To answer your query, I believe the pattern is quite repetitive for me. I remember in Level 3 when the four of us were fighting for the title, I drew with a team that all the other top 4 team beat comfortably and after that I scraped through some matches (winning by 2 or 3 goals when the big boys were thrashing them). I simply concluded that I had bought the wrong type of strikers for my team.

As for scout players, I bought a scout just because I had enough tokens to do so. It was just to test out whether he was worth it. In another thread I shared my experiences on this but no harm repeating it here I guess.

A scout is supposed to be at least playable, since he is supposedly scouted (of course some like real football, there are bound to be duds). I thought I bought myself a dud too. He was a MC playmaker, aged 22. Placed him in the middle of a 3-man midfield and was outperformed by a 20 year old MC (fast trainer). His last five match rating regularly looked like 6-7-5-6-6. In my experience, playmakers do tend to score more goals, so I expected him to be my Paul Scholes. Unfortunately he only provided 1 assist in 18 matches and about 2 goals. Average rating of 6.3 including friendlies.

Finally I decided to ditch my 3-man midfield for a 2-man midfield and voila, it seemed as if the shackles were unleashed. My friend joked that since he was World Class (he went from Scout to World Class with 3 cones), my player probably felt insulted being asked to share the stage with 2 other MCs. He hit form at the right time and helped me finish 2nd. 8 assists & goals in 8. Was MoM for a crunch match with a rival who eventually finished below me. So I cant really say tht buying a scout is not a good idea but I guess formation plays a big part in success of a player.