Players upset for another nonsensical reason

Trying to reason with them... hopeless.

How is everyone this upset that I only have 4 players capable of playing the one CDM role in my preferred formation...

Hello, we've had a look at your save.

You are playing with a DM, so the players are worried about the fact there's only 1 'natural' DM in the squad (Eriksson), who is also one of the worst players in the squad, is a problem. Of the other players that can play in that position
Strandvall - he has 3 other roles he's better at, DM is one of the weaker positions and he's also very low ability wise
Pitkanen - A CB who can fill the DM role, but not a natural
Lewis - on trial, doesn't factor in until he signs (not natural DM though, he's a winger/WB)
Jaume - a CB who can play the DM role

So of the 5 players that could play DM, 2 are not very good (including the only 'natural') player and the other 2 are CBs who can do a job there but aren't proper DMs.

The 2 players that are in the meeting that can play the role but want more depth are Eriksson (knows he's not a starter) and Jaume (who's a CB naturally) so that doesn't feel like an issue

There's 1 natural player, if you have 1 formation with a DM and only 1 player (who's a fringe player) that can play it naturally that's going to cause an issue. Even if you count Jaume in that position, there's still more depth needed as Eriksson is not good enough

Regarding the specific interaction I'd need to know the flow user went through and issue so we can have a look at reactions and conversation comments/reactions.

9 hours ago, Zachary Whyte said:

Hello, we've had a look at your save.

You are playing with a DM, so the players are worried about the fact there's only 1 'natural' DM in the squad (Eriksson), who is also one of the worst players in the squad, is a problem. Of the other players that can play in that position
Strandvall - he has 3 other roles he's better at, DM is one of the weaker positions and he's also very low ability wise
Pitkanen - A CB who can fill the DM role, but not a natural
Lewis - on trial, doesn't factor in until he signs (not natural DM though, he's a winger/WB)
Jaume - a CB who can play the DM role

So of the 5 players that could play DM, 2 are not very good (including the only 'natural') player and the other 2 are CBs who can do a job there but aren't proper DMs.

The 2 players that are in the meeting that can play the role but want more depth are Eriksson (knows he's not a starter) and Jaume (who's a CB naturally) so that doesn't feel like an issue

There's 1 natural player, if you have 1 formation with a DM and only 1 player (who's a fringe player) that can play it naturally that's going to cause an issue. Even if you count Jaume in that position, there's still more depth needed as Eriksson is not good enough

Regarding the specific interaction I'd need to know the flow user went through and issue so we can have a look at reactions and conversation comments/reactions.

I appreciate the in-depth explanation, but that all sounds like a very labored, overly-complex justification for a feature that clearly just isn't working realistically, whether it was intended to be this way or not. The dressing room of a team should not be in full revolt, near mutiny, because of minor details surrounding the 5 players available to play one position in a formation that can be changed.

It simply doesn't make sense.

And in actuality, the following season saw us smash the league with Jaume's heroics at CDM earning him the midfielder of the year award and a massive transfer away, with Eriksson as backup, fulfiling the requirement of a Finnish trained player in the squad, which is important context that's been overlooked.

At the very least, if this is how it's going to be, there should be better responses available to me so that I can explain what I was planning to do (ie "I'll be using/retraining x player to play y position"), and ultimately did do with perfect success - at present you basically have to pointlessly argue with them or agree to make a signing you don't need.

And that doesn't even touch on the adjacent issue that FM's struggled with, where a player can be natural at CM or CDM but completely red in the other position a few yards up/down the pitch, which has never made any sense either - a ball-winning midfielder is a ball-winning midfielder, no matter how high or deep that line is on the pitch.