Ikthop

I enjoy seeing good newgens from smaller/weaker nations. Even when they belong to an AI team, I add them to a shortlist and follow their careers.

I see what you guys are saying. My first intake in Vanarama North most players showed with 5 stars (4 yellow + 1 "white") PPA, but when I checked what that meant by looking at some of the OGs (original non-newgen players), 5 stars basically meant a player good enough for "tier 6" in England.

@XaW and @Makoto Nakamura, those are some awesome intakes. What did you guys do in terms of first contract with the best prospects of the intake? Youth contract first, straight into pro contract, or something else?

I haven't had time to properly play FM24 yet, so that's great news you just gave me. Thanks mate! Looks like a fast AMC + a striker with good passing/vision/creativity and not so good finishing/speed might be a good start. This way the ST might be more selfless and look for a pass first before attempting to shoot (will also try to teach them that ppm).

Hey @kandersson, I find the results you got encouraging, but for a rather unusual reason: In every version of FM I always try to create or tweak the tactics I use so my AMC ends up as the team's main goalscorer, so I enjoyed seeing this happening in your save. Do you mind showing Vini Locatelli profile? And your main striker as well? I said the reason was unusual because the "normal" thing is having the striker as the top goal threat, yeah? And if not a striker, it's usually a wide player like a inside forward or something like it. Nowadays it's very unusual to see an AMC being the main goalscorer (like Pelé or Zico in the past) in a more "conventional" tactic, which also employs a ST. (I believe it can work if you go strikerless, but that's not something I'm interested in) In FM23 my favorite tactic was @knap's Pep 3241, same as yours I believe. I tweaked it to make the AMC (ss) the main goalscorer, and tried to turn the ST into a "facilitator", responsible for creating space/chances for the AMC. It kind of worked, in the end the AMC/ss and the ST ended up splitting the goals. This was the AMC statistics in the league: We won the league and had one of the strongest squads though, so a top side, not sure if it would have worked as an underdog. I'm wondering if @knap thinks its possible to create a tactic where a player in the AMC strata ends up being the main goalscorer, and the lone ST works as more of a "creator", pulling defenders out of position, playing through balls to the AMC, playing one-twos, etc? @knap, do you think a tactic like this could work? I don't mind if it is not as good/performant as your normal tactics, I still think your version would end up being better than anything I can come up with. I will still try to create/tweak one by myself like I did for FM23, but I would love to see what you could come up with. In terms of my own tactic/tweak, I think I will use either Pep 3241 or some of Knap's 4411/4141 (using IWB or IFB, not a big fan of traditional WB/FB) as the base. Not sure what works better, if 2 players in the AMC strata like in Pep 3241 (SS + Playmaker), or a lone AMC with another creator playing in the MC/DM strata. Will definitely use a lone striker though, I'm thinking someone similar to peak Bobby Firmino at Liverpool, but instead of helping the wide players (Salah/Mane) score, he should be helping the AMC. And 2 wide players in either MR/ML or AMR/AML helping creating more chances for the AMC as well. I'm not very good at the tactical side of FM, so I would like to hear a specialist's opinion on this matter.

Hey Ben, throwing some additional 'attributes' feedback your way: I agree with @danielgear, the original "dots" idea is still me favorite. Some of the reasons why I like it: - I haven't had the time to play FM24/test Statman24 yet, but the FM23 version was really easy to edit some xml files to tweak the dots looks, changing color, attribute range, moving attributes around, etc. I imagine this version works in a similar way, so it should still be easy enough for most people to tweak it to their preference, making it a flexible solution. - The combination of number/amount of dots + its colors make it very easy for the user to quickly know the strengths and weaknesses of a player. For example, if you see "lots of yellow" in the second attribute(s) in the bottom row (Positioning) you already know you have a player who can help the team defensively, you just look at the other attributes to check if the player is better as a CB, DM, etc... (obviously this changes a bit based on your tactics and what you expect of each player/position/role) - The bar idea has the advantages you listed, but I would say the dots can be better in some (maybe rare?) instances, some examples: Let's say a player has insane Long Shots but poor Finishing. Using the dots you can easily see that, but with the bar it can end up being a bit misleading. You might end up mistakingly thinking the player is a great "finisher/poacher" kind of player, when in reality he is a good long range threat. Another example using a real player this time: Someone like James Milner who has very high Natural Fitness and average Pace/Acc might end up looking like a somewhat fast player, when in reality he has average speed but can keep running all day long. I feel your idea of adding hints might alleviate these issues, but I would love if the dots could stay at least as an option. The dots are still my favorite way of showing a player's attributes in any skin/FM version to this day.

Hi Michael. I don't have the save file from the initial report anymore, but I created a new save to grab another example of the bug happening. I uploaded a save file from the day before a transfer happens: - The player in question is Leon Bailey. - He transfers from Aston Villa to Brighton on loan. - Transfer date: 2024.01.18. - I uploaded the save from 1 day before, meaning 2024.01.17. I also have a save file a little further back 2023.12.31 if you end up needing it. I also have a save one day after the transfer, 2023.01.19. The save file name is: Statistics bug - before transfer - 2024.01.17.fm Some screenshots showing the bug: This is Leon Bailey playing for Aston Villa. The date is 2024.01.17. He has played 243 career games. This is Leon Bailey playing for Brighton. He just transferred the day before, 2024.01.18. He now has played only 239 games, instead of 243 from the day before. He is "missing" 4 games, 2 of those were UEFA Conference League games, and 2 Carabao Cup games. From what I noticed the bug happens for any kind of cup/continental games. It looks like the game is only pulling cup/continental games from a player's current club. Thanks for giving this a shot Michael. I really appreciate the effort.

Agreed. Newgens from obscure (football) nations is one of my favorite things in FM. So I'd say this is a great intake

I'm interested in knowing what is everyone's course of action when it comes to a youth player first contract. What I have been doing as a semi-pro club in England is offering the players a part-time contract as soon as they show up in the youth intake day. I'm not sure if this is the optimal choice seeing how I'm only able to offer a 1 year contract. (I add a +1 year optional extension clause though, so essentially it's 2 years). --- Decided to take a closer at what's going on in my save, and just learned something new: It appears that the younger players in the youth intake are given 1 "extra" year. Let me show some examples so it's easier to understand: In the first intake in April/2025, the players born in 2009 ended up with their contracts expiring in June/2027, even though in-game it says "1 year" (11 months in this case, but it varies based on their birthday): This probably happens because they are too young and need to wait until their (17th?) birthday to sign the contract. The older players, born in 2008, ended up looking like this: Again, this is in England, so I'm not sure if any of this applies to the other leagues in the game. But it looks like you can get 3 year contracts (2+1) straight away on the younger players of the intake, and 2 (1+1) for the older ones.

What do you guys usually do in terms of friendlies? Do you play bigger sides to try and earn a little extra cash? Or go against tiny clubs to build up morale? I had the same thing happen in my save. Ended up making a promise to 'develop youth players at centre-back'. Luckily it has not backfired. At least for now.

Hello fellow admirers of 16yo boys. Long time lurker here. Always enjoyed reading about people's exploits on these YAC topics, so I decided to give this challenge a try for the first time. I went with an English club: STARTING SQUAD: At first I thought we had a good squad, seeing how we have 28 players, and at this stage not having to use a GK as an outfield player / use grey players is a luxury. Unfortunately, 5 players were transfer-listed before I took over, and now I can't convince them to stay. We also have 4 other players who will be out of contract before the season begins, including our best player, Diogo Freitas-Gouveia, who is not interested in renewing his contract. In terms of personalities, it's not looking good. We have no potential mentors. My expectations for this first season are: - Do not face/find any game breaking bug. - Do not get relegated/sacked.

Would it be possible to get a feedback regarding this bug? I have reported it multiple times now, and I never got any feedback. So I don't know if it is a known issue, if it has been logged, being worked on, etc... any feedback would be appreciated.

I think your intake was one which had caught my eyes and led me to ask this question, but I hadn't noticed that. I think you are right regarding the reason for the conflicting information in this case.

Anyone knows what's the deal with the (seemingly) conflicting information regarding the youth intake quality? I often see previews where on the right side of the screen we get 5ish golden stars and "Excellent Intake" description, but on the left side the grades are all awful. In cases like this should we expect a good or bad intake? Not the best example of what I'm talking about - seeing how the grades aren't truly awful-, but kinda like this intake from KingKCrush:

Looking great, Ben. Thank you for doing this.

That's exactly what I had in mind, it's perfect! I like having the birthplace in there as well, it's another little thing which helps give newgens a "personality" (makes it easier to get to know them). I even added it to my custom views, such as squad, shortlist, scouting, etc. It looks like this: This way I replace the three letters country name abbreviation with the city of birth name. As an extra little bonus I might end up learning some new country flags I'm not familiar with. Just 1 click on the flag to see which country it is. I use a similar setup for the clubs. It's specially useful when looking at a nation's squad. For example, this is France main squad: Same here, would love to see more historical data in FM. Let's hope FM25 improves on it. It's number 1 on my wishlist. The good news: It is possible to pull all career statistics (including cup/continental games) in this particular "field". I believe Ben's code is already doing that, seeing how he has been doing it for every version of 5TATMAN to date. The bad news: There is a bug in FM where a player's career stats partially reset after they move to a new club. It is a bug which has been present in the game since forever (as far as I can tell). I reported it multiple times now but unfortunately it's not been fixed yet. Link to the FM24 bug report here. I still think it's better having that field in there even with this bug being present, specially now with this beauty Ben created. It's better than having league only stats IMO.

Hey Ben, if you don't mind I'm gonna throw some feedback/ideas/suggestions/food for thought in your way. Get ready to see some insane paint brush skills in action. 1: The suggestion here is to move the Transfer Status info/line into the "contract box/panel" on the bottom right, so we can quickly/easily see everything money/contract/transfer related stuff in the same area. So if we wanna see anything related to that we can quickly glance to the bottom right and find everything we need to know right in there. 2: Not sure if this one is something that fits your vision for this skin, but another suggestion would be adding the player's "squad status / playing time" in this same box/panel. 3: This one is about the "Best Role" field being repeated in two different places, but I wasn't so sure if I should include it or not, for 2 reasons: First, I don't know for sure if the 2 fields will always "match", I feel like they might be different for some players, is that assumption correct? Second: I still quite like seeing that "Best Role" field in there. Like I said, I don't know, this is me rambling I guess... might be better to skip this one. 4: This one is my favorite/main suggestion: What I like the most in sports management games is seeing a player's historical statistics (it helps tell a history), but unfortunately that is the worse thing FM does IMO, it's just terrible when it comes to that. I have been doing something that alleviates that problem a little: So, my skinning knowledge is basically 0, but I ended up learning a tiny bit just so I could do this to every single skin I end up using: I always add a player's All Time Career Apps/Goals to his profile. I thought you might also like having that info in there, not only because of the name of your skin but also 'cause from what I can tell you have always included this info in the previous versions of the skin. As an example of what I mean, here's a random SS I picked from one of your old posts: That little panel you created (which I highlighted with a green box above) is one of my favorite of all time, it's awesome. But I can see how it might be hard to find room to include it in the skin, so I'm gonna throw an idea in your direction (number "4" in the first SS) which I'm not even sure if it's doable or not in terms of what FM allows the users to change: In your current skin, we have "CAPS" on the left, and "13 caps / 2 goals" (in this Zaniolo screenshot's example) on the right. Would it be possible to add a new line, where you could write a "generic description" (something like "CAREER STATS") on the left, and on the right show the player's All Time Career Apps and Goals, in a similar fashion to how we see the International statistics? The idea is to have this line below the International Stats line, so we can quickly see a player's all time career statistics including international football and club football close together. It would look something like this as an example: CAPS ------------------ 13 caps / 2 goals CAREER STATS ----- 95 apps / 12 goals In this case you could also change the "Caps" name/field into "International Stats" or something similar, so it fits better with the new line. Anyway, sorry for the rambling mess. Even if none of the ideas end up fitting your vision, I hope it can at least inspire/help you in some way. I would also like to thank you - and every other skin creator in the community -, for spending dozens (probably hundred+ right? ) of hours of your time creating new skins which makes our FM experience even better. As a final addendum, I have been playing the FM series since the 90s (CM days), and FM23 was the first version I "skipped" because I felt the game haven't been changing/improving all that much over the past few years. I recently found out/saw yours and GIMN's FM23 skins for the first time, and the way you guys changed how a player's attributes are displayed is so different that it makes it feel kind of like a new game. Because of it I decided to take FM23 for a first (and last) spin right now before FM24 release.