I wanted to start a long discussion on purchasing players. I hope I've chosen the right place to do it.

You see I've just restarted as Norwich after playing a long term Norwich game. I fancied trying a game where I didn't rely on players well documented on this forum.

My first target was Sheffield Utds Rob Hulse as he was perfect for the system I had in mind. He was also in Utd's reserve team and had back up status. His value was £900k and I hoped a bid of £1 mil would be good enough.

It wasn't. Utd wanted £1.9mil!

So here's my point; has anyone got a worked formula for unsettling a player? Is it something that takes time to accomplish? And if so, what's the end result; does it reduce the price of players considerably?

I think you should go in the Teams and Good Players forum

Don't think that is requred in this instance, he's not asking for advice on players or even suggesting player naming. I'd say this falls in GD as its discussion about transfer techniques.

My technique? Simple, i just offer bids until accepted, rarely interact with the media on player transfer issues. Occasionally i will praise a youngsters potential ability if want to sign him in the future.

I tend to signal my interest early to check the reaction from the player and the club. Depending on the reaction, i then decide whether it would be worthwhile to make a bid.

If I really want a player I know a team won't give up easily, I consistently praise the player until I become favored personnel, which usually helps a bit.

Sometimes, if I want to sign a young striker as an example, I'll sell the team he's on one of my good strikers so the player I want will get less playing time, then it's usually easier to snatch him up.

Or, like barry_horne said, I just keep bidding, adding a little bit more each time until they finally accept.

Depends on the player really.

Established superstars - Praise them to indicate my intent, see their reaction. See if I can unsettle them enough to make them interested in a move. That way you can occasionally force down the transfer price when otherwise it would be astronomical.

Youngsters - Scout first to try and see if they've got good potential. If they have then sometimes I try to unsettle them as above, depends on how highly their club values them. Mostly though I just steamroller in with a high bid, mostly I end up paying over the odds though then find out they're crap and sell them for peanuts 2 years later.

Standard players - Bid low and increase until it's accepted. Normally though I've got 3 or 4 players I'm interested in buying in this kind of situation, so it's a case of start the bids low and see which team breaks first and accepts. Often I'll keep raising bids until several are accepted, then see what happens at the negotiating table. In this case, player's wage demands could be a factor in which one I go ahead with.

Usually I send my scouts out to get an assessment of the player, then from that I see if the player would be interested in joining my team. If there is some interest I go about bidding and trying to get them to come across.