Half my team is unhappy and wants to move

Hi. I'm playing as newcastle in my third season on 9.3 and the last two seasons Vagner Love, Pogrebnyak, Vukcevic, Cahill, and many of my other top players on and off are unhappy and want to leave to a "bigger" club. And it's like if all these top clubs wanted these players why didn't they offer for them when I did to keep them from coming to me in the first place? Anyway I am at a loss. It seems impossible to sign a good player on this game if you're a team like newcastle without them wanting to move right away and be unhappy and playing horrible. These players are all playing awful, but I can't let them leave because they're some of the best plyers in the game (when they're not unhappy).

How do I make them happy and play well?

It's ridiculous because the only player who isn't unhappy and who the other taems dont want is my best player, Beckham, who got 20 assists and 20 goals from the midfield last season. And this is because FM is stupid and doesn't care at all about performance, just about how many stars a player is in the scouting report. And Beckham ridulously is only 3 or 4 or whatever it is so regardless of how he performs no one wants him (which is good for me). But it's just ridiculous.

Anyway, how do I make Vagner Love and Zhirkov and Vukcevic happy so they can start playing well? They haven't played well for 3 seasons.

There's an awful lot to cover, so I'll just give some pointers:

To stop from being a selling club you need to raise your reputation high enough that players aren't lured away by higher reputation clubs. To raise your reputation you need to do well in the league and generally win stuff.

If they're not playing well it may be because your tactics are wrong, or they're just finding the Premiership too difficult, in which case sell them and find some players who are more suited. Getting a team that plays well isn't about big names.

Yes, opposing clubs are far more interested in scouting star rating than actual form. It's annoying.

Personally, I'd sell them for loads of cash and rebuild, I'd also take a looka t the tactics forum for some hints and tips to get your team performing.

Thanks a lot Unfortunately/fortunately my tactics aren't the problem. I've studied and used the info from tactics and theorums guide and I've developed multiple tactics based on them. The problem I think is that my tactics were bad my first season, and we barely scored, then everyone wanted to leave. then I looked on the forum and fixed my tactics and i score much more but the same players still want to leave from the first season and nothing will appease them, and I cant win enough or raise my clubs reputation enoguh without those players playing well, and they wont play well until my clubs' reputation is high and we win stuff, so it's a catch 22. I really should just start over. I just realized Palacio has two strong feet in addition to his good attributes. Now he's 28 (which sucks. I've only been playing a few weeks and already all the real life players who are good are so old!), but more importantly i need 20mil to buy him.

There's an awful lot to cover, so I'll just give some pointers:

To stop from being a selling club you need to raise your reputation high enough that players aren't lured away by higher reputation clubs. To raise your reputation you need to do well in the league and generally win stuff.

If they're not playing well it may be because your tactics are wrong, or they're just finding the Premiership too difficult, in which case sell them and find some players who are more suited. Getting a team that plays well isn't about big names.

Yes, opposing clubs are far more interested in scouting star rating than actual form. It's annoying.

Personally, I'd sell them for loads of cash and rebuild, I'd also take a looka t the tactics forum for some hints and tips to get your team performing.

In the lower levels, I've found that keeping players happy revolves around two key factors...player interactions and playing time.

If a player has a squad status listed as key or first team, they need to be starters in the majority of matches. If they aren't performing, then you hit them with the player interactions and call them out in the media according to whatever personality type they have listed on their profile screen.

You said you had unhappy players...why are they unhappy? In the personal screen of their profile it will tell you. IF it's because they want to move to a bigger club, is their personality "ambitious" or some such variation of that? If so, then you will always have problems until you are contending for titles all the time. If you choose a different personality type, you may have better luck keeping them.

If players are happy, it's easier to keep them at the club. If they aren't you can always set their transfer fee extra high and at least try and make a profit off them, especially if other clubs are sniffing around. I've found that as a manager, I can tell the media that they are able to leave, but then set the transfer fee high enough to discourage it. They are happy that I'm willing to let them go, but other clubs don't want to pay me the transfer fees I expect. It seems to work okay and their performances stay their best because I'm treating them appropriately in the media via player interactions.

Hope it helps.