What to look for in a young striker

I've been playing with a data set from an FM08 save game. I thought it would interesting to interrogate the data to see if I could find anything of interest to give managers an edge in FML.

The first random thing I looked into was which attributes are most highly correlated with potential ability for a striker. Or, which attributes should I look for if I am trying to gauge the potential value of a young striker.

A simple correlation test between all attributes and potential ability revealed the following attributes as having the strongest relationship with potential ability:

1 Technique 0.60
2 Dribbling 0.57
3 Finishing 0.54
4 Passing 0.53
5 Long Shots 0.52

The number relate to the strength of correlation with 1.00 being totally positively correlated and -1.00 being totally negatively correlated. Although correlations can't explain causality they can prove a relationship. Which means by examining those five attributes for a player you can guess their potential ability - which in FML you either not know because you don't have the Judging Potential skill, or you do have it but it is expressed on a 1 to 5 star scale with a degree of inaccuracy built it. The higher these five figures are, the higher the potential ability will be.

Those attributes that have no relationship with potential ability include Influence, Aggression, Flair, Natural fitness and Long throws. The lesson here is regens with high values in these attributes could be complete busts.

The test was run on about 12,500 players so it should be robust - however the save game the data was extracted from the first week of the game and includes no regens.