Picking the in form player v Picking the better one...

I remember in FM07 that Van Nistelrooy always started injured so this would lead me to using Alan Smith - He ultimately ended up scoring over 30 goals in the first season for me (and did this over a number different games). However when it came to the 2nd season and RvN was ready from preseason I would relegate Smith to the bench purely because Ruud had the better stats and was a better player.

Currently having a similar situation on the new game. Do most of you stick with the in form striker that bangs in the goals despite the less than remarkable attributes or do you go back the player with the attributes in the high 'teens?

I had a similar Dilemma in my Houston Dynamo save. I brought in a Brazilian striker who has great stats for MLS. He was injured for a while, so I used Cam Weaver in his stead. Weaver is good, but his attributes are not near as good as my Brazilian's, yet he was scoring tons of goals. When the Brazilian returned from injury, what I did was keep Cam Weaver in the striker slot, but would sub in my Brazilian until he regained fitness. As soon as Weaver stopped scoring, I brought the Brazilian back into the lineup.

pretty obvious i would have thought, if you have a striker in red hot form and scoring for fun, why would you relegate him cause someone seems to have better stats?

You start with the in-form guy and put the out-of-sorts one on the bench. Hopefully you'll be 2-0 up with 15 minutes to play, then you bring on the other guy, hope he scuffs an easy chance past tiring defenders, which restores his morale and confidence.

Well, another question is what happens to form over season break? The original question had him bringing on RvN for the start of the second season. Does form stick through the offseason? Do you go with the better player to start the season? Or the one who did best last season?

form comes with playing matches.

no matches = no form.

make your decision based on how they play in preseason.

oh and I never bench a player who is scoring for fun. its a lot easier to kill form than to build it.

I would normally let Smith play out the first season as he had done so well. But surely he'd be able to do it again in the second season, wouldn't he? (As I said in the first season on a number of Man Utd games he hit the 30 goal mark, so it wasn't a fluke.)

United at the time had Rooney, RvN and Smith - Its pretty clear who are the better players.

You have to look at it a different way...

There may be an obvious difference in stats between the players, but if the lower stat player is scoring plenty of goals then his stats are obviously more then acceptable for the league. The higher stat player might come back from injury or whatever and so just as well or they might not. So always go with good form... don't 'fix' what isn't broken.

I have trouble figuring what to do in these situations when I'm trying to sell the benched player or they have a massive contract... it's like throwing money away. :/

You can't freeze out your good player just because he has a dip in form. Remember the old saying "Form is temporary; Class is permanent."

I have a similar situation with 2 strikers but I play a lone striker system. So I rotate them, letting the one in form play the tougher matches and the class player in the easier games to get him easy goals. It's amazing to see a quick switcharound in form when I do this.