Strangest turnaround in form ever?

In my current game I've probably seen the most bizarre turnaround in form in the entire time I've been playing FM... I'm Blackburn in my first season, playing a front three of Boriello, Kalinic and Di Santo. Boriello has been doing well, Di Santo has been average but as good as can be expected from him. Kalinic, on the other hand, is the focal point of the attack and for the majority of the season has been hugely disappointing. His form has been so poor that he'd been dropped to the Croatia Under 21's after briefly being in the Senior team, and he's missing chances regularly for me. Come December and he's scored a measly 4 goals in 18 games. We play Wolves at home and Kalinic has a ridiculous amount of chances to score, but misses every single one. Half the time he doesn't even hit the target. The game ends 0-0 and I have had enough, I criticize him in the press (deeply disappointed) and fine him 2 weeks wages for poor performance. He thinks he's been treated unfairly and you'd assume his performances would get worse due to that. Well, the exact opposite happens. He's gone on an unbelievable run of form that's seen him bag a hat-trick, then 2 goals against Man Utd after coming on as a sub in the 70th minute, 2 against Wigan and 4 goals against Fulham. He's now scored 15 in 23 games, and is second joint-top scorer in the league?! I've never quite seen a turnaround in form like it... :confused:

Anyone else had anything similar happen?

Edit: He just blasted another 4 past Birmingham so that now makes it 19 in 24 games :|

If you have a screenie of the before and after I'd love to see them - that's madness!

We can put whatever spin on it we want but realistically his form wouldn't have returned that dramatically in real life. I do however have one question....the game in which he re-found his scoring touch...was he playing badly prior to finding the net?

On my 10.2 save,i had macheda score 40+ goals in his first srason and continued similar form into his second,i never praised him though cos i didn't want to jinx it.I then decided to praise him for his form later in the second season (i used the correct praise option.so lets not go back to that issue) then BAM!! no goals for a month.I actually found this to be a problem on that save that when i praised a striker,he stopped scoring like before even though i used the correct option (i could tell because of the player reaction).Am i the only one who such happened to?

This is Kalinic's form in the 7 games before the Wolves game...

He had a brief 'purple patch' in November when he put in a few good performances but as you can see, generally medicore performances and a distinct lack of goals from a guy who's supposed to be my leading front man...

This shows from the Wolves game onwards, the 6.1 really annoyed me so I had a go at him... then the lad goes absolutely berzerk and goes on an insane run of form! I'm in his 'favoured personnel' so maybe to an extent my criticism affected him more than it might for another player but still... to go from being distinctly average to that kind of form is crazy. He's now ahead of Drogba and Torres in the scoring charts and 1 goal behind SI's goldenchild Adebayor!

That's amazing, really good man management if he reacted so well to your criticism. I don't think I've ever had an individual player turn around form like that, but as a team we went on an 8 or 9 game streak without winning and most of them were losses, then played top of the league arsenal, won 4-0 and went on a 4 game winning streak. It was very odd, I didn't change the formation or anything it seemed something just clicked suddenly and we turned into a top 8 team.

Firstly great stuff for uploading the screenies.

Secondly, he wasn't playing "badly" beforehand, just nowhere near how well he played in the second screenie. Averaging 7. with a few goals isn't great but not shocking.

Also, almost 3 months have passed between the 2 screenies which gives the turnaround a little more plausibility. Did you change anything within that period.

Firstly great stuff for uploading the screenies.

Secondly, he wasn't playing "badly" beforehand, just nowhere near how well he played in the second screenie. Averaging 7. with a few goals isn't great but not shocking.

Also, almost 3 months have passed between the 2 screenies which gives the turnaround a little more plausibility. Did you change anything within that period.

I suppose it depends on how you judge playing badly and playing well ;] in my opinion 6.7/6.8 isn't good enough for regular form, and it was more the lack of goals that was annoying. He had his chances and wasn't taking them. 6.1 is unacceptable in my book, especially against Wolves at home when I desperately needed him to nick a goal and he couldn't do the job, leading to a 0-0. Boriello played well enough during the match and so did di Santo, they set Kalinic up a few times and he wasted their hard work. I think I was criticising him more for his overall scoring form from the start of the season, not just the screenshots. 4 goals in 19 games is just not good enough, and I know he has the ability from previous games I've played with Blackburn.

Also, if you look at the 4 games leading up to the Wolves game you'll see 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.7, then the 6.1. His form in November was fine so I didn't criticize him for it, but his form in December was poor IMO and coupled with the lack of goals I felt he deserved a bit of a bollocking to get him into gear. I didn't change anything tactically or otherwise because until the Wolves game I had faith Niko would eventually wake up and start scoring... my faith was, after a bit of hairdryer treatment, repaid beyond what I could have expected!

I suppose it depends on how you judge playing badly and playing well ;] in my opinion 6.7/6.8 isn't good enough for regular form, and it was more the lack of goals that was annoying. He had his chances and wasn't taking them. 6.1 is unacceptable in my book, especially against Wolves at home when I desperately needed him to nick a goal and he couldn't do the job, leading to a 0-0. Boriello played well enough during the match and so did di Santo, they set Kalinic up a few times and he wasted their hard work. I think I was criticising him more for his overall scoring form from the start of the season, not just the screenshots. 4 goals in 19 games is just not good enough, and I know he has the ability from previous games I've played with Blackburn.

Also, if you look at the 4 games leading up to the Wolves game you'll see 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.7, then the 6.1. His form in November was fine so I didn't criticize him for it, but his form in December was poor IMO and coupled with the lack of goals I felt he deserved a bit of a bollocking to get him into gear. I didn't change anything tactically or otherwise because until the Wolves game I had faith Niko would eventually wake up and start scoring... my faith was, after a bit of hairdryer treatment, repaid beyond what I could have expected!

OK but what were his stats like after the period in screenie 1 and before screene 2 as there is a huge gap.

Good Management I say.....

OK but what were his stats like after the period in screenie 1 and before screene 2 as there is a huge gap.

There's no gap at all fella, screenie 1 ends at 19.12.2009, screenie 2 begins at 26.12.2009, the game after?

heheh my bad - was looking top down not bottom up - it's been a loooooooooooong day. Wow I see the full ferocity of your thread now.....to go from a 6.1 to 9.5 i might expect as a one off. However to then continue that going forward - did you have another word in his shell like

heheh my bad - was looking top down not bottom up - it's been a loooooooooooong day. Wow I see the full ferocity of your thread now.....to go from a 6.1 to 9.5 i might expect as a one off. However to then continue that going forward - did you have another word in his shell like

I think I'm quite a harsh manager in general - I'll express anger at a player in a teamtalk if they've gotten below 6, perhaps issue a formal warning after the match. if it's below 5.5 then fines start to come out - I normally would not fine a player for a 6.1, but a combination of the result and Kalinic's generally lacklustre performances provoked me. Usually I get a reaction, which is why I've used this style of management pretty much since CM 03/04, but I've never had a player react so positively to me being so harsh (especially as the level of punishment was probably not warranted).

I have something kinda similar on my PSG save (without the threats!). I started the season playing 4-3-1-2 with Hoarau and Erding up front. Hoarau was banging them in (12 in 15 or something like that) and Erding was awful (3 in 15 or so). I had to change my tactic to Xmas tree formation due to an injury to Hoarau and Erding now can't stop scoring (11 in 12). He then got injured so I replaced him by Hoarau who can't score anymore (1 in 8).