how accurate is genie scout?

Hey,

i was just wondering if Genie scout was based on the real potential numbers from football manager or not?

for example i have this player i searched through Genie scout, potential ability of 180 (which isn't bad for a Belgian team as they are not top class football teams) and my coaches say he is only a 'decent' player, probably only good enough for second league (i'm in first league).

When contracts were about to expire i asked for the opinion of the same coach on all my players judging on who i should give a new youth contract and there was this one player he described as being possible to develop as a quality player, a leading player for my team. I started Genie scout to check his potential ability and it only says 130 for potential ability.

So is my coach/scout wrong or is Genie scout not always accurate?

The current and potential ability are numbers that are attached to the player by the game. So Genie scout is always accurate with those. However, this only says something about how good the player is 'overall'. So it could mean that you 180 PA player is a striker, but doesn't have the right stats for a striker, so your coach will tell you that he isn't a good striker. The 130 PA player, however, could have exactly the right stats, which could make him a better player than the 180 PA player.

Genie scout also shows Current rating (CR) and Potential rating (PR). These numbers, on the contrary, are estimated by a formula based on the players attributes. Unfortunately, this PR and CR can also be inaccurate. So, if you decide to use Genie Scout (which is frowned upon by some) you should take into account the PA, PR, hidden attributes (such as injury proneness) and also the individual stats (to make sure that your striker doesn't have 20 in every necessary stat and 1 in finishing and heading :p), when making a decision about buying or selling a player.

Additionally, if your scouts have low scouting attributes, you should not blindly trust their advice.

After testing with players, I can say that both the role rating inside FM and the role rating in Genie Scout are wrong. Players with less stars or considerably less percentage in Genie Scout will play better than players with more stars or percentage. I find the best way to know how a player will perform is by batting an eye on the attributes, even though players with lower attributes will be sometimes better. Sometimes you have a strong physical or mental player and that's overall good. I also find the assistant manager opinion of the player value to be trustworthy. It's good to take note of the player's match ratings as well.