Players in constant bad form (down arrow)

[dumps64]

I am into my 4th season with Aston Villa. I started with the default team but have built it up to something decent. Top of the table, developing players and enjoying it!

But...

I have James Milner in my squad, he played well last season and made it into the team of the season. He had quite a few offers over the summer and I refused all of them.

This season it says that he is happy at the club ("no reason to be unhappy at club") but for some reason his form is always at its worst (down arrow) whether we're playing home or away?!

The same happened with Michael Owen last season so I sold him!!

Anyone know why this is happening?!

 

[wanna_be_dj]

I usually get that if I decide to rest a player. EG, Ronaldo seems to want to play every game for me, but I rest him. Next game he doesn't like it. Might be worth putting him on as a 2nd half sub!!

 

[Ali]

If you look on your squad list (under Gameplan), there is a bar next to each players name. This bar gets smaller when you turn down offers for players. Has a result on their form too. What I normally do is when an offer comes in for a player I don't want to sell, I negotiate the offer at a really high price, so that they turn it down, not me. Tends to work.

Also, do you play him when he's on the downwards arrow? If you play him a bit more, it may improve. I remember i had something simialr in the last game. I signed Maguire on loan from Aberdeen (I think), he was very unhappy with them, and that carried over to me. So he was on a downwards arrow every game. I still signed him permanently after that and he was fine.

Also the resting players thing is a pain. Surely in real life, if a player came back from international duty and he was shattered, he would understand being rested for one game.... but no! He's unhappy because he doesn't get picked too often!

 

[PR3CiSiON]

Yeah, I do the same as Ali, always negotiate for some extravagant price so they will reject.

 

[bestpesever]

helb is all my season on purple..i build him nice played good,now zero

 

[u1tradt]

I had the same problem with Balotelli. I bought him in my first season for £2mil and he had a fine season, I got many offers for him during and leading up to August and rejected all of them. The best offer was £7.5mil on the last day of August and instead of taking that and being happy with such a profit I declined and he was on the down arrow permanently after that. I tried playing him in many games but saw no change so I sold him in to the first bidder which came in December for £4mil (7 would have been better!), but since it was in mid-season they had to pay half his wages too so in total I got over £5mil for him which wasn't too bad. Would have preferred to keep such an outstanding prospect though.