Goal Droughts

(1) When your player is in a goal drought, what do you usually say to get him to start scoring again? In team talks I usually go with 'have faith' to make him feel happy, but should I try 'no pressure' and/or 'expect performance' or would that make him not care/put too much pressure on him?

(2) What do you usually do with said out-of-form player? Do you play him until he scores? Drop him after X amount of games? Throw him on in desperation if you are losing? Put him on if you are winning comfortably?

(3) Is it just me or if an opposition player is on a goal drought, they nearly always score against you in a match?

1. I use No Pressure from the 4th match without a goal until he scores again. Putting pressure on him to score only make things worse. If he becomes complacent or disinterested, there is really no hope to keep him scoring consistently as he would have a too unprofessional/unambitious/low pressure handling personality.

2. If he continues to miss sitters until he starts losing morale, it is better to drop him for a match or three. Both goal drought -and- poor morale is a very bad situation to be in. Hopefully his morale will increase if the team continues winning, or you can increase his morale by chatting with him.

3. There -are- nemesises in FM. I have seen useless players like N'Gog and even worse than him score their only goals of the season in fantastic ways... just against me (or my friends) or only against human managers. They are often rubbish against everyone else. The same thing seems to be true also with the end of goal droughts or 1st ever goals or 1st of the season goals... they tend to be dream goals somehow, and you notice them easily because you wouldn't expect them to be the ones downing you.

I'll have a private chat with them and tell them they are not playing good and need to improve

'your recent form has not been good enough latley' etc.

They say something like , 'I'm not happy with the way I'm playing but that's going to change.'

If they still continue to play poorly, I tell them I'm going to put them in the reserves because of their recent form.

Then once they start banging in some goals in the reserve's, I move them back into the first team.

btw

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/265874-FM-is-listening-to-what-you-say!!

so the mere -thought- "hmm so their striker is on a 10-match goal drought" will ensure your doom...

I just leave him to it - as long as i am not losing then eventually it will happen and then he goes on a goal spree.

It all depends on the player really, some you will have to be careful with, some you can just leave them to get on with it and eventually they score. Usually i stick the player onto pen duties and i dont tend to change my talks at all

I don't put any additional pressure on them. I do regularly consult my players about their performances, good or bad (as it's a reliable way for me to motivate and build good relationships) and other than that if asked about it in press conferences I just indicate faith in them, and often, if they're playing the support role, I speak about the good team role that they play. I'm never that panicked about them myself, as I get a lot of goals from wingers and set piece headers. Hence, so long as the player's happy, and having a good team game, I'm happy.

I just leave him to it - as long as i am not losing then eventually it will happen and then he goes on a goal spree.

Same here, although I'll sometimes put him on penalty duties to get him going.