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I am planning to start as the nearest Conference side near me, Moor Green, using LLM rules and guidelines. But I have two questions.
The first being regarding news articles appearing in the game about other clubs coming close to signing certain free players. Would it be LLM to try and give them a trial even though I do not know their full stats as they haven't been scouted.
The second being regarding players in the game I actually know, would it be possible to make approaches for them. It would then be up to them to make a decision as to whether they came.
I don't do the first thing personally. I can't imagine a manager just handing out trial offers to anybody mentioned in the press as close to signing for another club unless they knew them beforehand (i.e. had scouted them in the past). I'm not sure if you can even pick up this kind of story unless a player is on your shortlist so maybe this is an impossibility anyway. I also find it questionnable to send scouts to players who have jsut gone on loan or signed with other teams in my league (these messages are shown even if the player is not on the shortlist) as I don't think a real manager would send their scout to just anybody. Do any other LLaMa's do this?
I don't mean players who have been signed, I mean when it say <Insert Club> is trailing <Insert Player>. Wouldn't it make sense to give him a trial as you now know of his availability, so want to see if he is to your level.
It is not impossible btw, as I was in the Welsh league and I was told of clubs chasing this free transfer player who I never heard of. This incident caused me to ask this question.
The first one seems reasonable, particularly since it's unlikely a player will accept a trial with you if he's been offered a paying contract elsewhere.
As for the second point: I think this is frowned upon according to a strict LLM ethos. My personal view is that you wouldn't be managing a football club unless you had some interest in the sport, so it also seems reasonable to use your knowledge of the real world. I'm a Leeds fan, so if any news items or scout searches throw up a Leeds player I'll scout them and make a bid (which fails 99.9% of the time ). As for signing player in the game that you personally know in real life, well, it would be a shame not to: seeing at first hand how they develop in the game would be a lot of fun. It's not like you have any idea of their CA or PA (other than what your scouts tell you).
It's up to you how you play the game: if it's not in a strictly LLM style then updates of your save are unlikely to be welcomed in this forum, but it shouldn't prevent you contributing in other ways.
If you believe it to be realistic, do it. I think that taking them straight on trial on the basis of a news report is unrealistic. Maybe send a scout to look at them, but do you think Cwmbran Town base their transfer policy on who TNS are having a look at?
Well, the way I see it is that in real life clubs scout players before they hand them trials. They don't just read the papers looking for players reportedly available to hand them trial offers without even knowing the first thing about them. Even scouting players based on a generic news report is not something I would do. I only scout players who:
a) are reported (by my scout!) as being a key player for my next opposition or
b) play to an extremely high standard in a match against my team (9 or 10 or somebody I've seen do extraordinary stuff in the match) or
c) are found by my scout during his scouting endeavours (look at them in more depth) or
d) are reported in the media to have performed really well recently (player of the month, season select team etc)
At this point you have a clue about their ability (as opposed to just availability), which is a good basis to try to hand a player a contract if you can. When you're not totally sure yet about a player a trial is sometimes a way to find if the player fits into your team. Handing trials should not be used as a scouting replacement as far as I am concerned. In reality however, I don't think lower league clubs have dozens of trialist per season as it would upset the team in place and I believe this goes some way in supporting my view. It would be interesting to find out what other people think..
I generally agree with you with minor differences between our methods.
The good thing about '07 is that it makes this whole area less grey with the scout report card. As jcb mentioned elsewhere, the most basic version is akin to the scouts utilising their network to find out about a player and can be done without the scout having to watch them at a match.
It contains a very basic summary of whether the scout thinks he might be worth a look or is completely pants and takes only a day or two for him to compile the report, so can even be used when a player has already been offered a contract in time for you to get in a counter bid.
You can (and in my opinion should) get at least a scouts report card on any player you might be thinking of inviting for a trial. IMO, too, if you're thinking of inviting a player on trial from an area you can't scout, then it wouldn't be realistic to offer them a trial in the first place.
LLM Media Question 
). As for signing player in the game that you personally know in real life, well, it would be a shame not to: seeing at first hand how they develop in the game would be a lot of fun. It's not like you have any idea of their CA or PA (other than what your scouts tell you).
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