Players unhappy with playing time

I am 11 games into the first season and I have had 6 players all come to me to demand more playing time. For two of them I understand since they are on first team squad status and I'm not starting them, don't fit my tactics, but the other four are all on rotation status and have played about 4-7 of the games, some as starters. Is this a known issue, or are my players all just full of themselves? Also, any tips to keep them happy?

The feature could do with tweaking but that also applies to how people approach squad management, you may have the player set to a rotation status but this will mean nothing if they believe they have the ability to be a first team regular, paying attention to change squad status advice of your backroom team is more important than it used to be as it now gives you a hint that you might be undervaluing a player.

In addition I believe the system only recognises starts, sub appearances/actual playing time are less or totally important, the competitions started in also matter as some player might not be happy to only start domestic cup games

I think rotation players in particular are a problem that need tweaking. I get almost no playing time complaints from any other squad status but the complaints from rotation players are constant. Im considering switching all rotation players to backup status as an attempted workaround.

Changing squad status will have no impact unless the player agrees to it as part of a new contract & even then they could eventually decide they still deserve more playing time.

I can understand that but this was a new game and I had been manager for 2 months.

Give them a game - if they are anything like my bunch of numpties, he will pull his hamstring within the first 15 minutes and be out for a few months anyway lol

Changing squad status will have no impact unless the player agrees to it as part of a new contract & even then they could eventually decide they still deserve more playing time.

Then whats the point of being able to change squad statuses intraseason?

Main benefit is so you know your team structure & can plan ahead for your transfers in & out, you can also chat with older players about a drop in squad status & I've had some success with that in the past.

The funny thing is that i get questions from the press about why ive used more players this season than any other team in the league. So im the biggest rotator in the league and my rotation players still hate me.

If you're really bothered by it you can go into editor and increase your discipline rating. A high rating will prevent many players from coming crying to you. I did it just as an experiment to see if it cut down those requests and it did. Not only that, but when they do still come asking for playing time, 90% of the time the "XXX player is in the form of his life right now, you'll have to wait your turn" works. Not sure if there's a threshold for how well the "in form" player needs to be playing for that response to work.

The funny thing is that i get questions from the press about why ive used more players this season than any other team in the league. So im the biggest rotator in the league and my rotation players still hate me.

But you may well be giving the rotation players less time than they deserve (or think they deserve) so that needs some thinking over. Giving everyone 2 games out of 10 won't make the Rotation guys happy, for instance. They will expect a bit more than that.

The funny thing is that i get questions from the press about why ive used more players this season than any other team in the league. So im the biggest rotator in the league and my rotation players still hate me.

How many players do you have in your senior squad?

When you view the squad depth>overview screen what are the start ratings of the 1st 2nd & 3rd rated players in the positions that you use?

Also you might notice that due to the AI managers not rotating to make full use of their squad they do tend to have more than their fair share of unhappy players.

I think I have a pretty normal squad size. Right now I have 3 unhappy rotation players due to playing time complaints. Their playing time figures across a full season:

11 starts, 8 subs

12 starts, 2 subs

10 starts, 11 subs

Now personally, that's pretty much in line with what I consider a rotation player to be. They're not a first teamer and as such should be playing in a minority of matches, barring major injury problems. But it seems like in FM, they expect to be starting around 50% of the total matches. Does anyone actually play their rotation players that much?

I think you're confusing Rotation with Backup. Backups are backup to the first team, so can't expect to play many. Rotation players expect to be part of the rotation system, so will need to be rotated in often.

The funny thing is that i get questions from the press about why ive used more players this season than any other team in the league. So im the biggest rotator in the league and my rotation players still hate me.

That's actually more likely a sign that your squad is too big. It doesn't mean you've given the most playing time to those outside the firxt XI, just that you've had more players come in for at least one game. If you have a lot of rotation players playing 20% of the games each, none of them are going to be happy.

(There's also the fact that the AI does not rotate enough and indeed does end up annoying its own players, as well as stunting youth development and ruining the fitness of older players who seem to play 90 minutes of every match).

A question...

What actually constitutes "playing them"?

Is a 5 minute cameo enough or do they have to be there for the full match for it to register with them that they've played the match?

These things need to be explained better

Currently it's starting matches, sub appearances only count when that is part of a promise to the player.

The conversations do mention starting games specifically.

I think you're confusing Rotation with Backup. Backups are backup to the first team, so can't expect to play many. Rotation players expect to be part of the rotation system, so will need to be rotated in often.

Entirely possible, but if so i think the database is set up in such a way (in terms of distribution of squad statuses) where keeping all players happy is unfeasible. For instance, i had a first team LB and a rotation LB when i started. Who is the rotation LB rotating with? When the first team LB is healthy and hasnt played in the last few days hes obviously getting the start. So how is the rotation LB supposed to get more than 10-15 starts in a season?

I think you're confusing Rotation with Backup. Backups are backup to the first team, so can't expect to play many. Rotation players expect to be part of the rotation system, so will need to be rotated in often.

That's part of the problem rotation players seem to want way more playing time then they would get in the real world. I see Key Players as players who will play every game and only not start due to injury and sometimes resting them, while First Team are players who will get the majority of minutes. Rotation Players to me, are those who will only get minutes as subs and starts when the other players aren't able to, injuries, suspensions or resting, and then Backups are those who are lucky to get minutes, mainly only used due to injures or similar things.

Overall, my complaint was I started a new game and 10 games into it and I had 4 rotation players all get upset that they only got 4 starts and came in the rest off the bench for the other games.

That's part of the problem rotation players seem to want way more playing time then they would get in the real world. I see Key Players as players who will play every game and only not start due to injury and sometimes resting them, while First Team are players who will get the majority of minutes. Rotation Players to me, are those who will only get minutes as subs and starts when the other players aren't able to, injuries, suspensions or resting, and then Backups are those who are lucky to get minutes, mainly only used due to injures or similar things.

Overall, my complaint was I started a new game and 10 games into it and I had 4 rotation players all get upset that they only got 4 starts and came in the rest off the bench for the other games.

Then it's a case of you not understanding what a Rotation role is. In a squad rotation system, the first 11 is regularly rotated, hence the name. So all/most players start around every 2nd game, basically.

The Backup status says "backup to the first team", so that squad status cannot expect many starts as there is a regular first team that gets picked over him.

As for your complaint, that's far too little info. As Barside said further up, it depends on the player's quality compared to the actual starter. He may be more likely to ask for more time if their abilities are quite close, so he will feel he can prove himself to be a better choice. It could also be that (for instance) you had them start the first 4 games and then they didn't play the next 6. And as always, the fact that the player wants to have the conversation isn't an issue. It's more about whether he has a case and if he doesn't, whether he then backs down.

Then it's a case of you not understanding what a Rotation role is. In a squad rotation system, the first 11 is regularly rotated, hence the name. So all/most players start around every 2nd game, basically.

The Backup status says "backup to the first team", so that squad status cannot expect many starts as there is a regular first team that gets picked over him.

As for your complaint, that's far too little info. As Barside said further up, it depends on the player's quality compared to the actual starter. He may be more likely to ask for more time if their abilities are quite close, so he will feel he can prove himself to be a better choice. It could also be that (for instance) you had them start the first 4 games and then they didn't play the next 6. And as always, the fact that the player wants to have the conversation isn't an issue. It's more about whether he has a case and if he doesn't, whether he then backs down.

I understand what the Rotation role is, I just think its stupid because it doesn't mirror a real life role. Now for the players two of them were Vasquez and Jese being upset that they were being behind Ronaldo and Bale in playing time. Now do you honestly think that its realistic that they would complain, and not back down, over not getting enough minutes ahead of Ronaldo and Bale?

I understand what the Rotation role is, I just think its stupid because it doesn't mirror a real life role.

Of course it mirrors real life. If you're the type of manager who doesn't rotate much (so doesn't have a squad rotation system), then you'll have problems with players on the outside with this squad status.

I understand what the Rotation role is, I just think its stupid because it doesn't mirror a real life role. Now for the players two of them were Vasquez and Jese being upset that they were being behind Ronaldo and Bale in playing time. Now do you honestly think that its realistic that they would complain, and not back down, over not getting enough minutes ahead of Ronaldo and Bale?

If Vasquez & Jese can be effective in other positions & I am willing to use them on those positions then they're rotation as I'll find it easier to slot them into my starting eleven.

Squad status isn't just about how good a player is in general, I base it on how likely I am to use them & if a player asks for a higher status than I have in my mind they are not signed or if already at the club they are sold. This can be a challenge in the first season or two at a club as it takes time to rebalance the player hierarchy at a club.

Whether that's how it should be is another question & one that I raise through bug reports & conversations with SI but having experienced the current approach for two versions I have had to slightly adjust my approach to squad building to make managing player personalities a lot easier. As I've said in another GD thread if a new ME closes an exploit that I was intentionally or unintentionally taking advantage of or introduces a bug that results in a realistic instruction being too risky (e.g. goal kicks on FM11) then I adapt my tactics, the exact same principle applies here. Use the same squad building style from FM14 & earlier with the consequences that entails or change your approach to the demands of the system introduced on FM15.

Personally I chose to adapt & then just like an ME bug persist in raising any inconsistent personality behaviours with SI, logging as many weird (real world context) behaviours as possible is the best way to get issues addressed, the more bugs that are logged them more time that the coders will be given to address them.