Strange contract renewal scenario?

I went to renew one of my young player's contracts and he asked for £3300 p/w. I offered him just under this.

The next day (before he had accepted), I thought that what I had offered him was too high so I went to "Offer new contract" again and this time he only asked for £1100 p/w (+ lower app fee)?

Has anyone else had this?

... same squad status by the way ("Hot prospect")...

its happened to me and i dont know why. maybe the player thinks that because you are offering him a new contract again, his first demands were unreasonable.

Was his contract nearing expiry?

I've run into similar scenarios where I've either signed another player or adjusted my wage/transfer budget slider. There is definitely a built-in negotiating logic that players know how much room you have in the wage budget, and will adjust their demands accordingly. I admit that I have somewhat unfairly exploited this by reducing the wage budget (and increasing the transfer budget) to push through some contract with lower demands from players, and then readjusted the wage budget back up to make some additional free signings.

So your situation might be related to your current wiggle-room in your wage budget.

Was his contract nearing expiry?

This is July 2009, his contract was expiring June 2010.

I've run into similar scenarios where I've either signed another player or adjusted my wage/transfer budget slider. There is definitely a built-in negotiating logic that players know how much room you have in the wage budget, and will adjust their demands accordingly. I admit that I have somewhat unfairly exploited this by reducing the wage budget (and increasing the transfer budget) to push through some contract with lower demands from players, and then readjusted the wage budget back up to make some additional free signings.

So your situation might be related to your current wiggle-room in your wage budget.

I hadn't changed wage budget / transfer budget slider, but I had just spent a lot of money on staff mutual terminations, whilst also conversely freeing up some wage budget by releasing a £40k per week player on a free.

As an aside, I had offered a new contract to another young player at the same time (same circumstances) - I went back to see if his demands had changed but they hadn't (they were a lot more reasonable to start with though...)