At the moment I’m having a very frustrating pre-season. I’m struggling to identify suitable players to play at Celtic and when I do this happens.
Fierro Work Permit Problem
Yes, I’d agreed to buy wonderkid Carlos Fierro after a LOT of searching, scouting, consideration and negotiating. My scouts did say he would fail to gain a work permit; but get one on appeal. For some reason the game didn’t even allow me the option to appeal so I cancelled the transfer. I can’t afford to pay over £6m (+ around £3m in add-ons) and £20k p/w for a player who won’t play for me for three years.
How do I find players?
I discussed how I find players quite some time ago, back in the second season of my FM 2011 game. But the highlights were;
- Set up a filter containing all of the Key Attributes for a given role (e.g. the 10 attributes for a Poacher in the above case)
- Scout the players; obtaining at least three different scout reports
- Those players with three star ability or more (for first team players) I’d shortlist and look deeper into
- Read, in depth, the scout report; looking especially at their Personality, Strengths and Weaknesses
But I’m beginning to doubt this strategy. There are some advantages;
- It filters out players who are not suitable for a given role
- It filters out players you cannot afford
- It highlights players who may be easier to obtain (transfer listed)
Example of Player With 10 out of 10 Key Attributes at value 10 or above
Robbie Kruse is an example of a player with a value of 10 for all 10 Key Attributes for a Poacher. Unfortunately he’d cost around £10m to buy 
But the disadvantages of this approach are;
- With attribute masking, players about whom you do not know a lot will be missing from the list.
- Players who have a value of, say 8 for one of the Key Attributes; but have very high values (e.g 15 and above) for, say 3 of the Key Attributes, will be missing from the list even though they could be better than those with moderate attribute values (e.g. 10 and above) for 10 out of 10 Key Attributes.
- One misses out on players who are very good but could play in the same position with a different role (e.g. a Striker who can play Advanced Forward very well but Poacher not so well).
Example of Player With Only 9 out of 10 Required Attributes at 10 or above
Sebastian Soria is an example of a player with only 9 out of 10 of the Key Attributes for a Poacher at 10 or more (his Dribbling is 7) but he has high Composure (16) and Pace (15). He would be missed out by the initial filtering.
Why am I considering this?
I identified during the retrospective on myself/results from 2012-13 that;
Time and time again I notice that I don’t bring in very good senior players but the young players I do bring in seem to play very well. I need to be more careful when signing senior players.
So it appears to me that the way I search for senior players doesn’t work and I am keen to hear your opinions.
A different strategy for replacing a player
Now this particular search, for a Poacher, is very important. Of my current Poachers; Gary Hooper, Anthony Stokes, Baba Diawara; I’ve identified that Stokes and Baba need to be sold, while Hooper is in the last year of his contract and we cannot agree a new one. So I have to replace Hooper. There are several reason you may need to replace a player;
- Players refusal to negotiate a new contract
- You cannot agree on a new contract (Hoopers case)
- You accept a good transfer bid for them
In these scenarios I think there are some goals you want to achieve when replacing them.
- Sell the current player for as much as possible
- Buy a replacement for a cheaper price
- Find a player who can play in the same role
- Find a player with similar strengths
- Find a player who will settle quickly
So lets look at Hooper.
Gary Hooper
Here it is very clear that Hooper is an excellent Poacher, with very high values for Finishing; Anticipation; Composure and Off The Ball.
Selling the current player
So the first thing I’ve done, is try to sell Hooper now. It is clear he won’t stay after this season and his contract is up then. So if I try to sell him now, 12 months before the end of his contract, I should get a decent sum of money for him. I’d generally advise trying to sell 18 months to 2 years before this happens but 12 months is the very least.
I’ve transfer listed him and set his asking price at £4m which is over 3 times his value. I’m hopeful that I will get this amount.
Buy a replacement for a cheaper price
Well this is a matter of opinion, but I’d prefer to buy someone cheaper, making a net profit on transfer dealings. Either that or buy a player to play in the first team, and a young player who will grow into the role.
Find a player who can play in the same role
I’ve discussed this extensively above. But I don’t think it is working.
Find a player with similar strengths
This is a bit different. If you go to the Player Search screen you can enter the name of your current player then ask for a filter to be created from them.
Replacing a Player
- Untick the “Ask Assistant Manager to exclude” options “Unrealistic transfers” and “<Your team> players”.
- Add the “Name” condition from the “Add Condition” pull down menu.
- In the Name search option, enter the players name (e.g. Gary Hooper)
- Right click on the players name; choose Scouting then “Create Player Search Filter From”
This creates a filter containing the important attributes which make your current player so good.
Possible Replacements
Note how it sets a value for 15 for each of Finishing; Composure; Strength; Anticipation; Off The Ball; Work Rate. Gary Hooper has at least a value of 15 for each of these.
For me however, it returns some players I have no hope of signing as when I tick “Unrealistic transfers” all of these player disappear.
Another way?
Another option I had thought of was to find all players with say a value of 10 or greater in just 7 out of 10 Key Attributes and sum all of their values. Then I could sign the players with the highest value; because overall they’d be best at playing this position. E.g. say someone has 10 for each of the Key Attributes for Poacher with the exception of;
- Finishing: 15
- Composure: 16
- Pace: 9
- Acceleration: 9
While another has 10 for each except
- Finishing: 11
- Composure: 11
- Pace: 12
- Acceleration: 13
Now in reality, the first player is the best, his total adds up to:
(6 x 10) + 15 + 16 + 9 + 9 = 109
While the second player adds up to;
(6 x 10) + 11 + 11 + 12 + 13 = 107
So clearly the first player is better.
NOTE: 6 x 10 is a value of 10 for 6 Key Attributes. We then add the value for Finishing, Composure, Pace and Acceleration to get the total. The highest possible value is 200 which means a value of 20 for all 10 Key Attributes. The idea here is suitability may be determined by the sum of the Key Attributes.
The main problem with this is it is incredibly time consuming. However I am writing a computer program to do it for me, but more on that at a later date 
How do you search?
So back to my original question – how do you search for new players? And how do you replace existing ones?
I guess it’s how you go about playing football tactically and what attributes you require from your players, as to how difficult it is to look for players.
There are only a handful of attributes that I require to install the philosophy that I try to put into every squad I manage. Those usually are: Determination; Teamwork, Composure; Passing; Decisions; Creativity; Flair; Off-the-ball. Everything else is pretty much ignored. Not ignored totally of course, but certainly left as final decision breakers.
With those attributes in mind, then it’s quite simple to gather a squad of hard, relentless, determined players, who know how to pass and slot through beautiful passes. My point being that looking for a handful of attributes to install a playing philosophy is quite easy when searching for players.
If you are purchasing players in the hope of replacing role for role, then you might come unstuck. You’re looking for an all rounder with certain attributes of course – but still only a player who can fulfil a specific role. This is very much how Arsene Wenger got his players playing together for years. It’s the role theory which is discussed in T&T from FM Britain. The players role is the key factor, and how he slots into the varying roles of the squad, rather than his individual skills.
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I like your approach. But I wonder then: do you sign forwards with low Finishing?
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I can see where you are coming from tactikzz. You buy players by filtering on attributes your TEAM needs as a whole, rather than the individual.
I do think about what my team needs as a whole as opposed to the individual but I do it in the opposite way from you, i.e. things like Determination, Work Rate and Natural Fitness are decision makers once I have the 10 attributes for a given role fulfilled.
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In reply to true:
Nope. Those attributes are base attributes that I would hope that all my squad have. They are they key attributes that I look for. Obviously defenders need to be able to defend and strikers need to score goals. But with those key attributes, when searching for players it’s easier to slot them into my teams philosophy. Like for like as it were, based on attributes, not roles.
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Great post.
What I do is, I consider what do I want from a player.
Having this in mind, and knowing my team’s strength and player I am replacing strength, I determine 2-5 key attributes. Most of the time it is 2-3 (ex. poacher – finishing, composure, pace).
Then I set a search on player’s position with key attributes set to certain values, depending on already said things and number of players that my search gives (I have ”Unrealistic targets” ticked).
Also, I search for players by value and add the ones that I think might fit the role(with “Unrealistic targets” unticked).
Now having 10-20 players in mind, I scout them and sort them by stars given.
Judging by the stars I try to make a list of < or = 5 players. (usually 3-4)
Final couple of players undergo heavy analysis where I consider their personality, attributes ignored by first search (ex. dribbling of a poacher) and important thing, I consider their history in the game (if possible), having in mind the strength of the league and club the player was playing in.
Finally I end up trying to sign them in some order (or, if nobody suits the role, I look for the ones that were on my first list).
Like timbo said, sometimes I sign a player without much thinking, but only if I know he will be up to the challenge. Sometimes I sign 2 players when I needed just 1. Sometimes I just don't sign anyone and use my old player or a youngster.
In theory, with high concentration, I find my guy in 15-30 minutes.
In reality, I sometimes don't pay attention to every step and unfortunately make a bad transfer.
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You’re idea of just focussing on 2-5 key attributes is quite good, as is the phased approach of gradually cutting down the number of players you look at and increasing the scrutiny.
History is a good thing to look at, and I do that if the game has been doing for a couple of seasons.
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A very interesting post there celticman, I have never been the best at searching for players patiently, at times I just go straight into a deal without thinking which I am sure many of us do from time to time.
This post has very much helped me on how to improve searching for players, I will take some of this on board and hope for better players in the future. Also the detailed comments have also gave ideas.
Once again very good and useful post
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Thanks timbo. I’m glad this helped however, as you have pointed out, the comments on this article have been great. It was the one thing I wanted to get from it – inspire lots of well thought out comments and that’s exactly what has happened. I’ve got a few different ideas of what to do and I’m sure many others will have too.
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I also meant to add, try getting a French scout, or scouting France a lot. There are a ton of great, undervalued players there.
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I have several French coaches and a French scout. Furtermore I just loaded France as a playable nation. Hopefully I’ll find some tres bon footballeurs Francais!
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I always like to search the national teams, especially when finding youth players. Since they’re young, you can shape them to be whatever you want (well, almost). I always do a personality search, and look for more determined players. I also have an idea of what kind of football I want my team to play. I use this idea loosely, because it takes a major overhaul of players to play a fluid style.
For instance, if I want to use a formation with one striker, I prefer speed up front, instead of a target man. UNLESS, I have gifted crossers, or a speedy, creative player in the number 10 role. As far as selling a player like Hooper. If I know the value I’m getting for him is higher than what I rate him, I’ll accept the offer, knowing that I have week before the move can go through (and you can always cancel at the end if you’re really worried). Hooper has extremely high composure and finishing for the SPL, which to me drives his value way up. I find it extremely difficult to get new players with high composure.
I don’t personally tally up the key attributes into a formula, because I think a lot more attributes go into player performance than “finishing” or “pace.” Of course setting up filters is very important to getting the player you want, but depending on your scouting knowledge, you may be missing out on a lot of gems. That’s why I generally hire foreign scouts (along with a couple domestics) to broaden my scope. I always hang on to their reports, and find myself going back and shortlisting targets. Also, getting feeder clubs from other countries can help with this too. Then, I always give myself time to simply search randomly in countries that don’t value players as highly as Scotland or England or Spain. Searching the best teams to find gems.
I don’t really strictly replace a player with the money I get from him. Hooper may be an exception since he’s in his last year, and his value is too low, in my opinion. Usually I’ll buy a youngster and a starter with the income. I’d check places like Switzerland, Holland, and other smaller EU nations first, then try to poach from Scottish teams as a last resort.
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Thanks houseoftomorrow! I’ve already tried to get scouts from as many different nations as possible which in a way makes it more difficult to find good players because there’s a lot more average players in my player search screen.
You are right about tallying up attributes not being enough (as true also said) as there are attributes which hold greater importance to others. See Mantralux blog (www.mantralux.com) for more details.
Your idea of a random search is intriguing. I have done this in the past for newgens with some success, but never for senior players. I will give this a go.
You mention doing a “Personality search”. Could you clarify how you do this?
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Sorry, I meant that I use personality traits as a tie-breaker. Sometimes a scout will give you an idea of how the player will blend into the team in the report. I also use determination, and concentration to distinguish between players. Determined players tend to play motivated quite a bit, and concentrated players seem to do well in high pressure games. Also, I look for “professional” players.
Here is a pretty good rundown. I don’t follow it exactly, but it’s a good overview: http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/players/player-personalities
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Ah I understand you now. Yes I do something similar with the personalities too though I am likely to focus on this even more from now on.
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I definitely like your article!
The only thing that made me hesitating is your tryings to sum up values of all important attributes. I think they have different weight. Moreover, their weight depends on tactical approach used.
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You are absolutely right about weighting attributes. I had thought about it, for example, applying a different weight to Background, Prime and Secondary attributes (see the Mantralux blog on Player Attributes Explained) but I am unsure exactly how to apply the weighting.
As for weighting with regards to tactical approach, well I suspect that’ll be even more difficult to factor into my software. Then again, maybe I could do it for the second version, I need to get the first completed soon.
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We are similar in the fact that we manage smaller clubs in poor leagues. How I go about transfers for Shamrock is I look at the ‘Free Transfers’ for whatever role I’m looking at. So I select ‘Unrealistic Transfers’ from the exclusion list, and look at my options. However often the players there are not great and may only equal my current level, where I want to improve.
Another method I use is see who got released by big clubs in the Premier League, SPL and sometimes the Championship. For example, Marc Albrighton was released by relegated Aston Villa and has become one of my best players. Obviously I couldn’t sign players such as Balotelli or van Persie when they were released, but I can still get some players who slot in and play extremely well for the side.
Occasionally, my best players are chosen and offered to me by agents and scouts. I’ve hired 2 fantastic scouts for ability who I use for senior players, and 2 fantastic scouts for potential, who I use for young players. Nyuiadzi was offered to me when he was released by OGC Nice and my scouts predicted that he would be a superb player, which he has proven to be.
Apologies if this hasn’t helped, but this is how I find my players.
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I’ve had mixed experiences looking at the free transfer market. In fact for a Poacher this season its pretty poor. That said, I’ve never thought to look specifically at players released from a given league so that is something I’ll try. I’d also forgotten about checking the players my scouts recommend I sign so again I’ll have another look at that.
Thanks.
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Well, there is an option for attributes to match a certain amount, for example 8/10 to match the criteria. Using this would bring about a larger number of players that may be good enough. Also, what you did with Hooper with searching using his stats is good, although you could just right click and select ‘Create Player Search Filter From’ without the hassle of the ‘Name contains’ bit.
Personally, I would try my best to keep Hooper at all costs if I were you, because he is probably better than all of your other options that would sign for you. If it is absolutely hopeless, look for younger players (20-24) as they are more likely to be playing for smaller clubs and may join you, filtering only absolutely key stats such as finishing, composure and pace. There are some extremely talented players that don’t have good stats for all poacher requirements.
Look at teams recently relegated in leagues you have loaded; you may find a bargain. Spend time looking at loads of clubs with a lower reputation because some smaller clubs have gems that you could get.
I think comparing my team when I just got promoted to the Premier League may be fair. I looked at all players who had contracts expiring and added them to my shortlist, even if they were well out of reach. This happened to me with Theo Walcott. 28 and excellent, he knew he deserved better than my bottom-predicte side. Buy as time went on, he became more desperate and eventually signed for me and became top scorer. Do you ever really look for frees? Every season, there is always somebody released who can improve your team. You tried the transfer list? As you said, there are players you might’ve missed as they aren’t natural poachers. But with the right schedule, they can become one. Advanced forwards and poachers aren’t that different to be fair, so either might do the job for you.
Filtering only gives ‘well-known’ players, so those in Africa and Asia, where some incredible players always come from in FM, are missed out. Sometimes they may have dual nationality and don’t require work permits, other times you may be lucky and it’s granted.
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Thank you for the very detailed comment. Many of your suggestions, such as choosing to matching on 8/10 attributes, I have tried but again with limited success. However I think I will try looking at recently relegated teams. After all I loaded all the countries available so there should be some good players there
I have never thought to look at player who play similar positions (e.g. Advanced Forward) so that’s something else to try.
As for keeping Hooper, there isn’t much hope. His agent is adament he must get a £1.1m minimum fee release clause (foreign club), which is less than his current value. I’d be mad to accept that and he won’t budge.
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