Another tentative welcome.
At the risk of mild tipping, you can avoid freebie lists simply by sending your scout(s)out to look for £0 valued/waged players. And to give you some chance of signing those being snapped up by other teams, ask your scout for a report on any you see being mentioned in the media.
More often than not his report will come in too late to make a bid, but occasionally he will get back to you (in my save at least, he has sometimes) in time for you to get in a counter-offer.
(Mod blokes - if this is too much, feel free to snip the above and hand me a bollocking

)
I would say that a simple report card on players without teams is enough to base a trial offer on - waiting for a 3 match report seems unrealistic, as they'll only play those 3 matches when they sign for someone (else)...
There are a multitude of ways to highlight potential players for your team without using player search/freebie lists. This is why LLaMas are dubious of using it and those that do - there are more than enough players available without it, using the 'traditional' scouting methods, so that it often seems that those looking to get around these guidelines by offering justification are simply trying to gain advantage. Which is against the ethos of LLM
Hope you stick around moomoo.