How to Play FM Guide Part 3

After so many things to deal with in the outside world, you are now dealing with probably the people who can save your ass when your job is at stake; the players!
We had the in-depth looking part 1, the dealing with the outside world part 2, now its player management and the new year; one of the biggest cause of worry for a manager. This guide will look at every aspect of player management, from transfers to tutoring, and promises and the consequences of breaking them. Enjoy!

Contracts

Contact Talks - The 'serious' talk. This is official, and you better do this fast. Because nothing hurts more than having one of your star players going to rival clubs without paying you a single cent! Offer them a new contract if you want to keep them or if they deserve it. For youngsters (players below 24), if they are not offered a contract four months before it ends, they are allowed to move clubs by paying the current club compensation. There are different type of contracts; youth, part-time, and full-time. Players below 17 years old are only allowed to sign youth contracts, however they can sign a professional contract in advance (meaning they will sign a normal contract with that club once they turn 18).

Player Interaction

In other words talking to your players. You can communicate, tell or ask your players several things and I will list them below.
Tutoring - Give your players some tuition, especially the young ones. It helps if you know how to assign mentorship well, as your players will learn some preferred moves and improve some of their stats when this feature is used well. To ensure that the players will learn much from a player, the thing to look for is their similarity. Look at the positions they play, telling a striker to train a defender is like telling a dog to learn to fly. That's common sense. Number 2, is to look at their personality. Telling Tom to be friends with Jerry? Small chance but like the show, not really possible and they will end up chasing each other again. And if the student is learning from one of his idols, then it's a dream come true for the player, and that is a good thing for you.
Staff/Player Recommendation - Well sometimes for some reason it is very ironic. Your players have a special eye for talent that can spot some of the best teens around that your scout and yourself can't. So ask them for some suggestions, and at the same time signing a player they recommend will smoothen the relationship with them.
First-Team Football - Instead of you telling them, at times your players will request for first-team football publicly in the media as they are already fed-up of waiting. It's up to you to make that decision, but it's the promise that counts. As in real life breaking a promise has consequences, so fulfill them. Get angry and you can even transfer-list them.
Praise/Criticise Player's Form - Your player just can't get his head in his game? He's playing in his own world? Keep quiet and he won't know you are angry. So say it out loud! Tell the public of what you think of a player's form, be it good or bad. Different players will have different reactions; it all depends on their personality. Another thing to take note is the level of praise or criticism. Some players just want to deserve being criticised, and if you just take it as acceptable the player won't like it.
Differences Between Players - Sometimes there are some players who just can't get along, and some of them hate each other for no reason (If this occurs download the latest patch and it will be okay)! There's not much you can do about this, as far as I know. Perhaps SI should allow you to deal with the problem in FM09? These type of problems normally started off with you leaving a player out of the first-team and giving another player the spot. Anyway like I said you can't really do anything (besides sell or loan out one of the players), but just let time heal the wounds.
Discipline - You can discipline your players here, if they did badly or had become notorious. Fine them, warn them, whatever. But not doing it when the players feel you should will have bad consequences.

Rotation

Okay now this is a little more advance. Even some experts in FM can't really do this well. So I'm going to share with you my policy on rotation.

There are three types of rotation, from what I think. And I will compare them below:

Temporary - When your player gets injured, and you need a player in that position, this is what I mean by temporary. This period of time is a good chance not only to give your back-up players a first-team opportunity, but it also allows you to judge whether the player is good or not. If you are lucky you may just realize that the player's injury is a blessing in disguise.
Giving Opportunities - The difference between the rotation type I just mentioned and this is that for this type of rotation, you purposely give the fringe player a chance, and not because of injury or whatever reason. You just want him to prove his worth. Do it, but be careful though. Most of the time someone won't be happy; get it?
Just a Policy/Tradition - This is something I always do. Whenever it comes to cups (for me it was the FA and League Cup) or the group stages of the Champions League, I would rotate and change the starting 11 of my squad to my young rising stars. This may be a dangerous gamble, but it's the best way to make everyone happy. Thank goodness for me my fringe players were good enough and normally they would at least take me to the finals or semis. But just a piece of advice, if you think your players are always not doing well, then either stop rotating or don't rotate too much. Don't come looking for me if you are out of the early stages of the cup. This type of rotation is not advised for weaker teams.

International Duty

Something that most managers will face: International duties. Let's face it, at times your best players will be called up by his country's manager to represent his homeland. The player will be more than happy, but not for you. Bad performances and being left out of the squad for your players will affect his morale, and injury during international matches won't do you any good either. However, you can give specific instructions for your players (as long as it is a friendly and not an official tournament like the World Cup etc.), whether to allow him to play full-game or only one half, or to just not allow him to go. But chances are slim; because the other manager would rather you lose the job than him.

Finding the Gem

This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of football management games, regardless of which you are playing. Finding the right player!

Okay firstly it's what your scout does, scouting. You can send your scouts on scout assignments, be it scouting in a new territory, a particular league, or spying on your next opponent. Important part of finding unknown talent is to (this is what made Arsene Wenger famous) always give your scouts assignments so when there is newly-found treasure you are the first to get it. Secondly, you can find the players manually if you already know the player. You can customize your filters, and even sort the players out. This is good for finding players you need and willing to pay for (unlike scouting which you don't even know what positions you are searching for, unless of course you told your scout). Number three is adding players to a shortlist and to make an offer later on, or just get the shortlist to find the players. One example of a comprehensive shortlist is the Greatest Teenagers in World Football shortlist by noakesy. Another shortlist is for the richer clubs, personally made by me. Check out My Expensive youngsters shortlist. Some FM players are just kind enough to help you do the shit work. Another function that SI added in FM08 is that you can see the players you recently viewed, so you won't go killing yourself for not remembering the huge wonderkid you just saw. That's it for finding the gem, now it's time to buy it.

Transfers

Now it's time to make the offer. You can find the next big thing, but can you get him? It's a very long procedure to get the player to your club. So signing a player is not easy.
Offer Type - This can be in the form of a transfer (signing the player), a loan (signing the player for lets say, 3 months and then he goes back to his original club), an enquiry (asking the club how much they want for the player), and a trial (for out-of-contracts players, you can give him some chance and see if he's worth signing).
Fee - Basically the price. And my gosh they are in the millions and thousands.
Transfer Date - When you want the player to come to your club. Do you want him to come at the end of the season? Or maybe you need him NOW!
Flexibility - How flexible you are about this deal. Don't get cocky for transfer deals; it will probably worsen your chances of signing him. But make it non-negotiable for loan deals; you wouldn't want a loan deal that is discussed for weeks and by the time it's done the transfer window has slammed shut!
Decision Deadline - When you want the club to give you a decision. You wouldn't want to drag a deal for too long when the transfer window closes tomorrow night.
Additional Clauses - Percentage of next sale (for example you give the club 20% of the amount of money you get for selling him in the future), buy back price (having a buy-back price of 7million would mean the selling club can buy the player back for 7 million anytime), and arrange friendly (your club must accept the friendly invitation if the selling club invites you).
Additional Fees - If the fee you already paid is not enough then this would be a good way of paying them, but not all in one go. For less richer clubs, I would say. You can pay by monthly installments, where you pay a certain amount of money over a certain period of time, or extra payment after certain appearances where you pay a certain amount of money after a specified amount of appearance. You can also pay a fee whenever the player plays; more costly though. And after the player scores a certain amount of goals, you can also choose to pay them a fee if you agree on minimum league goals. And for those fighting for promotion, after the fight is finished and you have successfully been promoted, you can choose to pay the selling club an amount of money. Seems like a law book huh? Well I seldom use these extra payments, so I don't really get a fuss from them.
Exchanging Players - You can choose to make a trade, so you don't have to pay so much money. For example the selling club is interested in one of your players, you can offer them the player and meet the value of the player you are buying. Or you can also offer them a player who plays in a position they need. A good way if you feel buying a player for 20 million is heart-breaking, until you offer a player they want and then only need to pay 10 million. See the difference? After the offer is accepted you can finally try to get the player's signature.

Adding Graphics

Not really "How to play FM" but I'm sure you would be sick of seeing the default logos. Here at CMFrenzy we have a reasonable amount of graphics, so go check them out!

Jobs

No, not you that is finding for a job? Or maybe you are? Anyway this is about finding staff, and jobs too if you have had enough of your current club. Anyway the part about jobs will be further discussed in part 4. Now about placing adverts. In other words, advertisements. Like maybe you're looking for a good coach, so you put an advertisement saying you are hiring a coach. This is a good way of finding which staff are interested in helping you out thus meaning you don't need to look for them manually.