avstwentyone

Just remember to place an ad for some scouts.

Good luck, James.

James Tringham

Aye, but it doesn't mean I'm the spawn of Satan or 'owt like that. Thought I'd give it a try. Find the whole strictly denominational ideas about this place bizarre, frankly.

Scout ad placed. Be back after 3 years.

What would the attitude be towards checking the players/staff of your near rivals before scouting?

Pangaea

Personally I don't sign players unless my scout have found them, or I have seen press reports about them. Even the latter is very rare, as such players don't want to join me.

So my suggestion is to trust your scouts. They come up with a wild amount of players. I currently have two scouts in action. The scrollbar-thingy in scout reports are very small when I haven't ticked for "Interested", so they have found a lot.

I also use the scout reports to find loanees. After all, clubs employ scouts for a reason

Claret

Bah, well, welcome then, but don’t ask so many god darn controversial questions.

The best thing you can do is just have a bash and do what you feel to be real. As Pangaea says, put faith in yer scouts, that’s important. There are the guidelines to use, but ‘some’ of it is up to you stuff. It’s summink you get a feel for.

Will be joining us for weekly prayers?

LFCfan

Depends how. If they're near rivals and you watch the match, that's fair game.

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, it has been known for managers to try to sign players from rival clubs without scouting them in lower levels.

I wouldn't use that as justification for signing a whole load of players though, personally. I would think that it is a possibility if the team was desperate for a player and they don't have scouts.

James Tringham

Ta.

Without wishing to cause controversy, would someone please explain to me the rationale behind the "no scouts" rule in terms of playes in teams immediately around you. As a manager, wouldn't you have to be aware of these? And you yourself would act as one of your scouts, going to opposition games, watching DVDs, etc. It's one aspect of CM/FM I've never quite got. Same as with your own inability to coach, though that's by the by.

Pangaea

You only know about the players of your rivals' teams for a reason. You have either seen them play or others in the club have seen them play. Or you have read/heard good reports about them in the media.

All of this is possible in FM. You could watch a game (i mean actually watch it), your scouts can check them out, or you can see reports in the press.

I doubt many do the first, I sure don't. And you'd be lucky to see anything in the press. So it makes more sense to send your scout(s) on the road. If he likes what he sees, he will report back to you about them.

This may sound zealotish, but remember the bottom line about LLM: "we try to play the game as realistically as the game allows". Hence in this situation we use scouts to find out info, instead of just clicking on players to see if we like what we see.

IRL you won't know so much details about players either. You may know "player x is a good shooter, fairly fast, poor header and decent passer". But you won't know he has 4 in penalty shooting or 5 in agility. So to check out many teams and players to try to find a gem is taking advantage of this feature of FM, that really isn't very realistic.

Once your scout has checked out players for a while, it's natural to check their profile to see whether they're up to the standard your scout claims they are. But not before.

In a perfect LLM world we wouldn't know so much details about players, but I don't see that ever happening. So we have to play the game as realistically as it allows us to.

Hope this helped, and wasn't just an early morning mist

LFCfan

They aren't rules - just guidelines. If you feel it's realistic to scout players who are in the region around you, then that's up to you.

I would find it more realistic to scout the teams immediately around you, rather than scouting the individual players.

Personally, I would find it more realistic if a club like Northwich Victoria (for example) were to scout Stockport (they're not that far away) to see if there are any players they'd be able to loan.

I'm not sure what you mean about the "inability to coach" though.

Klipdrift

I guess he means that you can't appoint yourself to a training schedule.

LFCfan

I don't think it would work to well under the way the game works atm. If the game sets you up as a poor coach, then people would have another reason to complain.

It's about management, not coaching. I leave the coaching to the coaches.