All you need to know about STAR RATINGS on Football Manager

Are you one who base your signings on star ratings or deems three star players within your squad not good enough for your team. Perhaps you prioritize scouting for players with an higher current ability of above four star ratings or simply prioritize scouting for 5-star wonderkids with the highest potential ability. Then we got news for you in this guide to star ratings on Football Manager that you should pay attention to!

My name is Anderz and today we are looking at star ratings on Football Manager.

In this article I will cover:

What Star Ratings AREN’T

To start, let’s cover a few things that star ratings are not. They are not the be all and end all for player ratings – they are not the equivalent of an “overall” rating that you’d find in FIFA or other sports games. But they are heavily influenced by a number of factors that we will cover in greater detail below.

Where can I find Star Ratings?

The two most obvious places are on your own teams squad page and in your scouting centre. From there, if you go to any player you can view either their coach report or scout report depending on whether the player is signed to your club or not. You’ll also find star ratings in the development centre as well where you can see the ratings for all of your youth prospects and potential wonderkids.

What are Star Ratings and what do they mean?

You get two sets of ratings – one for current ability and one for potential ability. The ratings go from half a star up to the famed, full, five stars – with a little caveat or two that we will touch on in more detail later.

There are also three different coloured stars that you need to understand as well, which all mean slightly different things. The traditional gold stars sit on the half star to five star range but there are two different coloured stars that are slightly different. If you head to your development centre and look at some of your youth prospects you might notice some silver stars knocking around trying to confuse you. In most cases, these will feature as silver stars in current ability and gold stars in potential ability.

What about silver stars or white stars?

This silver scale essentially is used when youth players would otherwise be showing as half a gold star. It’s used as a way to further differentiate between younger players – and disappears as they either get older or develop into better players. If you order players by ability and scroll down the players with silver stars are ranked below the single gold star players.

The other case is when you see a player with white stars – this is seen in a couple of instances. First, it’s youth players once again and we can see some examples if we stay in the development centre. For youth players this happens in the potential ability rating and essentially shows a range of ability where this player will end up but we just don’t know yet. It’s a bit of uncertainty that once again disappears as the player gets older. If you’ve got a player with four to five star potential; the true value will be within that range but you won’t know until he gets older and the view firms up.

Speaking of the unknown, these white “range” stars also show up in early scouting reports. If you’ve only got a low percentage of knowledge on a player you’ll get a range here as well – this goes away if you scout the player more or to full knowledge – obviously with the caveat that if they are still young you will likely have a star range on potential ability no matter how intensely you scout the player.

One myth we can bust immediately is that these ratings bear no relation to the league you are in, the rest of the country or even the rest of the game world. No, this scale is completely relative to the club you are managing and nowhere else – the ratings are completely self-contained. That means that a five-star player in League Two might only be a single-star player in the Championship. This is something you should pay particular attention to if you are rising up the leagues or rapidly improving your squad. It’s all relative.

Who provides the Star Ratings?

Go to Staff > Responsibilities > Advice and Reports to see who is listed as responsible for providing the player reports for your own squad. Ideally you want the member of staff with the best attributes for judging player ability and judging player potential. Changing who provides these reports is a simple change that can have a big impact on the star ratings you see throughout the game.

It’s been widely known that these two attributes are important for scouts to be able to provide solid feedback on potential purchases but you should also try and ensure that you have a coach – or assistant manager – with a high number in both of these for the level you are playing at. Particularly if you use the star ratings to guide you regularly.

Why do Star Ratings constantly change?

Stars ratings are a very volatile beast and they will fluctuate throughout the season – but if you know what feeds into them, and what doesn’t – they can ultimately provide a great “at a glance” overview of your squad at the time.

A players star rating is not purely down to their skills and ability on the pitch and they are heavily impacted by those around them. Basically, anything that features in the pros and cons section of a coach or scout report factor into that star rating metric. So the ratings are influenced by a players form in matches, a players performance in training, a players general value to the team – whether they fit specific squad registration or eligibility criteria. All of these factors and more will impact their relative overall value to the team and thus impact a player’s star rating.

How should I use Star Ratings?

Overall, I think that star ratings are a great tool to have in your tool belt; but they shouldn’t be the only one to use.

Along with giving you a great overview of the general pecking order within your squad I find that a great use for them is on the squad depth chart. This page will give you an idea of areas in your formation you might be weak in – or maybe to have a look at other formations to see whether your squad might be more suited to it. They are also great on the tactics page to give a quick view of whether a player is well suited to a particular role without having to jump back and forth to look at their attributes.

Why is there a difference between a players current ability star rating from scout reports and after being signed?

It’s really hard to say in isolation why there’s a difference in star rating.

For the difference between scouted stars and star rating when the player arrives; this is usually down to the scout and the coach having a difference in their Judging Player bility (JPA) or Judging Player Potential (JPP) attribute. It could also be that the scout report wasn’t up to 100% knowledge.

Or,

Are they performing well in matches or training? Any noticeable change to attributes? It could be that other players have gotten better as well. If you click on their coach report (just click on the stars) you can get more information about the player by looking at the Pros & Cons section.