Sometimes, criticising your players really does work....

So I'm managing Atletico Madrid and after a bit of a bumpy spell we come up against our fiercest rivals Real Madrid.

My team play utterly shocking and are lucky to only lose 3-0.

I decide that the form of some of my key players simply isn't good enough;

Maxi Rodriguez, Kun Aguero and Luis Garcia all have form like:

6-6-5, 7-6-6 and 6-7-5 respectively.

So I decide to release media comments about each of them that they have been below-par.

To my delight each of them return with the PR:

"Feel his manager's (me) recent criticism is justified and hopes to play much better in future..."

And it worked like a charm... (hope this link works just as well )

Each player mentioned above put in a Man-of-the-match performance at least once each in the following handful of games and never dropped below 8 in the rest.

Although I'm sure most of you will know all about man-management and I'm not trying to be condescending here, I just though I'd show a good example of the results of good man-management. I think it's easily one of the most important parts of FM, and attention to these little details can make all the difference.

Amen. For all the effort people put into tactics, I think man-management is the single most overlooked aspect of the game.

I had a game with Newcastle where Michael Owen had fallen out of form, and I did the same thing as you with the below-par comment and boom! He started dominating. Couldn't agree with you more about man-management

Glad you were able to get your guys performing better

it's all to do with morale. But i agree with a poor performance where morale drops to poor or very poor for a player, it can't really go any much lower to actually backfire. So in that sense, apart from the fact that using it too often can lose it's effect, there really isn't much to lose in this situation.

When I try that, I am usually rewarded with even worse performances. Generally I try to defend my players to the media and hope that I'm tearing strips off them at training.

i couldnt agree more with this, with some players it works brilliantly. have used it a few times at Liverpool with Gerrard and Torres, and always results in them picking their form up immediately. they've never complained about me having a go.

it seems to work the same when the media are praising them as well. unless they really have been playing out of their skin and getting 8 or above in their last 5 or 6 games, i always say i think theres more to come from them and i will look to get that out of them. almost always results in their "pr" saying "agrees with his manager he can raise his game even further"

We've continued in that rich vein of form, winning all our next 6 or 7 games with scores like 3-0, 4-0, 5-0.

The morale of the entire team is "Superb" and the players I criticised have been playing out of their skins. Magic.

I've noticed a difference in team talks as well, the odd "have faith" here and there does the business for a depressed star.

I've noticed a difference in team talks as well, the odd "have faith" here and there does the business for a depressed star.

Normally if we're winning at half time but one or two of my players' rating is 6 I will use "Have faith" for them (regardless of their reputation), which usually results in a "morale boost, happy" response.

I've named this save "Testing Madrid" because, although I'm taking the game as seriously as ever, I'm also using it to test media and player interaction - I'm doing and saying things I wouldn't normally do just to see what happens.

It's amazing the difference a simple, well-timed comment can make to your team.

It does sometimes work but you need to be very settled in your role for the players to even listen to you. If their belief is that their great then they'll usually do the opposite and sulk!

I've had very mixed results with all the media criticising and praising mullarky. Sometimes I criticise a player and he agrees it is justified and bumps up to Superb morale, other times he thinks it isn't justified and has Very Poor morale, but even in the former case I often find it makes no difference on the pitch.

When I have a player with poor morale in the team (I end up dropping such players often since morale is pretty poorly implemented in the game and has too big an effect and doesn't change sensibly enough) I will often give a "Have faith" peronal team talk before the match...most of the time it makes no difference and he still plays appallingly

I guess my situation was quite similar to real life though - Diego is my playmaker at Werder Bremen and when he ticks Bremen tick and when Bremen tick he ticks (probably a bit of cause and of effect in both directions) - when he doesn't tick though the whole team often fails to perform to a standard too. From what I've read of Bremen in real life some of their players have said they rely too much on Diego so that when he doesn't perform the team doesn't either.

I've had mixed results with my man management of him though - occasionally it worked spectacularly, other times it didn't work at all - I'm not all that convinced it isn't just very random how a player reacts.