Help! Praising my players always makes things worse... how to do this successfully?

[illionore]

As you can probably see from my number of posts: I'm new to FM and bought FM24. Watched a lot of videos and starting to get the hang of most things in the game - but here's one thing that I am really struggling with:

 

I'm trying to bend my head around how to praise my players, because somehow I don't seem to have the needed insight/information about the player and just say the wrong things. Here's a player I'm now looking at; Roy:

1. I check his morale: Happiness: His morale is at 'Fair'. He just got injured, so I think I may want to talk with him.

2. I open his character page and go to 'Discuss'. My Assistant Manager says: "I recommend talking to Roy to praise his performance in the last match."

3. Okay... how do I see how he played in his last match? I see his ability score is on the rise... His form was 7.1 in the former last match, but only 6.0 in the last match, so that doesn't really give me the idea he played well? From the 'Squad' view, I can see he made an assist and a goal, but I don't know in which game. His AV RAT is at 7.27, but 'last 5 games' is at 7.00... I'm not sure what that all tells me... he's not doing as well as earlier? Why am I praising him for the last match? -- carrying on...

4. Discuss -> Praise Last Game... Now I get 4 options to choose from:
"You were superb with the number and quality of chances created in the last match, keep it up"
"I thought your quality and choice of pass last time out was sensational; keep up the good work!"
"Your tackling was spot on in the last match, keep it up!"
"I really enjoyed your more direct approach in our last match, that's what we're looking for"
err... saywhatnow? I don't know if his PASSING was good, or if he did any TACKLING -- where do you see this kind of information? I wasn't expecting to have to know this level of depth of how well my player possibly played... not to mention, I don't know where to see stats like that...

5. I decide to go for option 1; "You were superb with the number and quality of chances..."

6. The player's mood goes DOWN and changes to "Defensive" stance: "I have to admit that I'm a little surprised by your praise as I think I've played better than that."

7. Now I can 'Back down', 'convince' or 'suggest'. Backing down tells something about "I'll have to think twice before offering you praise in the future", which doesn't strike me as a good thing to say... so I go for 'Convince': "The last performande did impress me, but if you think you can do even better, then I can't wait to see it."

8. He's not happy about the answer and his stance goes to 'Negative', morale drops. It went from "Fair" to "Slightly Poor"

 

What am I doing wrong? Was my initial feeling (in point 3) right, that he wasn't actually doing well in the last match and my assistant manager's suggestion was just wrong? Or should I have had (from somewhere) detailed information on how well his passing, tackling, etc. went in the previous game?

Edited March 6 by illionore

[bosque]

Think of the players as little pets. Only praise them right after they've done something well or warn them right after they've done something wrong.

I only praise a player's performance in the last game when they've assisted, scored, or had a rating of 7.5 or higher. If they've scored, you praise them using that option; if they've assisted, you do the same. If they've had a rating of 7.5 or higher and you don't know why, check their player form for the last game. Maybe they made a good number of key passes, so you praise their directness, or they completed a good number of passes, so you praise their good choice of passing.

I only warn players with a rating of 6.4 or lower, checking their form stats or what I saw during the match.

Every Friday, you receive a training report. I praise every player with a rating of 7.75 or higher for the work they've put in during the week, and I warn players with a rating lower than 6.4 to criticize their effort.

Edited March 6 by bosque

[Hovis Dexter]

I always ignore any advice to praise players and virtually any other advice I receive from the Ass Man. IMO it’s important to be fairly sparing in the number of times you praise any one player.

I praise players:

o at the end of a match if they’ve a rating of >= 8.0;

o the goalkeeper at the end of the match if he’s kept a clean sheet and has a rating of >= 7.5. It’s hard for a goalkeeper to get a good rating so 7.5 is a normally a very good rating. I only do this on an ad hoc basis if he regularly performs well.

o after the post match press conference if they are reported as being MotM but not for more than one match in succession; 

o at the beginning of each month if they have a training rating of >= 7.75;

o if I’ve asked them to sort out another player’s complaint and they’ve been successful; and

o if they’ve successfully completed a language course

 

 

I criticise players:

o at the end of match if they have a rating of <= 6.4;

o at the beginning of each month if they have a training rating of <= 6.5

o if I notice that the board or supporters are not happy about a particular player’s form.

 

Edited March 7 by Hovis Dexter
changed training rating fro 7.5 to 7.75

[Cometdude]

I never praise or berate the players and have never suffered for it.

 

I used to and never saw a tangible positive effect from it but very often saw negatives effects.

 

Same goes for team meetings etc. 

[NineCloudNine]

Ignore your Assistant. Pretty much #1 piece of advice to give any new player! 

I let them do opposition instructions and set general training, that’s it.

I praise MotM performances. I’m not sure what difference it is supposed to make which option you choose so I praise strikers for scoring goals and midfielders for creating chances.

I do criticise after a sustained run of poor form (via right click on player name->interaction). I usually do the arm round shoulder, ‘we all believe in you’ bit. Not had a bad reaction to that yet, but a less professional or more temperamental player might do. If so, I just learned that this is a player I need to replace.

It’s easy to over-think this stuff. Simplest approach is probably to pick a character for your manager and stick to that. 

[AntSou]

There's an immediate increase in moral for praising a player when he does well. If you want to get the added moral bonuses do the following:

- Praise players who score, assist, or whose rating is higher than 7.5 (already recommended above);

- Praise players whenever they have a 8.0 or higher in training;

- Criticize players if their performance in matches or training is lower than 6.0.

With this ceiling/floor I never have any issues. Praising players who trained for 7.5, for instance, can occasionally backfire, depending on their personality. Similarly, if you criticise someone for a 6.2 or 6.3 training, for instance, it can also backfire. But I never have any issues with the 7.5/8.0/6.0 I mentioned above.

[illionore]

Thanks!  I will try these out! Hopefully I will get better results with that, and if not, I might stick with CometDude's strategy to ignore it. Of course that won't get me the moral bonuses, but at least it won't make things worse!

[turnip]

I tend to praise a player if I get a news item that he played well.

Otherwise, the top 3 players in training each week get praised (assuming they are rated more than 8.0.

And then at the end of each month, I praise everyone who's got more than 8.0 in training - senior teams and reserve/youth sides. 

 

I've never found there to be any additional benefit to praising players for other stuff. For every player who seems happy with the praise, there's a player who thinks you just insulted him, his family, his fashion sense and his favourite Pokémon. So why risk it?

[illionore]

2 hours ago, turnip said:

For every player who seems happy with the praise, there's a player who thinks you just insulted him, his family, his fashion sense and his favourite Pokémon. So why risk it?

This feels so true!  

It felt very odd to me... I say something nice and then they take it as an insult. Good to have different people's opinions and hearing their methods and experiences. (And that last sentence was just simply hilarious!)

[whatsupdoc]

If it goes wrong I find choosing the back down option neutralises the convo. 

[pelimies]

On 06/03/2024 at 09:37, illionore said:

What am I doing wrong? Was my initial feeling (in point 3) right, that he wasn't actually doing well in the last match and my assistant manager's suggestion was just wrong? Or should I have had (from somewhere) detailed information on how well his passing, tackling, etc. went in the previous game?

I check the Form-view before i praise the previous game. There you see the statlines from previous games. If he has key passes and/or assists in the last one, it's ok to praise for creating chances. If he completed +90% of his passes, it's fine to praise his passing. I've had players disagree if the passing % is lower than that.

[Brodie21]

For me this has never worked. I haven't used it for many a season. It felt strange to be on tenterhooks each time you considered praising a player.