How Sophisticated Is The Manager/Player Interaction?

My spirited striker earned 'Player Of The Week' in my league so I sent out a media statement stating I was pleased (not delighted) with his recent play. He responds by saying he doesn't have to do much to earn my praise. As a manager, I think that is an inappropriate player response and IRL I would consider benching him a match for it. In FM, if I did bench the player, would he recognize his benching was due to his disrespectful media comments and maybe be more careful in the future or would there be no effect? Realistically, both the manager and player should be able to react to the other's comments until resolution.

yes, praising players for good performances is never worth it

Look at the stats on his form. Praising a player who happen to get media attention from the latest game, with the form 6-7-6-6-9 will almost always return a "doesn't have to do much to earn praise" reply.

I always ignore media reports on how great the players are. From time to time I sort my squad list by form, and praise the ones that have performed for 5 (or more) games.

Yeah - he's looking at his form over several matches (3, I think) to judge your response. Essentially, he's saying "Look, I can get praise from my manager anytime I just put in a single good match." In that example, the lightest of touch "praise" item might not have gotten it, but the upper two have to be reserved for multiple-match streaks of form.

I do somewhat like the module - with a high-reputation player sitting on a string of 7's, you can sometimes spur some better performances by saying his performance was "merely average".

I do exactly what Carradona does: sort by form (which is 5 matches), and look for guys that I think aren't performing where they ought to be.

So will my striker understand the reason (disrespectful comment about the manager) why I bench him or am I injecting too much real life into this fantasy FM world?

So will my striker understand the reason (disrespectful comment about the manager) why I bench him or am I injecting too much real life into this fantasy FM world?

Too much real life.

I have about 4 players that can sit on 8-8-8-8-8 form, sometimes 8-9-9-8-8 so forth...So I say Im delighted then they get happy as they are obviously happy with their form and then the fans love me for saying I liked his form and everybody loves each other...

So basically look at and see whether their form is really really really good, then use delighted.

Pleased should be the max, I never really tell players off unless they are playing really bad as most cases it shatters the players moral.

It's as sophisticated as Rab C. Nesbitt.

You can learn what comment to make based on each players last 3 games, ever player varies, but the starting point is:

Add up the last 3 form scores for the player and then base your response on the following:

19 or less = below

21 = acceptable

22 = pleased

23 and above = delighted

20 is a grey area, is either below or acceptable depending on the player, I use the notes system once I work it out, try below first.

This is not an exact science as extreme player personalities tend to respond to different thresholds, age also seems to have a small effect, be less harsh on younger players. It works for me on about 90% of my first team players.

Using the player interaction to talk to the press about a players current form is one way to influence that players morale, get it correct and it leaps straight to Superb. Getting it wrong drops his morale. You can only do this if the player has been playing for the last few matches. As an added bonus, you appear on the players favourite personnel list after a few successful comments.