Serious enquiries only, please

So when the new FM arrives, I like to start out with a nice mid-major club. A club perhaps just on the cusp of cracking the highest echelons of their league. My faves are Roma, Tottenham and Atletico Madrid. Of course, surivival at these clubs initially depends upon holding on to the top talents (ie De Rossi, Modric, Aguero).

However, so far, every FM10 game I have attempted has degenerated into De Rossi or Modric or Aguero sulking about not getting to talk to Fergie about moving to Manchester (literally, Sir Alex every time. I think the guy has it out for me).

How do you keep your stars in FM10 when ManU and ManCity, et al, hand out transfer bids and enquiries like they own the sky?

(And please, I am hoping for more suggestions than "It's like real life, duh." None of De Rossi, Modric and Aguero have moved to classier clubs, YET)

1) Immediately offer them a new (bigger) contract as the game starts - this will keep them happier from the begining.

2) Dont immediately reject the offers - negotiate them to a ridiculously high amount (80 million sounds about right)

3) If you get an 80million offer - take it - seriously, you can replace them with better for less.

4) Make sure you have international footballer as your prior experiance - the players will respect you more if you do.

Strategies #2 & 4 are tips I always use. #2 has backfired every single time if ManU decides not to continue negotiations. Both Aguero and Modric started sulking when ManU would not pay silly money. #4 seems to make no difference. (maybe it is because my nationality is American. No respect, right?) As for #1, yikes. Aguero's contract is already deep and expensive. We'll see.

Have used Maidels point #2 quite a few times. Doesn't always work, but in my head i feel like it's showing the player that yes, I understand he might want to leave and no, I don't want him to but yes, I'm willing to consider offers.

Of over £75m.

they will get over it. Praise their performances and maybe try ask them for recomended staff or players and sign them. This will bring their happiness up, i had a similar thing, im with wolves and Tottenham came in for Kightly, i said no he is indespensible and he was unhappy, within a month, and signing one of his favoured personelle as a coach he is now happy again. Hope that helped!

To continue my suggestions after a pause for thought

5) Tell them to shut up and sit down. If you win games (and leagues) then they will forget all about it - generally just long enough to get to the next transfer window when they can become unhappy all over again...

6) Ensure that you can actually speak the same language as them at the start (So yes - starting as an american isnt going to help matters very much... not your fault I realise)

7) Have you ever thought of just selling them?

In general the player's decision to complain consists of five things:

- Player's Ambition

- Player's Controversy

- Player's Reputation

- Club's Reputation

- League Reputation

Essentially, if you have an ambitious, controversial player with a high reputation relevant to the club and league standard, he is going to want to move on. The problem is much more pronounced when you're playing in a league just outside the top five, e.g., trying to make a Dutch, Portugese, or Scottish side into a Champions League contender, as then the league standard begins working against you as well.

"Offer a new contract" tends to work well because, if they accept, it "resets" their happiness .. which may continue to degrade over time but at least it gets settled. In long-term games under this style, I've found it useful to offer a new contract to my stars every year, shortly before the transfer window opens for summer .. as long as I can afford to pay the bonuses, etc. A bonus and a raise, and an extension from 2 years left on contract to 3 years left, year in and year out, tends to keep them pretty quiet .. except for the few most ambitious and controversial, whom I tended to weed out anyways.

The most recent patch addressed some of the unhappiness around "Negotiate"; it is supposedly good enough to recognize the difference between a crazy-high demand (read as a "No") and a reasonable price (read as "Negotiation") though I haven't verified that myself.

I've had "shut up" work, (in FM'09 and earlier) even getting an apology out of a player .. but I've also poisoned my relationship with a star player to an irrevocable point. I wound up getting less for him than I'd been rejecting when the problem first started. So, its definitely a risk/reward thing.

Other strategies I've used long-term included working at making the player adopt me as "favored personnel", which helps club loyalty a lot - essentially, very good team-talk and media handling of the player will do it. Language and nationality will help a lot with that, too. Any fostering of friendships within the club can help to a lesser extent.

As you say, Amaroq, "The most recent patch addressed some of the unhappiness around "Negotiate"; it is supposedly good enough to recognize the difference between a crazy-high demand (read as a "No") and a reasonable price (read as "Negotiation") though I haven't verified that myself."

Great patch, then. Glad it makes the game somewhat more realistic. And I can verify that Modric did not care for my negotiation antics, as he thought 40m euros a bit too much for Sir Alex. Annoying for me, but it has sent me back to the drawing board... (PS A week or two in the reserves did clear his head, but now I expect I will never achieve precious "favoured personnel" status now.)