bluebruce

The stats work differently on the main game (there are more of them) but your Buckley looks similar to, or maybe better than, mine. Mine only has passing 12, decisions 10 and dribbling 11 for instance. And mine has become an important regular in my side (probably ditch him when I go up though). You might want to give him a couple of games and see if he surprises you. Jaume Jardi, just one of a bunch of kids I've pillaged from Barca. I dont have the pull to get the likes of Ansu Fati, their top prospects, but their also-rans have plenty of 4-5 star potential at my level. Jardi was the only one who could fit into my first team squad immediatelt though. I've also raided Vigo, probably even more heavily, and snatched from various other clubs in Spain and Germany (two of my active leagues). Just starting to look into the Italian market. If I ran the maths, just selling Brereton is probably paying for all this business, wages included for a while, and I must have brought in at least 20 kids. I run the Chelsea model, and have since long before Chelsea were doing it. Probably for cheaper too. Easier on a game where potential is shown as a stat though (but they do a good job of keeping it partly randomised and your scouts not really knowing). And whilst it's a great tactic on a game, I think it's abhorrent that it's being done for real. Just checked, I seem to have brought in 38 players in total (some for the first team of course) and sold or loaned a bunch of others. Spent 15.5m and brought in 18.75m, though those figures include business Rovers had already done IRL (Gally, Raya)

Sam Hart is going nowhere on mine! Probably be selling him for a few hundred k when the season ends. Left him on loan, and he has Championship potential at best it seems. Buckley surprised me on several cameos as his performances outstripped his stats, so I kept giving him chances and now he has displaced Holtby in the first 11. Theoretically he shouldn't, I dunno what it is, much like with Gally. But when players are in form you have to run with it. Holtby has been disappointing, he should be top notch in this league. Maybe he is just worse in that particular role, but he wasn't much use in CAM either. But Buckley and Travis is my number one CM pairing now. JRC was starting to be used as a sub for the flank attacking positions, and getting the occasional start with injuries and fatigue as he set off ok. Form started being quite average so I loaned him out when I signed a new guy from Barcelona youth, Jardi. I got New York Red Bulls to loan him, for 120k a month...til the end of their next season. 2.8 million total! Just for a loan. So yeh done alright off him. Hopefully he comes back better and I can sell him for a ton, his potential isn't too high though.

Aren't most proven Premiership strikers on that these days?

Ffs why does everybody keep losing interest in King? He isn't that expensive for a proven, pacey Premier League striker in today's market, especially to Prem clubs. Even at 28 and with covid going on. If he doesn't sell in this window, we are getting buttons at best, as the only remaining chance will be in Jan with 6 months left on his deal. At which point he will probably just sign a pre-contract with a foreign club.

Yep, he preferred the footymad site though, that's where I got to know him. We met for drinks a few times before and after games. I remember Brandon as a little shit, probably about 6 years old or so haha

Nah no bollock dropped with Brereton. I considered it very carefully and I was reluctant to do it but it was the right call. It allowed me to do a lot of business, including buying freshly turned 18 year old Fran Lopez for 1.3 million. His CA is slightly better than Brereton's according to my staff, and his PA is similar. I also signed Rouwen Hennings who was top scorer in the Bundesliga, for 300k (!!), who should add more to my promotion push than BB was. It let me tie up a few other important bargain deals too. Unlike with the Raya scenario I more than adequately replaced him! The players I snapped up with the dosh will go on to be worth far in excess of that 24 million. There was enough left over to get the board to upgrade the training facilities at senior and youth level. Plus I put a 25 percent of next sale clause in. Like I said though there could also be some stat differences between the mobile version. And every game you start randomly changes PA a bit for all players. Ben was showing as a high potential player though, 4 to 5 star (my scouts are saying only 4 now though). And I dont like selling players before they're at or near their PA. So it was a carefully considered decision I was loathe to make, and someone else told me on their game BB never really hit his potential anyway. On Olsson/Bell, I use both. Bell has surprised me with his performances, as he is basically just tons of pace and below average actual ability, but it works for him. He is second choice this season though, he normally rotates in for midweek games or when Olsson is injured. Made 12 apps by Feb, averaged 7.08, got himself a new deal. Naff all like the real Bell except for his stats are weighted about right (no clue why they think he is as fast as Arma though).

Just seen you're on android version so stats could differ, but Dolan is meh on mine with bog standard potential. I've kept Walton and tbh he has been fine. I was going to bring a better goalie in for the Jan window, but my budget got squeezed by me buying a fuckton of promising youngsters to loan out then turn over for a profit, my usual tactic. The first thing I did was snap up Martin Olsson on a free and he has been fab. Although Bell has actually played very well in the midweek games when I usually rotate nearly the whole team.

On my version, same edition as him I think (FM 20, it was available for free a few weeks ago, first one I've played since FM 11), I just sold Ben Brereton for 11 million to Everton after he notched a mighty 2 goals in 4 starts and 10 sub appearances. Sam Gallagher, on the other hand, has 17 goals. It's February 2020.... In fairness I've no idea why he has so many. It's not like the game has given him amazing stats. Finishing, technique, composure and long shots, all at 11 out of 20. Heading at 12. Those are the key goalscoring stats. Not blisteringly quick or super strong either. Best attributes are teamwork, work rate and jumping reach. I have theoretically better strikers who perform worse. I did, however, play him in the middle up front........ I'm currently sat in 5th place, 13 points clear of 7th, but 9 away from 2nd. The playoffs await me too.

Brandon Lonsdale is 5 ft 10, approx 11 stone, plays as an attacker (his dad described it as 7, 9, 10, 11 but mostly 9), dob 03/09/2002, nationality English. He also has Dutch nationality too though, dunno if FIFA does dual nationality like FM. Hopefully his brother Nathan, who is in the younger age group, keeps coming through at Rovers too. Their dad is a huge Rovers fan, used to travel from Holland for pretty much every game when he was working out there.

I know Brandon's dad. I'll ping him on FB.

Nope, definitely nope, and also nope for me. Sorry. As much as I rate them both. Game of opinions of course.

Why does it look like some sort of cardboard cut out is self-harming in the background? Had Joe Pesci just told him he would be paying him a visit tonight, with a vice?

You thought that because he absolutely was. That was exactly when he showed he was the best in the world at that time.

Yeh Duff was unquestionably still world class at Chelsea. I always feel he was slightly better here, injuries robbing him of a tiny bit of his edge, but I'm biased. But we are only talking the difference between being the absolute best LW in the world with us and being one of the top 3 or so after.

Problem being that still puts him in the 11...

On the world class discussion, only been the following since the Prem started, who were just full on undisputable world class players that have played for us. Shearer Friedel Duff There's an argument for Tugay, and his technique certainly was. After that you can only say some players had some world class attributes, as some have mentioned, rather than being all around world class. It's not an easy title to earn (or shouldn't be). For me it more or less means you can get in the starting 11 of nearly any team in the world. None of our current crop, talented and promising as they are, have the possibility of becoming world class as far as I can see. Slight possible exception of Dolan just because his tricks are unreal, but he has a very long way to go yet. Shame we never signed Lewandowski btw, then I could have added another to the list.

Yeh I didn't mean I personally expect it to happen (unless it's with a promoted Rovers) but I certainly wouldn't rule it out. Seems a hard working type and that means his game should improve for a few years yet.

JRC is decent, has potential, could become a Premier League player in time maybe. He doesn't have an ice cube in hell's chance of becoming 'world class'.

JRC is decent, has potential, could become a Premier League player in time maybe. He doesn't have an ice cube in hell's chance of becoming 'world class'.

Yes I know not all of us, I didn't mean that. And I did look it up, I posted the link to the topic and yours was one of the comments I read before doing so.

No. Hoilett left on a free. The others left for compensation fees after expiry. And nobody is having a meltdown, they're just contesting the false claims about how we never lose important players out of contract. The current regime under TM has been fairly good for it though, so far. Only Mahoney lost in this way. Next summer will be a serious test of that though, it's a lot of players that we use, to go out of contract at once. The Nyambe deal only being 2 years was a disgrace though. Which actually makes me about 50% confident that we actually have an extension option in there.

More than a couple. It wasn't universal outrage, but you're definitely exaggerating or misremembering that one. No, he wasn't a key player. I'd say that as a young player who was starting to show good potential and like he was ready to kick on especially at League One level, it was what I'd consider an asset you need to be protecting. Far less so than Nyambe granted, who you don't seem to rate, which may or may not be because the manager wrongly dropped him a few times. Hoilett left us in 2012. King, who was another I'd considered an asset you want to protect, and clearly correctly, left us more recently than that after contract expiry.

I'm not grasping in the slightest. There were quite a lot of annoyed fans. I was one of them. The word was our offer to him was fairly derisory too. His level of success afterwards is immaterial, it was a blow at the time. Luckily he hasn't gone on to all that much since.

Without actually being a lawyer of course...only if there was something in the contract we had breached, or there was a serious circumstance where we had let the player down. If it was just something like he was told we would be in the Prem by now then he should have put that as a condition of the extension. Neill only did what he was 100% entitled to do contractually, as annoying as it was. If you were right, there'd be successful legal challenges to get out of contracts all the time. I vaguely remember some attempts, but no successes that weren't contingent on contractual agreements. Even if you're right, Dack doing that after Mowbray revived his career and helped keep him out of jail? Nah not buying that.

We were fairly annoyed at the time to lose Mahoney that way.