End of Season Squad Status

Hey all,

I just wanted to quickly check what other people did with regards to squad status at the end of the season if they've been promoted / improved enough to attract better players?

I'm in my third season as Swansea City, and finished 9th in the Premiership last season. I've still got a few players in the squad from when I took over, most notably, the magnificent Ferrie Bodde and the legendary Angel Rangel. Both have been first team players, Ferrie is my captain and both are favoured personnel for the club.

The problem I now have is that whilst both competent enough to play at Premiership level, neither are good enough to help me in my push for European football, so the obvious answer is to strip Ferrie of the captaincy and change them both to backup/rotation players. The problem is that everybody seems to love Ferrie (and why wouldn't they), so I can't imagine that stripping him of the captaincy will be too popular, nor do I think that he or Angel will be too keen on becoming back up players. The fans I'm imagining are also going to call for my head if I get rid, and to be honest, I don't really want to, they are both still perfectly good backups.

So as far as I can see, my options are:

1. Keep them both in the first team, but as such have a weaker team

2. Set them to backups, strip Ferrie of the captaincy, and risk losing control of the dressing room.

3. Sell both of them, anger the fans, and have to find players of sufficient quality to play as backup in their old positions.

I just don't know what to do for the best.... What would you do in the same situation?

I would set them both as squad rotation players and don't strip the captaincy off Ferrie. IRL Gary Neville is still United's captain but he's backup. If you give them the odd games here and there they should stay happy.