Are Player reactions a lottery?

The other day i loaded my game, i had recently had a go at a player for a poor performance and as i continued the game he cam up and said sorry and he would try to improve. Thats as far as i got before my son dragged me off to play. Needless to say i didnt bother saving. Anyway, loaded up the game just a moment ago and pressed continue, up pops my player this time saying the warning was harsh? Is it just a lottery as to what reaction you get?

If so, whats the point? May as well just cut the feature out.

They are somewhat of a lottery, but there are various factors which the likelihood of various reactions he could have. The way FM, and all video games work really, is essentially complex number crunching. In FM, the future is effectively always uncertain. When you think about it, if you have a particularly injury-prone player, each day you pass through in FM, there might be a 2% chance he might get injured, ect. So it's essentially the same idea as that. Him getting an injury isn't set-in stone, but there's always a random chance it might happen.