Angered by half-time team talk!

[Daley]

I think that this is a bit unrealistic especially when you consider the player involved.

I played a couple of games last night on my new patch save. Man Utd manager and playing against Sunderland away in Jauary 2009. At half-time we are 1-0 up and so it goes to the half-time team talk. I have Tevez and Berbatov playing upfront and they are on ratings of 6.2 and 6.8 respectively. The rest of the team are on ratings averaging somewhere between 6.8 to 7.4 except Park who is on 6.4, so I tell everyone in the team excluding Tevez & Park 'not to let performance drop' and I tell Tevez & Park I am disappointed. I play the rest of the game and win 3-0 then after the game I get a message saying that Tevez has gone to the press because he doesn't like the way I spoke to him at half-time!

He is now unsettled and I had to drop him for the next game as he only rated 6.4 in that game. So now I have got an unsettled player because I told him I was disappointed with his performance. Whilst I could understand it if I had got 'angry' with him, but not disappointed. I also think that Tevez is a professional (IRL) and as such he would be a player that would more likely be spurred on by that sort of comment, not chuck his toys out of his pram.

[Ediocy]

That certainly is an unusual reaction. I regularly spur my players on with "disappointed" half-time team-talks, sometimes even "angry", and have yet to come across such an incident yet.

May I ask what starting reputation did you set your manager to be on? If it is low, could that be a factor? I would imagine more famous players would not take too kindly to harsh criticisms from managers that they do not rate.

[Daley]

That certainly is an unusual reaction. I regularly spur my players on with "disappointed" half-time team-talks, sometimes even "angry", and have yet to come across such an incident yet.

May I ask what starting reputation did you set your manager to be on? If it is low, could that be a factor? I would imagine more famous players would not take too kindly to harsh criticisms from managers that they do not rate.

As I started as Man Utd manager I selected International Footballer so as to stop the problems with players thinking I can't do the job after the first game that I lose. So it's not that but I could understand more if it was.

[Ediocy]

Well, it might be down to the player himself then I guess. I have never worked with Tevez before so I cannot offer any insight on this matter.

It does inject some spice into your game though. Now you have to make a decision, assuage his 'hurt' feelings and keep him as a key part of your team, or follow in the illustrious footsteps of Fergie and just make an example of someone who steps out of line and ship him out pronto.

[Daley]

Well, it might be down to the player himself then I guess. I have never worked with Tevez before so I cannot offer any insight on this matter.

It does inject some spice into your game though. Now you have to make a decision, assuage his 'hurt' feelings and keep him as a key part of your team, or follow in the illustrious footsteps of Fergie and just make an example of someone who steps out of line and ship him out pronto.

If he plays up he's out, I totally agree with Fergie in that no player is bigger than the club. I don't want him to go and he hasn't asked to or started playing up so it's fine for the moment. I have managed Tevez before and never had this, infact I have never had this reaction before from any player in any game!

[Lyssien]

Did you check his "motivation" at half time?

[Daley]

Did you check his "motivation" at half time?

As in how he reacted to my half-time comments? If so yes, when I saw the news item I then checked the ass man feedback and Tevez was something along the lines of 'Angered, seemed confused'. Which is obviously why he then went to the press but I just don't think that is a reaction that is plausable from a professional such as Tevez to a team talk such as that. If it was someone who is known to be tempermental such as say Drogba then possibly.

[Lyssien]

Daley, no, that' not what I meant. At any point during the match, you can go to your team stats (eg home stats if you are playing at home) and there is a drop down menu somewhere on the top right corner. The second choice of that menu says "motivation". It will tell you the motivation of each player (e.g. playing with confidence, playing OK, having a poor game, having a storming game, looking motivated, looking fired up, complacent, bossing the midfield, playing nervously etc).

I find that you need to take this "motivation" into account (along with rating, scoreline, pregame talk, player's personality etc) in order to give a successful talk at half time. For example, you were winning and he was not playing that bad. If his motivation was "playing OK" or "looking motivated", maybe he needed words of encouragement as "you have faith" or simply nothing at all. I think you need to start keeping track of how motivation and rating combine and how they decide each player's reaction to a team talk.

[mr_whitey]

Im no expert as to why this my have happened but did you look at Tevez's stats before giving him his half time team talk? The reason i ask is that could his rating of been down to things out of his control? For example was he getting the ball alot in the 1st half? If he was and his shots and passes were going astray than i have no idea why he would react like that, on the other hand if he wasnt getting the ball and it was just the play was not going through him then you can understand his anger as he was getting a grilling for something out of his control.

I always check the stats now, especially for strikers as its sometimes the service and not the strikers fault for the poor rating. Also i notice that players given a yellow get a few points off there rating so i check that too.

[Daley]

Daley, no, that' not what I meant. At any point during the match, you can go to your team stats (eg home stats if you are playing at home) and there is a drop down menu somewhere on the top right corner. The second choice of that menu says "motivation". It will tell you the motivation of each player (e.g. playing with confidence, playing OK, having a poor game, having a storming game, looking motivated, looking fired up, complacent, bossing the midfield, playing nervously etc).

I find that you need to take this "motivation" into account (along with rating, scoreline, pregame talk, player's personality etc) in order to give a successful talk at half time. For example, you were winning and he was not playing that bad. If his motivation was "playing OK" or "looking motivated", maybe he needed words of encouragement as "you have faith" or simply nothing at all. I think you need to start keeping track of how motivation and rating combine and how they decide each player's reaction to a team talk.

Oh ok, no I hadn't checked that motivation. I was winning but he wasn't playing well and ordinarily I would have subbed him at half-time with a rating below 6.4 but (ironically) because I like Tevez IRL I thought that I would leave him on and give him a chance to improve his performance and keep his place for the next game! I think that this is the problem with the team talks in general as it is a bit of a lottery as to what reaction you will get. To be honest whilst I realise that different players have different personalities and you need to treat them differently, if a professional player is playing badly then he should be big enough to accept that his manager will tell him he's disappointed without throwing a strop.

[Daley]

Im no expert as to why this my have happened but did you look at Tevez's stats before giving him his half time team talk? The reason i ask is that could his rating of been down to things out of his control? For example was he getting the ball alot in the 1st half? If he was and his shots and passes were going astray than i have no idea why he would react like that, on the other hand if he wasnt getting the ball and it was just the play was not going through him then you can understand his anger as he was getting a grilling for something out of his control.

I always check the stats now, especially for strikers as its sometimes the service and not the strikers fault for the poor rating. Also i notice that players given a yellow get a few points off there rating so i check that too.

I did check that and it was just that he wasn't playing well. he'd also had no yellow card.

[Lyssien]

He was not playing that badly though. 6.4 is not badly, it's just below average (average being 6.8). Another player might have taken your talk better, sure. It's not a lottery though, you just need to keep track of how each player reacts under different circumstances. Anyway, don't do this to Tevez again, try a different approach next time you are winnning with him not playing especially well.

[daemonic]

Daley, no, that' not what I meant. At any point during the match, you can go to your team stats (eg home stats if you are playing at home) and there is a drop down menu somewhere on the top right corner. The second choice of that menu says "motivation". It will tell you the motivation of each player (e.g. playing with confidence, playing OK, having a poor game, having a storming game, looking motivated, looking fired up, complacent, bossing the midfield, playing nervously etc).

I find that you need to take this "motivation" into account (along with rating, scoreline, pregame talk, player's personality etc) in order to give a successful talk at half time. For example, you were winning and he was not playing that bad. If his motivation was "playing OK" or "looking motivated", maybe he needed words of encouragement as "you have faith" or simply nothing at all. I think you need to start keeping track of how motivation and rating combine and how they decide each player's reaction to a team talk.

I didn't know that
Thanks

[Daley]

He was not playing that badly though. 6.4 is not badly, it's just below average (average being 6.8). Another player might have taken your talk better, sure. It's not a lottery though, you just need to keep track of how each player reacts under different circumstances. Anyway, don't do this to Tevez again, try a different approach next time you are winnning with him not playing especially well.

His rating was 6.2 and I have to disagree with you there (I know it's only my opinion) but anything below 6.8 is not good and anything that goes below 6.4 is bad and deserves to be subbed. That's the stupid thing because although I have only been Man Utd manager for 5 months on this save, I know that I will have told Tevez I was disappointed by his performance at half-time at some point previously. I certainly will have in previous saves (although I will conceed that they would have been played on a different patch!) and he's never reacted like that.