Best Players Underachieving

Im playing as Barcelona, and in my third year, possibly my two best players, Messi and Aguero, are both playing quite poorly, consistently getting match ratings under 6. I have no idea if I may have done something to cause this, or if there is just some sort of problem with them. Any ideas?

"It's your tactics..."

No, really, check how you are playing. If you play like Stoke, don't expect flair players to flourish.

Sounds like a motivational issue, not a tactical issue, at first blush - especially if you had success with them in previous seasons with the same tactic.

Watch a match using the 3-D engine, TV View (or whatever that fullscreen mode is), click "Match Info", and tick "Barcelona Motivation". That should give you some indication what's going on - my guess is you will see one or both as "Looking Complacent".

Complacency (as seen there) will tend to happen if your favorite team talks are:

Pre: "We Can Win This"

H-T: "Encourage"

F-T: "Pleased"

Those are all great for keeping Morale up when Morale is low to medium, but when Morale is Very Good to Superb across the board, you want to start managing to Motivation instead of Morale.

Some alternates you might try are:

Individual Pre: "Expect a Performance"

Team H-T: "None"

Individual H-T: "Disappointed"

Team F-T: "None"

You might also try going (not during a match) to the Player Screen, "Player Interaction", and criticise their recent performances - "Below Par" for a 6.5 average or so, with the middle criticism for a 6.25 or so and a real scalding if a player of that quality is honestly averaging 6.0 or lower.

(If "Looking Complacent" isn't the problem, let us know what is.)