While the FM database let me down a bit with United's new Brazilian trialist, Alfredo, it appears to have a more fully-realized take on another forward trialist: youth US Nat Stefan Jerome. Though not all of his stats are defined in the database, most are, and that's enough to provide us a reasonable picture of where he's at now.

First let me kill any hopes you may have for screenshots or comparisons with current or former players. You can safely rule out long-winded analysis as well. There won't be any for this one. Put simply: Alfredo Francisco Martins is a mere sketch of a player in FM. No size, no footedness, roughly a quarter of his stats defined[1].

In the first part of our FM scouting series, we looked at United's new DP forward Hamdi Salihi. Now it's time to turn our attention to central defender Emiliano Dudar...

What jumps out immediately is Dudar's marking ability and aerial power, the later of which, given his size, was to be expected.

While I'm relatively certain that most dedicated followers of MLS will know what United are getting with the likes of Maicon Santos and Danny Cruz, there's still an element of mystery surrounding the acquisitions from the mid-tier Euro-leagues. Most of us see precious little from Swiss or Austrian clubs outside of perhaps the odd Europa League highlight.

By Dominic Vieira, writing from Slovakia

Not many kids want to play as a left-back, but they'll settle for the right-back position; we simply all want to attack. This is why the search for a quality left-back is an everlasting all night long headache, there aren't many. The shortage of this position has cultivated wingers into full-backs and the transformations have been successful in the modern game, Patrice Evra and Fabio Coentrao are prime examples.

By Dominic Vieira, writing from Nitra, Slovakia

Intense transfer speculation is revolving around the Bundesliga with names such as Gotze, Tasci, Reus and Vidal dominating scout reports. After a strong 2010 World Cup campaign revitalised with the presence of several young talents, it's no surprise that the attention has transferred to Europe's most populated country.

By Dominic Vieira, writing from Lancaster, England

Arsenal are a club which must be lifting titles, not losing finals or constantly finishing 3rd or 4th in the table. They're a young team which generally play the most appealing football in the country, but every year it's the same concern: where are the trophies?

In November 2007, after England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, The Daily Mail did a quick scout of the country to highlight the players pushing for internation stardom in the future entitled 60 reasons why the future of English football is not as gloomy as you might think...ITS investigates.