Player is struggling to find the motivation to play

when his manager has such a low reputation in the game, that would be all well and good if i started the game via automatic or former pub team manager but i ticked former international player. Im managing Liverpool and doing reasonably well in my second season, second in the league after 26 matches and in the final of the league cup and still in the champions league. now fair enough i got beat against everton in the FA cup fourth round, but still.

anybody able to clear this up for me?

its ok i get this as well

as city i signed rooney, i was the most highly rated manager in the game (having won numerous and various trophies), regularly getting good results against good teams, but he constantly "has trouble motivating himself to play for you"

i dont understand what i can do, i tried to praise his form, give him no pressure team talks, then i tried the other way expecting performances and critisizing him to the media for bad performances etc yet

it made no difference. did my rep just intimidate him?

come to think of it it wasnt just rooney either, there was one or two other players, i think perhaps karim benzema as well. neither of those two played well for my team at all, despite being rated the best in my team at the time

I just ignore them and hope it goes away eventually.