AndyClarke

With great difficulty! I've seen some of them in action at youth and reserve games so you can pick up some of their personality. Other than that it is picking up any snippet of information that is flying around and using it to build the profile. Scouts are difficult because there is no way of knowing where they are, who they are watching and who they recommend. That said, there is occasionally information around which makes it easier to make an educated guess, although I don't think I've really touched any of our scouts.

12 for FM2010, acceleration of 15. He is quick off the mark but I don't think he has top end speed.

Albrighton doesn't exactly seem to be slow. :? quicker than Milner anyway from what I've seen. Anyway, surely you've got to rate his current ability a little bit on potential. He's playing so well for us, it'd be a shame to get the game and then find out he's still wank and we have to send him on loan because simply when you play him in the Prem, he ain't good enough. No, he is not slow, that has never come into the equation. I rate him about the same as Milner to be fair. I understand what you are saying, but that doesn't really make sense. How can I rate his current ability based on his potential? What I mean, base potential on his future i.e. how good he will be at his peak, in say, 4/5/6/7 years, but take into consideration for this season his potential for this season on his current ability. I mean, he's shown IMO already that he can do it and although we won't see him in many senior games before season is out, it seems pretty obvious he's going to play games this season and I think the ratings should just show that a little, that he is good enough already to be part of a Premiership team. Because from what we will get on FM11 release day is an Albrighton who isn't ready when well, he is. You want him to be in your squads but then you realise he's not good enough on the game to be despite in real life....being good enough. His potential is based on exactly that, how good he can be at his peak. Attribute wise, he should be able to do a job for you and his PA should make him more than capable of being a regular at Premier League level, perhaps higher.

The match engine doesn't take CA into account, purely attributes. The attributes make up the CA and are weighted based on position, so a striker with top end key attributes is going to have a high CA. One footed players don't have boosted attributes. A two footed player with high attributes is going to have a higher CA than a one footed player with the same attributes purely because he has the ability to play with both feet. One thing I would suggest is that you ignore CA and PA, look at attributes and how the player performs in game. Gabby was running around with a CA of 148 scoring better than a goal a game because his attributes made him effective in the match engine.

One big problem I do have is that, whilst I think most of the ratings are spot on it seems a lot of other people rate clubs like 10 year old fans. Compare Barry to Petrov on that game, is Barry that much better than Petrov really? I wouldn't say so, the differences are minimal IMO. I mean, Barry's pace is 11 in that game, meaning that he runs about as fast as Albrighton and Milner. What the ****? I agree with almost everything else, particularly Carew, Gabby and our entire defense. Just, midfield to me seems absolutely dire, even Hull are technically better than Villa on FM. Something wrong there. Barry is mainly my fault to be fair. That said he was brilliant for Villa and far better than Petrov.

This has been explained hundreds of times on here. I know why, you know why but is it actually written in this thread? (ive not really checked) I'll explain it for completeness!! Simply put, you can't have the transfer budget and the players that the club have already signed. SI choose to go down the route of including all transfers up to the end of the window. The same thing crops up every year with gamers fed up because they have a measly £3million to spend.

Albrighton doesn't exactly seem to be slow. :? quicker than Milner anyway from what I've seen. Anyway, surely you've got to rate his current ability a little bit on potential. He's playing so well for us, it'd be a shame to get the game and then find out he's still wank and we have to send him on loan because simply when you play him in the Prem, he ain't good enough. No, he is not slow, that has never come into the equation. I rate him about the same as Milner to be fair. I understand what you are saying, but that doesn't really make sense. How can I rate his current ability based on his potential?

Ireland will have been rated by the Man City researcher. Albrighton is nothing like pace 15, that is the main thing lacking in his game the little bit of pace that can carry him beyond a fullback. Downing was rated last year by the Middlesbrough researcher and to be honest I don't disagree with many of his attributes, based on last season he was overrated if anything.

Cleverly had 15 games at Leicester by that point in time. I'm just pointing out that rating players has to be done over a period of time, this may lead to some players being underrated for a period of time between game release and patches. If every young player who started the season well was given a relatively high CA then there'd be overrated players all over the place.

Nope! I don't blame Milner to be honest, don't think it particularly comes down to loyalty. City will be fine in game. I think the CA of anything towards 120 is optomistic for 2 players who have a couple of starts between them. As for PA if we head into the 150s then you are talking about players who would be stars at pretty much anybody outside the top 4. Weimann is making very early strides into first team football, it is still very difficult to predict just where he is likely to get too. When a player is loaned out, the researcher for that club is able to rate the player based on what they have seen, at a level they know, in the context of the rest of that squad. I've quite happily accepted the changes that have been made.

That would put him on a par with defenders who have played at the top end of the Championship and lower end of the Premier League for a number of years. Clark has just a couple of games under his belt. Personal opinion, I believe if he played a full season, he'd be seen as around a top half defender, I believe he has that ability, unfortunately he's behind other very good centre backs. No doubt in my mind he's stand out in the Championship and is better than alot of defenders at the bottom of the Premiership. Again, just personal opinion but you have done this for years and are good at it, so your are doing it right even if i disagree. Not necessarily disagreeing with you but he has to prove that first, if he shows that kind of form then he will be rated accordingly.

Preseason is pretty much meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I understand that West Ham fans thought they were going to have a great start following their preseason. There are plenty of players around, who, if rated on the preseason they had would be falsely high. It is a case of trying to fit him in where he is at today, that may be 115, I am just trying to get across the point that many young players come in and play a handful of really good games but it is not a true reflection on their actual ability.

That would put him on a par with defenders who have played at the top end of the Championship and lower end of the Premier League for a number of years. Clark has just a couple of games under his belt.

He hasn't done anything to prove he as at the level of Delfouneso yet. I understood it that the feeling was that he was in form and with 1 up front and Heskey the obvious replacement, having a confident Weimann who is scoring goals was the better option to throw on if we needed something rather than Delfouneso.

115 CA right now, I think. Potentially 130 for the usual update you guys do, if he shows he can play that way for a period of 3/4 months. The problem with that is the fact he hasn't shown that he can play at a CA of 115 for any period.

He's probably hiding somewhere. I can imagine him running level with the wheel of a taxiing 737 to maintain cover with a view of Randy's jet!

This was posted by somebody on H&V and reposted here:

I'd say minimal also! However, with the supposed story that something major happened last night we can live in hope that he will have something exciting on the plane with him although I expect those hopes to be dashed shortly!

This is brilliant, thetrees being one of the finest posters on this site purely for telling us what was going on when Randy was in the process of taking over. Now he's off to tell us that Jurgen Klinsmann is on Randy's private jet.

Was just wondering, I expect some people will hope to see him having a CA of somewhere in the mid 120s.

Is that if you disregarded Saturday?

Yes, if they have a minus PA as listed above, they will be assigned a PA when a new game is created, this could make the difference between them becoming a star and being just a decent player.

Not for FM2011 I won't!! I'll give you a couple of examples from FM2010, pre patch, so effectively from this time last year. John Carew - CA 150 PA 160 Nicky Shorey - CA 128 PA 148 James Milner - CA 147 PA 165 Ciaran Clark - CA 100 PA -8 Nathan Baker - CA 94 PA -8

CA or Current Ability is the level at which the player currently plays, rated out of 200. PA or Potential Ability is the maximum level that the player can reach assuming that the ideal conditions exist, rated out of 200. PA can also be given a minus rating (-10, -9, -8, -7 etc etc) which will allow the game to generate a random potential between two figures at the start of each new game. This is used for younger players and allows a certain amout of random element in how far they'll develop, it also means their PA will be different in each game adding to the longevity. -10 170-200 -9 150-180 -8 130-160 -7 110-140 -6 90-120 -5 70-100 -4 50-80 -3 30-60 -2 10-40 CA cannot exceed PA and a player at his peak should have a CA and PA at a similar level. As a player declines, his PA will remain at the level that his CA peaked at.

I doubt others will be so understanding come release day!! I do understand your comments regarding Tottenham, playing the game myself and seeing them top has caused me to complain a few times!!