Lesser player's playing better than 'stars'

Has anyone else had this? And do they find it quite satisfying?

I do personally. Say your star striker gets injured and your forced to play your back up who may be of less quality and have lower attributes. That back-up striker then peforms really well, scoring goals like they are going out of fashion. What do you do whe you star striker is fit again? Do you play players based on form or do you put the star man back in as you know he will perform.

In my save I have a couple of 'lesser' players that are keeping some of my stars out of the team purely through getting a chance and taking it. I can't really drop players who are getting 8+ ratings every match or scoring goals. What do you do?

Has anyone else had this? And do they find it quite satisfying?

I do personally. Say your star striker gets injured and your forced to play your back up who may be of less quality and have lower attributes. That back-up striker then peforms really well, scoring goals like they are going out of fashion. What do you do whe you star striker is fit again? Do you play players based on form or do you put the star man back in as you know he will perform.

In my save I have a couple of 'lesser' players that are keeping some of my stars out of the team purely through getting a chance and taking it. I can't really drop players who are getting 8+ ratings every match or scoring goals. What do you do?

Leave them in the team if they are doing the job.

I have a 2* striker who was supersub last season, he scored more goals per minute on the pitch than anyone else in the league

I also have a DL & an AML that my coaches don't rate but they just happen to have a good spread of attributes for their positions. The DL had the highest average rating of anyone in the team last season - not bad for 1.5*

Its all about how they fit into your system and tactics... an average player can thrive if placed in the right settings.

I have a regen full back who's only rated at two and a half stars in my squad. My assistant insists that he's the weak link, but he's the best performing player on my team. Great in the air, so he cuts out most long balls into the channels, and with 18 for both crossing and corners he's absolutely lethal going forward.

Guy Molina... I love you.

Edgar Castillo is a 2* Left Winger/ Left Wing Back, Left Defender who actually does as well as Maxwell and Eric Abidal.

I got a 4.5 regen, he always gets a 5 in big games.

The stars can be wrong as well, coaches aren't perfect. If they perform well, they're a good player.

I find it rather more than satisfying, especially if they're young players being blooded. It serves as a justification of both that and my form-based selection system over one where only those judged to be the best players (and even then only on a few key stats for which a very high standard is expected to be judged a good player) play come what may, employed by a friend who admitedly only plays rarely and always added into my game. Often I forget that he should sink or swim on his own decisions and try and point out how mistaken this is, thankfully he doesn't listen.

I had that problem. On my Liverpool save in 2022, I had two world class strikers. One ended up with over a goal a game in all comps, 38 in the league. The other was a quality player, and broke into the England squad(he was 20), and was a regular. He then got injured. I then had to play my younger(19) backup, who admittedly, would be 1st choice in for more than half the league, who'd I'd actually been training to play on the wing where I was weak, as an inside forward. Pushed him up, and he did such a good job, that when there were 3 games left of the season, 2 league 1 cup, I had to decide whether I keep the player in great form on(who was on the fringes of the England squad by now), and help him seal a World cup place, or do I play the original choice, and give him some games to prove his fitness for the national team. I eventually went with the original, but it didn't matter as he got another injury early in the opening minutes of the game. So the lesser player got the nod, and got the world cup place, and was first choice striker in the World Cup winning England team.

Which now that Stuart Pearce has vacated the post, is mine, so I can pick them both!

In my Liverpool save I had a mad injury crisis and ended up with just a regen striker fit&available. He was 16 &apparently 'would be decent for most league one sides' but I threw him in the team and in the 5 matches he had to play, he scored 6 goals

Sometimes, youth just surprise you Kept him in my first team squad as my 4th choice striker now and regularly use him when resting players. He's now 'a good player for most Prem sides' (one year on) and his potential ability rating has gone from 2* to 3*

In my Liverpool save I had a mad injury crisis and ended up with just a regen striker fit&available. He was 16 &apparently 'would be decent for most league one sides' but I threw him in the team and in the 5 matches he had to play, he scored 6 goals

Sometimes, youth just surprise you Kept him in my first team squad as my 4th choice striker now and regularly use him when resting players. He's now 'a good player for most Prem sides' (one year on) and his potential ability rating has gone from 2* to 3*

I had this with a regen left back in a champions league knockout game against Juventus. Both my forst choice and back up left back were injured so I had no choice other than to throw an 18 year old Jason Coulson in the starting line up. Despite his atributes not being great he managed a 9.5 and MOM on his debut.

It's probably because so few attributes per position actually seem to count for anything.

On a less negative/cynical note....I suppose you should slowly return players to first team duties so bench em until super youngster tires/has an off day.

Lee Cattermole.

Has very average physical and technical attributes but plays out of his skin on so many occasions.

He has 20/20 for work rate and teamwork if my memory is correct and because of this he never stops working and always puts in better performances than you would expect from somebody of his ability.

This is an issue I really have trouble with.

I cannot get myself to keep my stars on the bench, no matter how well the replacement performs. Sometimes I even bench guys who had an 8.x rating in the last match. I just know that the stars are better and thus there should be a higher probability for them to play well, but at the same time I know that irl no player who excelled that much would be rotated out of the team. So sometimes I wait a game or two, hoping that the replacement will only have a 6.x rating and thereby justify what I intend to do anyway, but in essence the replacement doesn't really stand a chance of keeping the star out if the difference between them is of any significance.

Say your star striker gets injured and your forced to play your back up who may be of less quality and have lower attributes. That back-up striker then peforms really well, scoring goals like they are going out of fashion. What do you do whe you star striker is fit again? Do you play players based on form or do you put the star man back in as you know he will perform.

In my save I have a couple of 'lesser' players that are keeping some of my stars out of the team purely through getting a chance and taking it. I can't really drop players who are getting 8+ ratings every match or scoring goals. What do you do?

I'd go with stars as a rumor, and choose personaly who I like more, though the atributes. Even so I found that most of the times stars are accurate.

But there are exceptions. Many exceptions. Primary reason is motivation, gelling, adapting to role, formation, tactics and strategy.

I'd always let my better performing player be the first choice. But time will come when he underachieves a couple of games. Than it is the time to let your old star shine again. And usually the star comes back better and more motivated than ever.

What I hate is my AssMan telling me in team report my left full-back is the weakest link while he has 7.45 season average (best of all teams and players in the season), and I can let my right full-back play on the left side (equally adept) and have a fairly good right-back in place, but the AssMan does not realize that option, even tho if you ask him to select the team he will see it. Also the left-back really starts under achieving cuz he seas the equally-adept-on-both-sides full-back as no threat for his position :/.

Yeah i think,its sucks. SI should add more job for Scouting and Players Rate system. How player with higher attributes can have lesser stars? How player with lower stars and lower attributes score more?Play better?

I like that your scouting can be a little "off". My main striker just went down for a couple of weeks and the guy that I have been using as the backup (a Frenchman with 1.5 stars, but stats that merit a little better grade) has now been thrust into a starting role. His finishing is 7 but he has great pace, and some good mental stats. He has created some more space for me up front and just rewarded me with a hat trick in a vital 4-1 victory as my Portimonense side strive for the Liga Vitalis title. And he has improved to 2 stars in the meantime.

I think it's great when this happens. Sometimes it can be as simple as determination or workrate or even anticipation. I remember in one save on Fm09 a striker called Rosenberg was keeping Adriano out of my Newcastle team.

And it DOES happen in real life. Look at how valuable Ji Sung Park is in certain games for Man U. Not great technically but good vision and a proper workhorse too.

I bet that with good determination and the things that Konfuchie mentioned, the younger or fringe players are able to exceed expectations and battle for a first team position. This is probably a great thing for your team, but I would imagine the high star quality players being better over the long haul and the fringe players good over shorter spells.