The same thing happened to me; I lost players, Evra and Foster. What is concerning to me is that there is nothing you can do when players raising discontent! Evra was complaining about not playing in the right position-what the hell? He was playing as left back his whole career. Does he want to play striker now? Goodness-Konami really knows how to mess up a game even after they got inputs from the fans! Just like you I sold Fletcher for 18 million before I could lose him too without getting any thing. The scout system is a disgrace too. My scout level is on 5 and yet he could only managed to get Torres for about 60 million(which was not my first choice, but Benzema) I am going to change my scout’s level to the lowest since he is of no use to me. I already lowered my youth team to the lowest since I don’t want Minanda and the likes in a real football team where the likes of Rooney and Giggsy are playing in. Corners are broken! Crosses are broken! Hell, not to mention free kicks but I can’t remember when free kicks ever worked well. So the free kicks I can pass. Passes going missing! After two and a half seasons I still can’t find Van Der Sar as a reborn.
I pray that day will never come when Rooney and Scholsey is going to be unhappy.
It seems there are lots of bugs in your ML.
My players never showed discontent unless they were playing out of position, I don't understand why your Evra was showing discontent hence I think it was a bug, or not being played regularly.
In the beginning, I got frustrated with the scout as well. Mine is also on level 5. For the first two seasons, I could only get Ribery for 47m. After that, I got Fabregas for 65m (initial fee 95m), Torres 55m (80m), Gourcuff 55m (80m), Villa 40m (60m), Maicon 40m (55m).
I think the passing system is alright. I took a long time to get used to it. Now I can play possession football if I wanted, though the AI defense system is really improving so sometimes it is hard.
In my data, van der Sar did reappear after he retired. Same thing with Toldo, Beckham, etc.