Why is morale so fickle?

Playing as Stoke and its a problem I've noticed a lot since 9.0.3 can't recall if it happened in 9.0.1 when I last started as stoke, but had daft morale problems last season as well. I'm 7 games in, had a draw, and 2 good wins one against Arsenal and I can understand player morale at this point being very good/superb. Anyway, next 2 games away to liverpool and man utd, lose these games 1-0 and 2-1 respectively, team talks were fine, sympathise and good effort to keep player morale up, no condemning yet my players - who were massive underdogs for these games, and now are poor/very poor.

Anyway, knew I'd be in for a hard time, but then it goes to the opposite extreme, the team that put nice moves together against Arsenal a few games ago, and played well and resilient and had nice passing etc against Man Utd and Liverpool, go in at half-time in a game against Tottenham 7-0 down, 22% possession, and a woeful 16% pass completion and embarrassing 24% tackles won.

Got that irritated just turned the game off losing my pre-season etc because it was rediculous that it worked that way, I just don't understand how a team who can be a media prediction of 20th can be so heavily depressed against two of the top teams in Europe. Then a competitive team are undone not by anything special, but 5 goals came from players passing a simple pass to nowhere, the opposition picking it up then storming through and scoring.

I've had minor problems like this in lower leagues which I could attribute to low professionalism and low hidden stats, but its fallen beyond my comprehension how my players can drop this badly, and I can't understand where it happened in the space of 14 days.

Ah well, that's the end of my thoughts on morale being quite daftly sensitive, and being a wrecking ball on my team, I'm going back to my amateurs in sweden who can handle a loss to the bottom of the league side without becoming depressed and losing the ability to play lol.

I find that footballers are the most insecure creatures anyway.

Be that as it may, you'd have to think, relegation candidates wouldn't be too disappointed by currently being 14th despite 2 losses, and being in good stead for the short-term at least, would be able to handle it without folding like a deck of cards in a breeze.

I would say morale of the players IRL would be ok if they lost to Man U/Arsenal but played well.

Do you think the low morale had an impact on the 7-0 to Spurs? Sounds like your keeper had a shocker.

Not just my keeper, the whole team was completely disgraceful, barely a pass was reaching another player, defenders and midfielders were passing to nowhere, Tottenham would then pick it up and launch an attack. The keeper was bad as well, but a tottenham side comprised of a few of their younger players were basically entrenched on the edge of my box purely because my players couldn't pass, I can only assume the morale played a part in that, I know there's tactics, and I know no tactic is sure fire, but 7 goals in the first half is something I've never seen - I put up the stats I bothered to check before I closed it in disgust, the only change between then and the previous games was morale.

Morale has a huge, monumental impact on matches from what I've seen, to keep morale up during international breaks etc I arrange friendlies against my under 18's if its poor in a manner that can't be comprehended like this but there wasn't the time to do that for the first team players if they were to be fit enough for the game as well.

In another save, superb morale has just seen me put 6 goals past the leagues best team with the same tactic, with only a handful of actual first choice players they'd only conceded 4 in 12 games.

Not just my keeper, the whole team was completely disgraceful, barely a pass was reaching another player, defenders and midfielders were passing to nowhere, Tottenham would then pick it up and launch an attack. The keeper was bad as well, but a tottenham side comprised of a few of their younger players were basically entrenched on the edge of my box purely because my players couldn't pass, I can only assume the morale played a part in that, I know there's tactics, and I know no tactic is sure fire, but 7 goals in the first half is something I've never seen - I put up the stats I bothered to check before I closed it in disgust, the only change between then and the previous games was morale.

Morale has a huge, monumental impact on matches from what I've seen, to keep morale up during international breaks etc I arrange friendlies against my under 18's if its poor in a manner that can't be comprehended like this but there wasn't the time to do that for the first team players if they were to be fit enough for the game as well.

In another save, superb morale has just seen me put 6 goals past the leagues best team with the same tactic, with only a handful of actual first choice players they'd only conceded 4 in 12 games.

If you upload your save I could have a look and give you my opinion of what went wrong?

Nah, there's no real need to do that, I know the game well enough, there was no reason for it to go as bad as it did, the team talks and press conferences weren't implying there was a win, players were pleased with comments, there were no adverse effects to team talks and all the players were content albeit with poor/very poor morale.

Only way I can think to view it for yourself is to get an editor and change the values of morale so you can see the difference between the extremities of morale.

Young players are more adverse to moral changes apparently.

Any truth lying there?

Not really, majority of my squad is over 25 with Stoke, only one player who played in the 3 mentioned games was under 25 the rest are all quite frankly veterans of higher level football which made it less comprehensive because I specifically targetted players like this who would be - according to the game - more resilient to set-backs as last time I tried it with youngsters and survived by the skin of my teeth.

Do you use all the morale boosting helpers, ie press conferences, player interaction? These won't help much, you as a season player will know that, but at least they have the power to shift the balance slightly into your favour.

Also, how much do you use the morale vs motivation idea?

See the tactic forum, theres a brilliant guide in it, whereby you should try to keep an ideal between motivation and morale.

None of the players had the thought lines about thinking they could easily win games etc - that is something that plagues me in my other Stoke save in 2020. I do my own conferences on account of the fact my assistant manager is an idiot, and my own team talks etc. I haven't read the guides for this one, but quite frankly I don't recall having this problem in 9.0.1 when I started my last save with Stoke, but it has been an enormous concern for my team last season and now this season which I have effectively lost all bar one or two friendlies lol.

It might be worth checking a few of your players hidden stats with the editor (if you do not object to that kind of thing)

I've gone on huge barren runs, when my tactics have failed miserably, and I've still been able to keep my squad's morale at a decent level. I have played some AI teams that have all shown as "completely lacking confidence" and have caved in completely as soon as I score - so I can believe your problem.

What's your players' determination like? Some players can't handle losing. It could be worth criticising the worst performers a little, to boost their resolve. I think it's possible to be too kind (although that shouldn't really cause a morale hit.)

As for whether morale's effect is realistic, I would point to Hull's league collapse, or Tottenham's collapse against Man Utd as evidence that mental state can play a huge part. I can see your point of course, although I have not suffered similar, but if people suffered a result like Tottenham's 5-2, I think they'd claim that was unrealistic - football's weird sometimes. Since no one else is mentioning similar problems it looks like a rare issue in the game.

Are you checking team talk feedback? They might be getting angered/confused by your praise/sympathy for crap performances.

My point isn't just conceding the goals, I can handle that its just how it coincided with bad morale that every one of my players was pathetically poor there's no excuse for passing and tackling as poor as it was, squad personality in mid-July is determined, only players to be added after this is Mark Gonzalez and Andres D'Alessadro. I had checked the team talks after the liverpool game for them all to see how they'd reacted and it was the usual nothing specific noted for all the players.

Where Hull went wrong you can see the reasoning, Brown upset a lot of players with his theatrical nature, team mates fell out, and then individuals fell out with the manager, as well as the disappointment of the inspiring record signing being injured shortly after joining the club. There was none of that here, and Tottenham were in the position where they ultimately knew it wasn't going to be their day, they were unjustly given a penalty against them, and against a team like Man Utd you know once something like that happens, it's going to be hard to stop what is almost inevitable.

What happened after is really the padding to the core situation, in two games, given the circumstances, morale shouldn't have plummeted so far so fast.

I'd be interested in seeing an in-game editor look at the morale values before and after and depending on debate possibly raising it as a bug.