Utd for almost £300k and they are a league below us now!

And many many more. And I have had to chase of suitors for pretty much every one of my players.

How big of a database do you have? I have a medium one and only the English leagues loaded. I find that balance is good. Why is this important? Well, the number of players you load into your game directly impacts the transfer system. To few clubs and too many players causes fewer teams to chase the same players. Too few players and too many leagues causes a real battle for signings. This goes for both you and the AI teams of course. This might not be applicable to your save, but it can have an impact.

Interesting... Maybe I've just been unlucky. But to be fair I'm half way through my 1st season in League 1 and in the Janaury transfer window I've had some offers for three my better players. Including a £175k offer for a midefilder I picked up on a free in the previous summer. Promotion to the Championship is looking likely as well, 2nd after 32  games wih a good cushion (mainly due to good loan players), so hopefully I will continue to see offers for my players.

Database wise, I'm on medium with several leagues running (England, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland, R. Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium... probably missed a couple) and around 65,000 players. Not sure what that means for my market...

[MilanFM]

One thing I realise like u mention belotti icardi and Alex sandro moving for relatively low price compare to what could have happen in actual market for higher price is serie a player are value at much lower price. 

Even when the player had a few great season, value are still 30 to 40m. 

I had mention this in bug with some observation on serie a team player value but was completely ignored 

[XaW]

3 minutes ago, Robioto said:

Interesting... Maybe I've just been unlucky. But to be fair I'm half way through my 1st season in League 1 and in the Janaury transfer window I've had some offers for three my better players. Including a £175k offer for a midefilder I picked up on a free in the previous summer. Promotion to the Championship is looking likely as well, 2nd after 32  games wih a good cushion (mainly due to good loan players), so hopefully I will continue to see offers for my players.

Database wise, I'm on medium with several leagues running (England, Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland, R. Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Belgium... probably missed a couple) and around 65,000 players. Not sure what that means for my market...

I'm not quite sure, it seems reasonable to me, your selection I mean.

These are my transfers this season, and as you can see I've sold a couple of players. If I wanted to I could have sold 10+ more. I can't say why I have it like this and you don't, but I haven't had the impression you have at all. To give you a more concrete example, I sold this goalkeeper after he had a very good season for us. A lot of money, but League One was obviously too much for him so he got sold down again to another team for much less (not that he has played well at all then, but still). His value is much more likely to be the sum he was sold for and not the price I got. But it's an example of an inflated price because of a good season.

[MilanFM]

On 11/21/2017 at 19:29, vrbnjak said:

Agreed.

And it is also really difficult to sell players for a reasonable price. For example, I play with AC Milan and Suso was my best player and the player of the season in Serie A (12 goals, 21 assists). Then he wanted to leave and I decided to sell him. Couldn't get more than 30million € for him. Which is totally unrealistic. So I sold him for 30million to Chelsea and then in an instant he was worth 57million. 

Same with Bacca. Ok, he was 31 years old, but scored 30 goals in Serie A. Had to sell him for 3,5M. 

That was totally what I notice and feedback in my other thread to sigame.  

R.rodriguez had 3 great season with me. Value 32m and man city came offering and only able to get 42m but after he join them at an instant he became 56m

Belotti went from torino to bm and value at 60m I bought him back and in an instant he drop to 35m 

Andrea Pereira value 13m after I won serie a only manage to sell him to rbl for 7.5m and immediately he became 20m. 

There are more examples which I observe even in juv and roma. 

[Robioto]

11 minutes ago, XaW said:

I'm not quite sure, it seems reasonable to me, your selection I mean.

These are my transfers this season, and as you can see I've sold a couple of players. If I wanted to I could have sold 10+ more. I can't say why I have it like this and you don't, but I haven't had the impression you have at all. To give you a more concrete example, I sold this goalkeeper after he had a very good season for us. A lot of money, but League One was obviously too much for him so he got sold down again to another team for much less (not that he has played well at all then, but still). His value is much more likely to be the sum he was sold for and not the price I got. But it's an example of an inflated price because of a good season.

I'm glad that you are seeing these transfers, it might just be a bit of bad luck for me and I'll start seeing more incoming offers as I have this January. Thanks.

[XaW]

Just now, Robioto said:

I'm glad that you are seeing these transfers, it might just be a bit of bad luck for me and I'll start seeing more incoming offers as I have this January. Thanks.

Hopefully you will start to see transfer offers like it too!

[XaW]

Just to add to this, I just sold my 32 year old backup center back to another club for £240k, a bit over his actual value. I really don't have any issues with transfers, unless they are too helpful for me...

[Robioto]

20 hours ago, XaW said:

Just to add to this, I just sold my 32 year old backup center back to another club for £240k, a bit over his actual value. I really don't have any issues with transfers, unless they are too helpful for me...

 

A bit off topic, but what is your transfer/squad builing strategy with Marine in the Championship? I've found it extremly hard in my save to buy Championship standard players so I'm pretty certain that my 4 promotions streak will come to an end here and I will have to establish myself in the Championship before evening considering promotion to the Premier League (the challenge dawned on me when Reading bought a new goalkeeper for £14m). I think I've got a good enough squad to stay out of relegation trouble but that will be about it in my first Championship season.

Also, have you had a new stadium yet? I've now maxed Salford's current stadium expansion capacity and have 7,300 - which is ok but tiny for the Championship, I'm assuming I will have to wait until I reach the riches of the Premier Legue before the board will even consider this.  Have you upgraded your training and/or youth facilites at all, mine are terrible. Any takeovers?

It's early days for me at theis level, so struggling is to be expected, how many seasons have you been in the Champioship? Where have you finished? Have you manged to get any good young players to develop?

[XaW]

19 minutes ago, Robioto said:

 

A bit off topic, but what is your transfer/squad builing strategy with Marine in the Championship? I've found it extremly hard in my save to buy Championship standard players so I'm pretty certain that my 4 promotions streak will come to an end here and I will have to establish myself in the Championship before evening considering promotion to the Premier League (the challenge dawned on me when Reading bought a new goalkeeper for £14m). I think I've got a good enough squad to stay out of relegation trouble but that will be about it in my first Championship season.

Also, have you had a new stadium yet? I've now maxed Salford's current stadium expansion capacity and have 7,300 - which is ok but tiny for the Championship, I'm assuming I will have to wait until I reach the riches of the Premier Legue before the board will even consider this.  Have you upgraded your training and/or youth facilites at all, mine are terrible. Any takeovers?

It's early days for me at theis level, so struggling is to be expected, how many seasons have you been in the Champioship? Where have you finished? Have you manged to get any good young players to develop?

A lot of questions, so bare with me if I skip one!

My transfer strategy is to find the best players possible that fits my tactic. No really, I don't have anything more complicated than that. Regarding squad building, I have always loved a good youth challenge, so I have incorporated it a bit into this game. I have asked for every upgrade possible with the youngsters and I have gotten a couple of talents, but none that are in the first 11. A couple on the subs bench though.

I got promoted from the Vanarama North in my third season, then 3 straight promotions to League One, there I finished 9th in my first season before winning it the next. Last season was my first in the Championship and I finished in 10th position. I think I have an outside chance for reaching the playoffs this season, but I've only played 8 league matches so far, so it's still anyone's guess.

I have not had a new stadium yet, though the board gave me news of one they are working on with TBA as all information, so I have no clue when it might happen. Rossett Park currently have a capacity of just above 5000.

I try to blood my youngsters quite early, and because of the limited wage budget they are often on the bench. My total number of senior squad members are 16 plus these kids and a few more like them:

[Robioto]

4 hours ago, XaW said:

A lot of questions, so bare with me if I skip one!

My transfer strategy is to find the best players possible that fits my tactic. No really, I don't have anything more complicated than that. Regarding squad building, I have always loved a good youth challenge, so I have incorporated it a bit into this game. I have asked for every upgrade possible with the youngsters and I have gotten a couple of talents, but none that are in the first 11. A couple on the subs bench though.

I got promoted from the Vanarama North in my third season, then 3 straight promotions to League One, there I finished 9th in my first season before winning it the next. Last season was my first in the Championship and I finished in 10th position. I think I have an outside chance for reaching the playoffs this season, but I've only played 8 league matches so far, so it's still anyone's guess.

I have not had a new stadium yet, though the board gave me news of one they are working on with TBA as all information, so I have no clue when it might happen. Rossett Park currently have a capacity of just above 5000.

I try to blood my youngsters quite early, and because of the limited wage budget they are often on the bench. My total number of senior squad members are 16 plus these kids and a few more like them:

Awesome, thanks for the response.

I think I may have built my squad a little big at this stage, my wages are at £90k p/w, which I know is too high, but I struggled so much to get the players I needed and ended up paying a little over the odds for them, I'm still in August so I may try and sell a few players to get that down to below £70k. I do have a healthy bank balance of £3m though thanks to a large cash injection when I was in League 1 of £2.2m and couple of good cups runs and a tak over which saw another £650k cash injection.

It's been great getting successive promotions but I feel the real challenge has only just begun now I've reached the Championship...

What is your wage budget?

[XaW]

I've not had any cash injections, the only time my debt was wiped was when I had a takeover, so I have loan instead. 

I have had couple of good run in the cups, so I've usually had a positive balance since League 2. You will probably like the end of the season when you get the cash for playing there. I think I got about £5M!

My wage budget is about £73k, and at the moment I'm using £69k. My salary p/a is £2,99M according to the league stats, close to half of the next lowest (£4,66M). The highest in the league have £63,72M....so I'm quite far behind!

[XaW]

I have to say though, @Robioto, that I really like this one player I have. He didn't get a contract after coming through the youth intake at Man City. I picked him up and he are now my vice-captain and the record holder for most league goals. And he is still only 23. I have a side goal to have him play his entire career with us, even if he will be rated too poor should I get the final promotion.

 

[Guest El Payaso]

I would raise another issue in this which for me is how little the game/AI values rotation and backup players. Backups especially are transfer listed by default while many of those players are valued in real life. And once again these players are easy prey for human users. Sturaro and for example Ashley Young are one of the most obvious examples. 

[Guest El Payaso]

Also the lack of rotation from the AI leads into easy transfers for human users. I think that Luciano Vietto and Dani Ceballos fir example are players that the human user can always pick with peanuts as they don't play enough to stay happy. 

[screwyiimp]

transfers are always poor , you pay through the nose the AI pays you peanuts , its all down to your tactics