Complacency

Hey I was just looking for some on advice on what the best thing to do is if your backroom staff keep saying your teem is complacent against the worst teams in the league and overawed by the best? I'ts been saying it in every backroom meeting but It doesn't say what you should do to stop your team from doing it.

Thanks

It's probably down to poor character. Are your players driven/determined enough? If you have a lot of jovial or light hearted players that would no doubt lead to complacency. I'm not 100% on this though as my team are a very determined bunch of lads. I only sign highly driven players with determination being the first ability/factor I look for in a player.

if they are getting compacent tell them before the game that you expect a win or that you expect a performance. If they are overawed try telling them that there is no pressure on them or that you have faith in their ability, usually helps out

and what should I do if my ass man always says smth unpleasant like: "the majority of team thinks their recent good form is enough to win the matches, the attitude displayed in particular by xxx"???

what pep-talk? or smth else probably? how to correct this? is it also complacency?

and what should I do if my ass man always says smth unpleasant like: "the majority of team thinks their recent good form is enough to win the matches, the attitude displayed in particular by xxx"???

what pep-talk? or smth else probably? how to correct this? is it also complacency?

Yes, this is also complacency. Tell them you expect a win (team talk) and for the player who's particularly showing that attitude you tell him you expect a performance. If you know that some players react badly to pressure (the expect a win team talk), you can say you have faith or something else you feel is appropriate, otherwise they might become nervous.

Unless you fix it now, you'll be in big trouble.

Complacency = playing badly = low morale = playing really badly = losing fifteen games on the trot

Ok thanks will try the teamtalks you said

It's probably down to poor character. Are your players driven/determined enough? If you have a lot of jovial or light hearted players that would no doubt lead to complacency. I'm not 100% on this though as my team are a very determined bunch of lads. I only sign highly driven players with determination being the first ability/factor I look for in a player.

Jovial and Lighthearted are good personalities to have. It means they have high pressure, and therefore you're able to motivate them easily without worry they'll become nervous. Being jovial or light hearted is certainly preferable to being balanced. The ones to avoid are casual and unambitious.

Also: start countering before it starts. Something along the lines of "well-done" in post-match, then being afraid of loss in pre-match press.

And one important thing (not 100% sure if it's in the game, but I have a "feeling" it works): be ruthless with subs/team-selections. If your player has bad rating, sub him* at half-time (even earlier if needed). And if it's bad for several matches, drop him. Immediately, no explanations (private chats are darn difficult to handle, but it seems players understand subbing/dropping naturally, at least they very rarely complain). And yes, number rating is the only thing you should consider, no matter if you disagree (ratings seem a bit silly at times, but I "think" (=guesstimate) that's what your players look at).

*for a long time I was afraid that subbing someone (usually a defender) after 20 or 30 minutes would destroy their morale (and then waited for their rating to improve). Then few years ago my team-mate had an embarrassing start to match (nothing successful in fifteen minutes, even 3m passes were too much to ask), and asked to subbed. Coach agreed, player walked straight out the ground and didn't answer the phone for a week. After series of emails/text-messages he came back to training, and his explanation was: "no idea what happened, but I just couldn't play. Subbing saved me from greater embarrassment, but still I didn't want to to answer the phone". Now, it's quite probable that my mate doesn't have the mentality (or ability, to be fair) to be a world-class player (and he's 33 or 37, so not FM material anyway), but I think everyone has had one of them days when nothing goes right. And on them days, you're just happy to be subbed.