There is a hidden attribute in FM26 that almost nobody sees on screen, yet it affects player ratings: Consistency. A Reddit user analysed thousands of players across 13 saves and reached some pretty clear conclusions. Veterans have an advantage that does not show up on the player profile.
How Consistency evolves in FM26
Until age 21, Consistency does not change. At 22 it goes up a little, and from 23 it rises about one point a year and never drops. Across almost 98,000 players, not one lost a single point in a season.
(Chart: Randy Olson, randalolson.com, based on data from 98,202 FM26 players read with fmsave)
Players who start with low values rise faster. Each year they close about an eighth of the gap to 20. A player on 8 gains roughly 1.5 a year, a 16 gains only 0.3, and a 20 stays where it is.
Starting age and starting value are the only factors that matter. Minutes played, CA, Professionalism, Determination, club reputation and even birth month made no real difference.
Does Consistency affect ratings in FM26?
Yes. With the same CA, age, position and club, each point of Consistency adds about 0.02 to a player’s average league rating. In practice, a player on 20 ends up roughly 0.3 ahead of one on 5.
(Chart: Randy Olson, randalolson.com, average of 7 FM26 saves read with fmsave)
The pattern showed up in all seven save snapshots the author tested, and also among 17 to 21-year-olds, who have not started rising yet. So it is not just that older players are rated differently.
The hidden attributes Important Matches and Pressure, by comparison, moved ratings by only 0 to 0.003 per point. Of those tested, Consistency is the only one that clearly shows up in ratings.
What this changes in your FM26 save
A 22-year-old whom your scouts describe as inconsistent will improve on his own from 23 onwards. Veterans, on the other hand, carry an advantage you cannot see on the attribute screen. In the author’s save, the average 30-year-old had 15.5 Consistency in 2040.
(Chart: Randy Olson, randalolson.com, based on 4 FM26 saves read with fmsave)
The problem lies with newgens. They arrive with an average of about 9, while real players aged 16 to 22 start between 9 and 12. Over time, long saves end up with inconsistent kids and consistent veterans.
Versatility behaves in a similar way: flat until 22, around one point a year from 23, and it never drops.
How the FM26 data was collected
The author read every player in 13 FM26 saves: new games simulated for one season, his own long careers and saves other users sent him. He used an open-source library, fmsave, to read the files and matched players by ID and birth date.
An important caveat: this data comes from FM26. We don’t know whether Sports Interactive kept the same logic in FM27, so it is worth checking once the game is out.
