danej

I still feel like the biggest problem with FM23 (and FM21 + 22 which I also played) is that the game is way too easy. Many seem to share this view. See for example these threads: I totally agree with SergeiG, overall the game is way too easy, and it is a shame. It ruins an otherwise amazing game, to the extent where I don't know whether I will keep playing it in future. Anyway, my dilemma is: How to make the game sufficiently challenging? My goal being that there is a real risk of getting sacked, and on average performing on par with board expectations or only marginally better. AND at the same time don't lose a lot of realism because of various random restrictions in order to make the game harder. So, recently I have been thinking - perhaps a solution is to deliberately mess up morale to an extent? I have seen several people calling FM "Morale Manager" and I have the same impression to an extent, morale seems important for performance. Besides, improving and maintaining a good squad morale quickly becomes monotonous, robotic, predictable clicking, you just click on the options that makes sense and that you know usually work. It probably wouldn't ruin realism too much to mess up morale to an extent. Perhaps an idea is to cast dice or something similar - to an extent picking random, and often very bad, responses in potentially morale boosting interactions with the squad or individual players. Similarly I have been thinking: Another twist could be to never interact with players. And also perhaps never holding team meetings. Anyway, in theory I really like the idea casting dice regarding choosing potentially stupid options in interactive talks, and thus occasionally mess up morale. It would in theory make the saves more unpredictable, more up and down, where morale could at any point go from good to bad or the opposite, and thus also performances. Any experiences or input regarding this?

There are several discussions about this topic out there, both here on the SI forum and elsewhere. However, I haven't come across a sufficiently in-depth discussion of high quality, input would be appreciated. Here are my ideas so far: No matter what, I would usually sell any outfield player at some point when he is 27-29 years old at the latest. So aged 29 at the latest. At this point their market value is probably peaking and it would usually be a bad long term decision not to cash in. No matter which club you are, this also in principle applies to PSG, Man Utd etc. Specific examples: In my current Man Utd save I think I waited too long to sell Varane (30) and Bruno Fernandes (29) respectively. I ended up getting very low fees for them. Keepers can probably be kept on for a couple of years longer. I am not as certain regarding the best age to sell keepers, but my current impression is to preferable sell them aged 30-31 at the latest. Sometimes perhaps wait untill the summer transfer window. I am not sure on this one, but I have seen a few people suggest it in various discussion. The argument being that clubs in general have a better transfer budget at the beginning of the summer transfer window compared to the beginning of the January transfer window. So if you struggled to obtain a reasonable bid when you try to sell someone during the January window, perhaps you should consider waiting untill the summer and try again. The Varane and Bruno Fernandes examples above also happened during the January transfer window. In hindsight I should perhaps have kept them on untill the following summer transfer window, perhaps I could then have obtained a much better fee for them. Or ideally, sold them the summer before. Even in my current save, I didn't know what I do know untill very recently. I thought it was pretty much always good to keep players around untill there were around 29-30. Now I am sceptical towards that attitude, and consensus in discussions regarding the optimal age for player sales also seem to be point more towards and age around 28-29 for outfield players. In any case, the optimal age for player sales shouldn't be set in stone. It should probably to some extent be decided by an indiviual assesment, each player being different. Natural fitness could play a big part. In any case, I am leaning towards studying each player individually at the start of each transfer window. Look at "Development - Progress" in the player's menu. Look at his progress for the last 1, 6, 12 months. Seriously considering selling the player if his development has been disappointing compared to his age. I have already followed point no. 4 for young players, being succesful more often than not I think. Specifically, I look at the players progress. As a rule of thumb, if the young player (aged 21-22 or younger) hasn't progressed with at least "Slight overall improvement..." in at least one of the three domains (Technical, Mental, Physical ability), I will probably try to sell the player. So, I think I will implement a similar strategy for younger players. Specifically, for players aged around 23 and older, at the start of each window, I will look at their development the last 1, 6, 12 months. If for example the players has more of those slightly downwards orange arrows than slightly upwards yellow arrows, it might be time to sell. I also think that if I had used this method in my current save, I would probably have noticed the slight deterioration of the attributes of Varane and Bruno Fernandes at an earlier stage. And I might have sold them at an earlier and better time and got a much better fee for them. In any case, input is greatly appreciated. At which age should you sell players? What can be said about this topic?

The case: I manage Man Utd. For one of my youth prospects, these are my two best options for a loan during the January 2024 transfer window: - Huddersfield, currently 2nd in League One. They have excellent training facilities. - Peterborough, currently 22nd in the Championship. They have good training facilities. Both offer playing time of at least regular starter (important player in the case of Huddersfield). According to my habits, picking Huddersfield would be almost a no brainer. I understand that the most important consideration is to give the player game time on the highest level possible. However, lately I have come to doubt my habits. It seems a recurrent issued that loaned out players may become unhappy if they play for a team near the bottom of their league. In such situations there is often a remark in the loan report saying that the player is unhappy because he feels better then the players around him. Often this opinion is absurd since the player's current level is 1-2 leagues below the one that he is playing in. But that is what it often says in any case. So in other words I guess I am uncertain to what extend I should heed to or ignore that style of unhappiness according to loan reports. And similarly, sometimes avoid loaning players out to relegation threatened teams if I have another good option. I have no clue really. Perhaps such stuff is important. And perhaps it doesn't matter and I can just ignore such loan reports that indicated this type of unhappiness with the loan.

This looks great, thanks. Edit: Very similar to my link it seems (have only read the first parts as I am writing this). Although this might be slightly off topic. For me, stuff like wage budget discipline is basic by now, I have been doing this for a long time, it is automated. What mostly interests me at this point in time is what can be generally said about a sensible maximum wage relative to relevant paramaters such as current ability, age etc. I would very much like to overpay on a player's wage to the extent that he could be difficult to offload when the time comes. For a club with a good wage budget, excactly this seems to be the biggest pitfall.

Yes I agree that a sensible wage structure is probably a key aspect in the game. For a long time I have been doing pretty much what is described in the bottom half of this piece, being very aware of what max % of my total wage budget that I want to give to a given player. Depending on wither I consider him a star player, regular starter, backup or youth player (or somewhere in between two of the categories). https://www.guidetofm.com/squad/wages/

This seems to be the end of the Sancho saga for now. He now seems to want to stay and doesn't want a higher wage anymore. As an interesting twist I am still trying to sell him though. I feel like even his current 275k p/w is more than I would like to pay for someone of his ability. But we'll see. So far no decent bid seem to be incoming, so I might keep him. It was the same when I tried to sell him a year ago (now summer 2023).

If you want to succeed in the game I think it is essential to have a sensible long term strategy regarding your economy and wage budget. A critical factor here is this question: What should be the maximum wage for a given player? This is a complex question. Lately I have been thinking - perhaps the best way to learn about this is to collect data. So I have started collecting relevant data. Feel free to give me similar input. In any case I might update this thread/data collection if and when I gather more data and know more than I do know. The idea is that any player can be overpaid. It goes for a player where the scout report says that his current ability is at Vanarama North/South level. And it goes for a world class player. Even PSG has a limited budget, and overpaying for a player will harm your club in the long run. Both because it ties up too much of the wage budget. And not least because overpaying can make it more difficult than it should be to offload the player on attractive terms. Wage OK too high wage Level £ p/w £ p/w Club Player World class Leading PL 300.000 Man Utd Casemiro Good PL 170.000 Man Utd Eriksen Unspecified PL Decent PL 100.000 Man Utd Telles Leading Championshp 45.000 Man Utd Tuanzebe Good Championship 50.000 Man Utd Brandon Williams Unspecified Championship Decent Championship 14.750 Man Utd Benjamin Dominguez Decent Championship 25.000 Man Utd Pellistri Leading League One Good League One Unspecified League One Decent League One 13.750 Man Utd Daniel Gore Leading League Two 5.000 Man Utd Nathan Bishop Good League Two Unspecified League Two Decent League Two Leading Vanarama Good Vanarama 2.500 Man Utd Charlie McNeill + Will Fish Unspecified Vanarama Decent Vanarama 2.300 Man Utd Ethan Ennis Leading Vanarama North/South Good Vanarama North/South Unspecified Vanarama North/South 1.100 Man Utd Elyh Harrison Decent Vanarama North/South Examples that hopefully help understand this spreadsheet: - Paying a leading Premier League level player 300k p/w or more could be problematic. It is probably difficult to offload him. - Paying a Decent Championship level player 14.75k p/w or more could be problematic. It is probably difficult to offload him. - Paying a decent Championship level player 25k p/w or less is fine. You should be able to offload him when needed. - Paying a good Vanarama level player 2.5k p/w or less is fine. You should be able to offload him when needed. Note that I have deliberately emphasized two contradicting cases, those at Championship level. Of course both of those statements can't be true. It can't both be fine to pay a decent Championship level player up to 25k p/w, and at the same time be too much to pay such a player 14.75k p/w. This illustrates that my data collection is in its infancy. The system is far from perfect. I need to collect more data and to improve the system in order for it to be more useful. But this is a starting point. In any case I think I am onto something important here. It feels critically important to make wise decisions as to when to extend contracts and when not to. And it feels important to gather a great deal of knowledge about what is a reasonable level of wages at various leagues. Also, I of course wonder about how to improve this early version of the system. What creates the contradicting cases mentioned above? At the moment I suspect that age/potential ability is a huge factor. It might be reasonable to give a higher wage to a young player vs. and old player where both have similar current ability. My impression so far is that it is easier to offload the young player when you would wish to do so.

His star rating suggest that he is mediocre for a top club like Man Utd. I don't have the ability nor the interest to judge players in more advanced ways such as attributes. But in any case I think you are right. As mentioned he has performed extremely well during this first season, must better than his current ability star rating would suggest.

Interesting. Something like that could happen with Sancho I think. He has been playing incredibly well this season, avg. rating 7.25 and 35 goal contributions in 32 starts, see pic above. So perhaps his current ability is artificially inflated at the moment due to his good form. And perhaps this influences his wage demands. We shall see.

Seems like a good tip but personally I probably won't use it. For me subjectively stuff like that feels like borderline cheating, abusing the game mechanics.

I already demoted him to being a fringe player even though his actual playing time is regular starter. That happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with the current wage dispute. It happende because I tried to sell him already in the first transfer window and put him as surplus to requirements in the process. Eventually I gave up getting rid of him since I got no reasonable bids. I haven't tried your other tip though. Too late to try it now unfortunately, but I will try to remember trying this type of chat next time I am in a similar situation.

The latest twist to the drama

None of these are an option unfortunately. He isn't a leader. And noone else has come to me yet with a wage demand, so I couldn't pick that option. When that option is available I usually pick that one yes, it often shuts them up.

The case: Managing Man Utd. Towards the end of season one, April 2023. Sancho now wants a new deal. He is already borderline overpaid, the 4th highest earner at the club at 275k p/w. He now wants at least 400k. Even though he has around 4 years left on his current deal. In any case, I am not increasing his wage. I was already slightly considering to sell him because 275k for someone of his ability is stretching, not ideal use of the wage budget. Anyway, I rejected his request. Now he is p*ssed. 4-5 backups support his moaning. What do I do? Sell him in the summer, or keep him? I would probably prefer to keep him if the unhappiness is likely to disappear eventually. If not it is probably best to sell him. So in other words, how is such a situation likely to end up? Will Sancho stay disgruntled as long as he is at the club? What is the chance the he would at some point forget about his demands and be happy with his current wage? I imagine that he will probably stay unhappy forever. But I don't know, I haven't been in a situation like this before, I haven't played FM for that long.

This makes me think - I guess two of the biggest advantages on has over the AI led teams, even if you are rather bad at playing the game, is: 1) It is quite easy to avoid making signings that are bad value for money. Most signings made by AI-led teams are excactly that, bad value for money 2) It is quite easy to pick a very strong tactic, like the preset 4-3-3 DM wide Gegenpress So it easily gets to a point where you need quite a bit of creativity to avoid the boredom of easy saves where massive succes is pretty much a foregone conclusion. I wish there were difficulty modes in the game, ultra hard etc. So one wouldn't need to think out all sorts of save restrictions.

I don't have one. But it should be easy to create the situation. Manage Man Utd on the latest version of the game, the post January transfer window version. Holiday untill De Gea's testimonial (pre-arranged by the staff). That is when you see the bug.

The aim of this thread is to discuss how one could deal with player sales. I recently realized that this can actually be a quite complicated topic. You can deal with it in so many different ways. My personal aim is to find a balanced and rather realistic approach to it. Which corresponds to the way of playing the game that I generally prefer: Avoiding optimizing things, which is rather easy and leads to predictable and rather boring success. Instead I look for a balanced and mostly realistic approach to the game in general. Preferably an approach that leads to a performance level that is on par with board expectations and where there is a real risk of getting sacked, at least periodically throughout the save. So, back to the topic of player sales. For a long time now, I have dealt with this in a quite optimizing way without even realizing it. I guess I have done sort of what you can learn from people like Zeeland and Lollujo on Youtube, I believe both of them have made videos about how to maximize interest in a player that you want to sell, and how to maximize the price you get for him. Essentially I gradually lower the asking price, repeatedly offer the player out untill someone puts in a bid. Then I lauch sort of an auction where I repeatedly raise the asking price untill only one club is left biddng. In the process cancelling earlier accepted bids because I received a higher bid from another in the meantime. This approach might now be totally unrealistic. Although perhaps unrealistic to some extent, I don't know how many buying clubs in the real world would be fine with having their accepted bid cancelled 1-2 days later and being told "you can still get the player, but now I want more money for him". Anyway, I am getting the feeling my mentioned optimizing approach to player sales is sort of OP and borderline cheating. The described approach probably leads me to getting much better deals for outgoing players than what AI led teams get then they try to sell their players. And I basically don't want to overperform/cheat like that. As mentioned, in most aspects of the game I aim for performance levels on par with board expectations and AI led teams in order to avoid easy, predictable, boring success. So I am considering dropping the approach mentioned above and instead experimenting with more suboptimal approaches to players sales. So far, I have come up with these ideas that I consider experimenting with: 1. The most radical approach, Head Coach-style approach to player sales (and contracts). Delegate everything regarding player sales and player contract renewals to staff. Which probably means that the club will get mediocre deals when selling players. And that the club will generally sell/loan out too little deadwood and thus waste a lot of budget, because the club is stuck with players who overpaid compared to their actual importance to the club. 2. Mostly like option 1, but less radical. I have the option to block player sales. And I can extend player contracts so I won't risk losing good and not overpaid players on a free or for a low transfer fee because they don't have much left of their contract. 3. Handling sales myself, but somehow limiting my negotiating powers. For example forbidding myself to raise the asking price and repeatedly offering out the same player in an auction style with an upgonig price spiral. Instead fixing the asking price to the first accepted offer and accept matching bids from any interested clubs, never asking for more. Any ideas and input would be welcome.

Yes I know that they are far from perfect. And that is one of the reasons that I like to use them. It is easy to use an OP tactic, but I don't like too much succes. Furthermore, I don't like tactics much and prefer to not spend much time on it. That being said, I am beginning to consider to "make my own tactics", at least to a small extend - taking a preset tactic, making minor tweaks to it so that I get what I am looking for. For example I love the preset 4-3-3 DM Gegenpress in pretty much every way, except for it being semi-OP. I could try some minor tweaks to it in order to make the tactic worse and less OP (a bit funny and paradoxical I know, making a tactic worse on purpose). Specifically I could make the tactic slightly less high pressing. Guess that is why that tactic is OP, for some reason high pressing abuses the match engine and overachievement is almost guaranteed.

I have just used the preset Vertical Tiki-Taka (VTT) 4-3-3 DM wide for most of a season (with Man Utd, but don't think it matters much which club it is). Here is my five cents on that tactic. I don't like it much. I will probably abandon it for good. It feels much like the vanilla Tiki-Taka - has it's good and bad side. I like it performance wise. It isn't OP, neither the opposite. There are many more chances and goals per game than the vanilla Tiki-Taka which is a plus. However, like the vanilla Tiki-Taka I find the VTT a bit boring to look at. It is rigid, monotonous, Specifically, I don't like the very narrow offensive play style and the complete lack of high crosses, and barely any breakthrougs on the wings. So for me the summary so far on the tactics that I have used enough to have an opinion on them: Tiki-Taka + Vertical Tiki-Taka: A bit boring, not what I like to see on the pitch. Not like, although they have their good sides. Gegenpress (also 4-3-3 DM wide): I generally love that tactic and how it looks on the pitch. The only problem is that it is too strong, somewhat OP, success can be a foregone conclusion. I might try the preset 4-3-3 Control Possession or Wing Play next. Don't think I want to try any of the other presets extensively, they seem to ugly or defensive for my taste. If anyone have any input regarding the preset 4-3-3 Control Possession or Wing Play, please let me know.

An idea I am pondering: Only use non-pressing preset tactics. Specifically this means that I can't use Gegenpress, Vertical Tiki-Taka and Tiki-Taka. I would probably try Control Possession or Wing Play.

He, that thing with the double barrelled names is funny

Those restrictions are much less tough than the ones I describe, at least when I read about them here: Guide to Lower League Management - Football Manager 2023 - FM23 - FM2023 (fminside.net) So this would make the saves easier for me I think. If anything, I am looking for the opposite.

Yes I also appreciate realism a lot. So far in my rather brief FM career (since FM21), I have never managed really bad/lower league teams. The worst I have manage was 2.5 star rep Sunderland when they were in League One in FM21 and FM22. So I have no lower league experience so far. But I trust that you are correct. Out of curiosity, could you give expamples/details as to which unrealistic stuff is done by the DoF or other staff members if you delegate stuff to them in bad clubs?

I haven't tried that myself, probably will at some point. That DoF-style is interesting. In any case, I am convinced that even if you do this, and use all my other restrictions, you would still most likely do well enough to not get sacked. Even if the DoF occasionally does a terrible job, like your example where the squad has no decent strikers. You should still do well enough IF you do a good job in other aspects of the game. Specifically I know from experience that the preset Gegenpress 4-3-3 DM wide is OP if you rotate enough (which is a lot). I am curious as to which tactics you used in your Rapid Vienna save? Speaking of this, I will for the first time use the preset Vertikal Tiki-Taka 4-3-3 DM wide in a new save i just started (with Man Utd). I am looking forward to trying a new tactic. From what I have read, this tactic is OP as well, perhaps as good as the Gegenpress and probably almost as good in any case. But we'll see, I look forward to getting first hand experience with this. If the Vertical Tiki-Taka tactic turns out to be almost as OP as the Gegenpress, and thus potentially boring in the long run, I consider trying the preset 4-3-3 Control Possession and/or Wing Play later on. I don't think they are even close to OP. Mediocre at best probably, since there is little or no high press in those tactics. Using such tactics could be a tough challenge I think.