As the game stands, managers hoard the best talent, especially in smaller nations where it is difficult to find a suitable replacement for a local star.
Unless you are NC or NCA you have no way of finding top players to buy until they are listed.
I propose a new staff member called "scout" is introduced. Scouts would keep an eye on opposition players and provide feedback on their skills.
Instead of telling exact balls a scout could say:
9-10: very high
7-8: high
5-6: medium
3-4: low
0-2: very low
Each scout can perform one of two actions per week:
A. Search for a player who fits the desired stats within a nominated league. This would depend on tbe class of scout how many skills they can focus on
e.g. a class E scout might only focus on 2 skills whereas a class A scout could give ratings on all 10.
The maximum number of players a scout could report on is 11 per week (picked at random from the players who match the criteria), to encourage managers to pick the specific skill levels instead of setting the bar low and trying to get reports on every player.
B. Scout an opponent for a given match, giving ratings on the starting 11.
It needs some refining but the main premise is having the ability to find players outside of transfer market, and then try and convince the manager to list them.
It could also benefit from a pre-bid feature where a manager can name a price for a particular player, and if the owner accepts the player is transfer listed for 3 days with the initial bid automatically applied.