Does loyalty cloud your judgement? "Names mentioned"

I am slowly getting through my West Ham game and still have many of the original players, Noble, Ashton, Green, Neill, Faubert, Spence.

Noble is still in midfield and Faubert is on the right wing but Ashton now has serious competition for his position. He has been brilliant for me and with the exception of 1 season he has been our top goal scorer but this year he has not been right (he did have bad 5 month injury). Thing is i hate to leave him out of the side or place him on the transfer list. I have 3 other strikers now that are better than him according to the coaches and I know that is a bloody stupid thing especially that its only a game but i would hate to leave him out as that would mean his England place would be in jeopardy. West Ham is his favourite team and besides Carlos Dias (my 19 year old super striker) I am his other favourite person.

Yep IRL i am a devoted hammer.

So anyone else have this or are you ruthless and just dump them?

Yep, arsenal can't sell that many so the game gets boring 4 seasons in.

I find the game more enjoyable if you get swept up in the game...in the occasion. There's a guy at work who just plays the game robotically but where's the fun in that? I try and play it as if it's real life.

Yes, I do often struggle to let players go when they've done well for me but I can now afford a much better player to replace him. Delph was one who became my most used sub, and I eventually sold him to West Brom.

Usually regens - having said that I've just sold my 24year old captain striker after 4 years at the club.

He hit 99 goals after £1.1mil buy and sold him to Juve for £43mil, good dealing

I am far too loyal to the players i like. I can never sell or release them, just let them rot in the reserves when they are getting older

Loyalty definitely clouds my judgement.

Recently at TP-47 in Finland I had this old Brazilian midfielder who had been a key player for 4 years, but was getting too old and lacking the energy to be effective in my system despite his technical ability.

I still kept giving him new contracts though, but he hadn't played at all this season (about halfway through), and then started kicking up a fuss about lack of harmony and not playing. He had to be released then. I had to do the same for another player in the same position as well.

I bought Samuel Eto from Barce to my Leicester team on a free.. His 1st season he scored 37 goals then the 2nd he scored 25 goals but now hes getting on (Hes 35 on my game at the moment) he cant hit a barn door but I still renew his contract but let him sit on the bench.

In my Villa save, I'm 11 seasons in and Ashley Young and Curtis Davies are the only players left from the original squad. Big Curt is still my captain and Ashley Young still gets the odd game on the left wing.

Yeah, I've sort of run into that problem.

Alessio Cerci recently retired on my game but he would have done so much earlier if it hadn't been for the fact I put in a policy of playing him before every Champions League fixture (so at least one of my better wingers would be fit for the more important match). His age? 39, and he retired 7 days short of his 40th birthday.

However, he was my 3rd choice winger on both flanks (!) and obviously I should have found better options, but didn't want to.

I'm also considering retiring the shirt. That's a problem, though, because when I signed him in 2008, I assigned him the number 7 shirt. Could I never assign another number 7 ever again? Hm...

I've had to be ruthless right now, though. I've just sold two of my homegrown central midfielders who have developed into classy, two-footed players who have never let me down. However, they're aging and I have new blood coming through - and my squad size last season was around 30, which was far too big. It's now down to 26 but has a good balance of youth and experience in it, and has knocked off 300k from my weekly wage bill.

I tend to stick to a certain core of players. Once I've built a successful team it's very hard to let them go after many season of great performances. I let them retire after rotting in the reserves (usually letting them come off the bench on the last league game of the season). I only sell them on if they want to leave. I haven't gotten to the point where I retire numbers yet though.

It can be hard to say goodbye to players who have served you well (at times I feel like Fergie!)

Yep I always end up giving contracts to players who really aren't good enough, but I just can't let them go. It works both ways though, sometimes I bring in a player and within a year I've sold them even though they were playing well, I just took an instant dislike to them.

The only lyalty I allow to cloud my judgement is letting certain players take penalties.

Akinfeev ended up with 12 goals for Russia

How do you retire numbers?

How do you retire numbers?

You can't. They can only be retired pre-game start.

Only with a very small number of players. Most of the time, it doesn't.

I am supremely disloyal to my players if they stop performing. I have substitued my goalkeeper in a Champions League final and also my captain. Once my players lose their ability they are out the door no matter who they are. At Barcelona I have sold all the legends, including a 30 year old Lionel Messi (I wanted the 50M).

How do you retire numbers?

Nah, I don't physically retire them. I just tell myself I will never pick another number 7 again.

Which isn't difficult at the moment as I don't have any really good young wingers at the moment, nor do I have a Cantona-like figure (maybe that's a problem?).

Club > Players.

Sure that I read somewhere that if a player was at the club long enough, and was a legend, you could retire the number?

yes it can cloud my judgement, but i would not let a player rot in the reserves because I think it is nicer to let them move on to somewhere to get a game, plus money and keeps the squad happy

Absoulty agree with you Smudge, with any other team i delve straight into the transfer market but when i manage Everton i try to keep the team they have in real life, just started a new game with everton had to accept 30m for Cahill but brought in 2 players (better than the current players) but i now find myself choosing Osman over Cani and Phil Neville over the DMC (crnt remember his name)

Loyalty almost never clouds my judgement. I'm very ruthless with players and they tend to get turfed out in very short order if they don't tow the line.

Oddly enough I still end up with "popular manager" most of the time. I guess cos all the players who hated me are no longer at the club by that point

I also tend to substitue goalkeepers and any player performing badly that won't fit into a tactical shuffle early in a match. I quite frequently make two substitutions before half time. The only exception is attacking players on a hatrick. I think taking them off is mean.

That said I still LOVE some of my players (usually Regens). Rodrigo Palacios is perhaps the only RL player that i've ever stuck with in FM even though his legs gave up somewhere between 31 and 32.

...and Phil Neville over the DMC (crnt remember his name)

Castillo?