teams "tapping up" players

[puffascruffowitz]

What's the longest one of your players has wanted to leave for a specific club? After a rejected contract or bid for him or whatever set him off. 

My favorite player has gone a year like this. Now the interested club only has minor interest, but he has 1 yr left on his contract. I imagine they'll keep the interest until they can sign him on a pre contract?

Anyone ever salvage a situation like this? I guess the other team would have to sign an alternative. Any chance their interest could go away even though his contract's almost up? 

I've actually always liked this mechanic for the realism, but frustrating since when I try to do the same, the player only stays unhappy for a few months. 

[Prepper_Jack]

Yeah, managed to salvage something like that recently, in fact. Took over a club, and already interest in this guy, my star center. They made an offer on last day of transfer window, and I just told the guy.. sorry, just don't want to let you go. He says he's going to run down his contract, and I just say I'm totally fine with that. He leaves meeting happy. We go on a string of wins, and it looks like we're going to get promoted. He and I have also gained a "very close" relationship. I offer him a new 2 year contract, and he just asks me to promise promotion by next year. No problem. Next year, after winning promotion, they get interested again. Same thing, last day of transfer window, they make an offer. This time I ask captain to resolve issue, and it works. We go on to win promotion again.. and we're in same league as team that's kept bothering him. They make an offer and he just didn't care.

His personality was "fairly loyal", which helped matters. Perhaps fostering loyalty in your player through mentoring might alleviate some issues. Reducing ambition can have similar effects, though that does have some negatives attached of course. Pushing loyalty focused team talks might help matters to some extent... asking them to do things for the fans. At least if you're at home. Perhaps pick the most loyalty based responses in press conferences, if you can intuit what those are.