How do you know when a player is past the point of being able to reach his PA?

[Spencerasmith]

So for example my Jack Butland who is age 30 is currently 121 ability but it says his potential ability is 161. Clearly he will not be improving that much at 30 years old. My question is that, how do you know if a player is still able to live up to his ability? I understand being younger helps but is there any definitive way of knowing? It feels like Butlands PA WAS 161 but it isn't anymore.

 

[GfxJG]

Generally, I have a rule of thumb saying 10 CA per year, up to 25 years old (except 15/16 year olds of course, they grow faster). They can grow after that, especially a postion like GK, but it's more unlikely. I know it's not 100% accurate, and I rarely use visible CA/PA values, but when I do, that's my rule of thumb.

Alternatively, if you're using CA/PA values anyways, get the FM Genie Scout, it'll give you a percentage value on what the chances of a player reaching his PA is.

 

[MRCX]

I don't think there is a definitve way of knowing. Your coaching staff can help. If they say he's unlikely to improve, then he is unlikely to improve. However, that's generally speaking and doesn't cover the cases where he might still improve but just not reach his potential.

That said, if you're at the point of using CA and PA anyways, you can somewhat go from that. If your staff says he's unlikely to improve and he sits at 125 CA with 170 PA, he's just not gonna reach that. Likewise you can go by age. If an outfield player isn't at least somewhat close to reaching his PA at 25 or 26, chances are he's not gonna get there anymore.

Or you do as @GfxJG said and get in other tools that can help you, but I don't really know anything about them.