Am I rotating my players too often?

[Excorcist]

Hey guys,

I was hoping to get some ideas from other posters here about how often you are rotating your players. I rotate most of my squad in just about every game that I play with the exception of my keeper. I try and use my younger players that need experience against weaker sides (I am playing as Man Utd) and use the first team against tougher opposition. From time to time I will play some of my star players twice in a row in a short space of time but generally they will then only come on from the bench if I need something to happen.

What I have found with this approach is that my players are always fresh even towards the end of the season and I often notice that going into semi-finals and finals my squad has a much higher average condition than the opposition. This seems to be helping to win trophies (not that its all that tough with United anyway) but the downside is that my star players generally play a lot fewer games than stars from other clubs, such as Ronaldo or Messi. This in turn seems to translate into them never being in the running for any personal awards. I don't know for certain if that's why my players aren't winning awards but it does seems as though they have the stats to compete with the top players but generally only play 30 or so games, whereas Ronaldo and Messi seem to play about 50 games per season.

I think I might be putting too much emphasis on physical condition and could probably afford to allow my players some more time on the pitch which would hopefully allow them to achieve some of their own personal goals

So please let me know what your thoughts are on squad rotation, specifically from people managing at bigger clubs with large squads.

Thanks,

Nick

[RTHerringbone]

I don't think it is possible to rotate too much, and I've not had any trouble securing player awards.

I struggle to get top goalscorer purely due to the reduced number of games my forwards play, but still get plenty of awards that aren't based on racking up goals alone.

For as long as I can remember, I've rotated my whole XI from match to match - AND I bring three subs on each game who aren't part of the "other" XI, if that makes sense.

[Excorcist]

It seems that we play in pretty much the same way when it comes to rotating. I don't normally get anywhere near top goalscorer as I have 4-5 strikers who are playing in my 4-4-2 all season long though they do each manage to get around 10-15 goals. I just can't seem to even get in the running for something like World Player of the Year and the best I have managed was best player in the Champions League in a season where Rooney managed to finish as top scorer and had a bunch of assists as well.

Yeah I understand what your saying about the three subs, I have a similar system as my squad is always made up of 25 players so there are some extra players over and above the 2 starting lineups.

[RTHerringbone]

Bottom line for me is that this rotation policy keeps condition up, and it *feels* like I get relatively few injuries.

As there is no "I" in team (), I say that team success takes priority over individual prestige.

Out of interest, are there any specific awards your players aren't winning, outside of the goalscoring ones?

If you are doing well, then they will still be in the running for all of the other awards.

[Excorcist]

I agree 100% about the team taking priority over the individual which is why I have never worried about it too much. I was just taking a look through the Man UTD thread in the Good Players and Team Guide section yesterday and noticed that one of the posters who was summarizing his season to season progress was winning PFA player of the year, FWA player of the year, Young player of the year quite frequently. I noticed when looking at his screenshots that his players had generally played quite a lot of league games, RVP for example had 30 games in the league when he won PFA player of the year and most of my players don't get more than 20 games at most.

I am in the 2016/2017 season and have won the PFA player of the year award once with Rooney but that's it (other than the previously mentioned Champions League best player). I think I need to have a look at my players history though and see if they were in fact really performing as well as the players who won the awards in the previous seasons. Perhaps I assume that they are the best individuals in the league when in fact they are just working better as a team.

[benallen002]

I've long held a "full outfield rotation" policy whereby everyone is split to the "weekend" team and the "midweek" team.

You do sacfrifice individual accolades, but it does seem to pay off in the long run as I injuries are much less frequent and players are in much better shape towards the end of the season.

[Excorcist]

I had a look at my players over the past few seasons and they definitely had the stats the be in the running for domestic awards. I am going to try an experiment this season where I will play my best performing attacking midfielder in as many league games as possible to see if I can win one of the awards with him. He will have to sit out pretty much every cup game to try and keep him fit the way I would with the rest of the squad but he should get a lot more league games played this season. I am also going to try and play one of my strikers in all of my European competition games this season to see if he can get an award there. It will be interesting to see if they can remain injury free or if the increased workload will take its toll.

[baboyray]

I always fully rotate but due to other factors Messi has played every game for me this season, just sub him off when the games won. I can honestly say he's playing like Messi at his best in real life.

So if you have top players like Messi, Ronaldo etc it might be worth not rotating them unless necessary and see how you feel that plays out for you.

[Jimbokav1971]

This in turn seems to translate into them never being in the running for any personal awards.

I don't think it's down to rotation. I think that the way that the awards are decided upon is flawed.

Last season the Serie A GK of the Season award went to a Spanish Gk at Napoli. Now he is a very good GK, (used to be mine), and I have no issues with him being recognised, but it's still not correct.

Latorre (ESP) 35 appearances. 21 goals against. 18 clean sheets. 0 MOM awards. 7.02 avg rating.

Now that's decent by anyone's standards. Let's compare him to my GK though.

Lucio 38 appearances. 17 goals against. 24 clean sheets. 3 MOM awards. 7.19 avg rating.

Now even if that stats are not in my players favour, Lucio was selected in the team of the season, (Latorre wasn't), my GK scored 11 Serie A goals and created 4 assists.

Linked to that, both the centre-backs in the team of the season, (which seems to work fine), were my centre-backs, yet when it came to the award for Serie A defender of the year, 2 of the 3 winners were centre-backs and mine were nowhere to be seen.

I created a thread and raised it as a bug but no response.

[welshiespursboy]

I always like to have a squad which can make 2 teams in my favoured formation. No more, no less. And I rotate every match (except when I have tough opposition a few games in a row, in which case I use my first XI

[st.cronin]

I construct my roster to have a 2deep at each position but I don't rotate. Backups play in the reserves or when somebody's hurt or tired. I don't care about awards, but I want to win every game so I play my best players.

I do often give players a game off for cup matches.

[Torskus77]

When you are successful, if you are lucky enough to be able to afford a big squad, rotating is a must, especially towards the end of the season if you are involved in all competitions including Europe, the games seem to come around every couple of days. It's cost me a few trophies not having a big enough squad, but in the games, if I'd built a bigger squad, I wouldn't have been able to afford players of the same quality, so probably wouldn't have been in the running for all the trophies anyway.

I've noticed in this game a few times I've left out my star striker after he's bagged some goals, his morale has gone down to abysmal from Very good. I can only assume this is cos he has been left out, unless I missed some other issues. Soon goes back up though.

[HTC]

I construct my roster to have a 2deep at each position but I don't rotate. Backups play in the reserves or when somebody's hurt or tired. I don't care about awards, but I want to win every game so I play my best players.

I do often give players a game off for cup matches.

And how do you keep your backups happy and dont demanding "first team playing"? Fm is very strict to that.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

I rotate quite often. Never win awards though because my players never post the crazy ratings of Messi and co. I always see Messi averaging 8.50 and 9.10 but my lads? 7.5 seems about "normal" even if they're banging in the goals. I had Van Persie rack up 19 goals, 25 assists and he was no where near touching any award.