How to get my players to like me?

I'm in the middle of my third season as Man City, and have had plenty of success. But yet for some reason none of my players have me in their favorites, except for a couple of bought players who I had been praising before buying. Usually by now most of my players would have liked me. How to get into their favorites? Do I have to praise them after every half-decent performance?

Maybe if you got to know them better, take them bowling, or to get their hair and nails done?

Seriously - don't worry about it.

I will praise players on form only if they win player of the month or something like that, and it usually goes well. But it can backfire sometimes when the player insists they don't deserve the praise.

You might be able to get them to like you if you look in their profiles and see what players/coaches etc. that they like - or ask them to recommend someone (coach or player) and then sign them based on their recommendation.

Make sure you attend all press conferences and I find eventually they'll like you, it's a pain but must be done.

Why do you care/think it matters?

You should worry if they dislike you. If you're one of their favourites or not, I don't think that makes much difference.

I've attended all pres conferences, didn't make much of a difference for me (cannot confirm or deny its contribution to the entire process, though). What I found to be more effective was private chats, stringing good performances together, and over-achieving.

Make sure you attend all press conferences and I find eventually they'll like you, it's a pain but must be done.

Have attended all so far. I don't know whether them liking me matters, I've just noticed that in this save they don't, whereas in previous ones after a couple of seasons most of them usually did. Maybe a patch changed something in between.

Is your name Andre Villas Boas? This could be the main cause.

It makes a huge difference if they like you, in pre-game talk with individual talk players that like you will almost always get a boost in morale while the one that doesn't have you in their favorite personnel you have to figure out their personality and give the appropriate talk. This is easiest to spot if you're national manager, player from your own club that like you will get morale boost on talk almost everytime, while the ones from other teams will give you an.. eh... As to how... I don't know, I find it hard to get established players to like me too, although the new comer ones always like me after I play them in their first game so....