Captaincy Issue

So here's the deal. I have had one captain for several years; I probably made him captain a bit young, but he's done a fine job (by which I mean, there's never been any issues with him as captain) until recently.

I'm playing in Spain; we won the league on points in like mid-April, and all of a sudden I started seeing "Players are having a hard time finding motivation to play with XXX as captain" in the assman's report pregame. Everyone's morale was high, nobody disliked him (he's one of their favorite personnel in most cases, and is a club legend), but he was apparently not getting it done as a captain for some reason. Performances suffered a bit, but I was also adding in a lot of youth players (the games didn't matter, so I was using them to give some fringe players game experience) and chalked it up to that. We won the CL and Spanish Cup without incident.

The same message kept popping up, however, during preseason. His determination has also dropped a bit (it was at 20, but now is at 17), but his influence is 16...and he's still being touted as my best choice for captain by my backroom staff.

I have a centerback who may be better; the problem is, the centerback is 32 and the striker's 25. If I switch them, the striker (who's fantastic) will be understandably upset, while the centerback is a bit old and will probably be gone in two years.

I'm at the point in the preseason where I need to name the captain for the year; should I change, or should I give him a go and hope that once the games start to matter more he'll be more influential?

Leave it like it is.

Leave it like it is.

That was my thought, too. What's up with the message, though? Is it just that the players weren't motivated to play meaningless games, or is my captain beginning to be less influential?

That was my thought, too. What's up with the message, though? Is it just that the players weren't motivated to play meaningless games, or is my captain beginning to be less influential?

Ive never had this issue before. So I dont know how to respond to it. However it will go one of a few ways. You keep your captain like it is and they play bad. or you keep it the same and they do good. Change captian and the players get unhappy and so does your former captain. Tbh mate its your call.

That happened to me with Stephen Carr at Brum. I think it was because his influence was gradually dropping

That happened to me with Stephen Carr at Brum. I think it was because his influence was gradually dropping

What did you do?

What did you do?

I dropped him as captain but that was because he wasn't necessarily integral to my plans as I had a regen who was better. But if I was in your position I would leave it like it is. Unless you're willing to take the risk of upsetting your star...

I dropped him as captain but that was because he wasn't necessarily integral to my plans as I had a regen who was better. But if I was in your position I would leave it like it is. Unless you're willing to take the risk of upsetting your star...

Nah, I'll probably leave it alone; he's started becoming a little complacent lately, so maybe if I fix that with more demanding team talks it'll ripple through to his captaincy anyways.

Yeah that seems like a plan