Hi mate,
I do realize it's difficult to get the best players even if you have the budget because of the club's reputation, but that is the fun of the game to feel the satisfaction of scouting players with your talent scouts
My suggestion are:
- upgrade your training facilities to attract more good players.
- assign your scouts to many different competition (leagues, champions league, copa libertadores, world cup, etc), remember to set one competition per one scout.
- regularly check your player search, unpick the "unrealistic transfer" option & sort the players by its rating to give you feedback of the best player around.
- when you want to sign a player who doesn't have interest with your club, praise him once every 2 months and do that for one year or until we become his favorite person, with this technique I once managed to get kaka & jack wilshere to my swansea save.
I hope this would help because nothing can replace the satisfaction of finding players using our own resources scouting worldwide competition. Sorry if it's not what you're looking for, cheers!