I haven't been playing the FM line for long and my first time starting with all generated characters was this morning. Some of the players it alotted my Arsenal side are a little strange, such as this 25 year old Scottish player who looks absolute trash, but has a value of 7.5 million pounds. I thought it was peculiar, so looking at his CA/PA, I notice his CA is a lowly 65, but his PA is 182. At 25 years old, is there actually any chance of him reaching this? I can't afford to play someone that rubbish regularly in my first team, so what should I do?

It spawned a few other over-the-age of ripening players that have awesome potential ability also, but CA similar to that one example (including my only left back which leaves me in a bit of a hole to find someone worthy enough to slot into my team while he hits his late puberty, or whatever).

Forgot to add that seemingly no one wants them for loan, so I'm not sure how smoothly the selling of them would go either..

I remember on FM07 i tried starting without real players and what i got was players who were exactly the same as in real life but had different names and nationalities and i tried comparing some players and their real life pictures came up which i found was strange.

i just started one with athletico madrid. i ended up releasing a total of 37 players who weren't good enough to stay/sign contracts. didn't have any overpriced players in my squad, but it's always an issue in fm games. stats make little sense until training starts. your player might be decent, check the coach report.

i spent £37M on sackings and replacements, so we're deep into debt just 2 months in.

I usually have at least one game with made up players per release - I haven't tried FM08 yet though.

Previous versions did throw up some interesting high value rubbish but also in the lower leagues some absolute gems worth bugger all.

I did always find that it was fairly easy to sell at the start of the game but as you go on values tend to adjust to the reality of the situation.

I would say a 25 year old is unlikely to reach his potential.

It is a bit ridiculous. I usually hate looking at players PA/CA, but Man Utd has 5 Reserve Players alone with PA over 190--all on 40,000+ a week contracts--which is to say something of their starting 11, and Barca has 6 starters all with PA of 200, and all not far from reaching it. Chelsea's the same way.

Ouch.

Every quality LB/WLB is apparently 'new to their club' and costing me over 20,000,000 with a starting budget of only 25,000,000. This season is going to be tough.

i've got about 5 quality left-backs, a little pointless... i poached many 15/16 year olds, including a 15 year old italian striker, lacking in strength only. look for youth players with good stamina/strength.

also, i exploited the budget adjustment feature, it just means that i have to be very sucessful this season. already 90 season tickets away from the expected amount with a week to go in august, hopefully signs of success.