Players declining for no apparent reason

[Frenck]

To be honest, at this point I'm not sure whether this is a training issue or a bug. I've coached Werder Bremen several times now in the game and ever since I installed the 11.3 patch and started playing with the new database I have had issues with two of my players. Aaron Hunt and Marko Arnautovic decline seemingly inevitably over the course of the first season. They perform terribly in training and lose at least one and sometimes up to two points in just about every important attribute category.

I've tried different training schedules, pre-made schedules, my own schedules, very light schedules and the default ones all in different saves even but it's always the same story. Arnautovic starts losing his pace and his dribbling along with other technical and physical abilities a few weeks into the season every time. Hunt is very injury prone (rightfully so) but even if he miraculously stays injury free for the first half of the season he loses a point in most of his technical and physical attributes in the first week after the January transfer window closes.

Now the interesting thing is that AI managers seem to have the exact same problems with these two players. From my experience Hunt always retires early before he even turns 30 and Arnautovic is useless as a first division player in any of Europe's top leagues after one season. They are 21 and 23 years old respectively and they decline as if they were ten years older.

I'd be pretty happy if they stayed as they are, they serve their roles pretty well at the start of the game. I'm not expecting them to turn into world beaters but they can be very useful if utilized in the right fashion just like in real life. So yeah, how do I keep these guys from declining?

It doesn't seem to matter how happy or unhappy they are, how much they play or not or how much I talk to them.

Is there something I missed perhaps? Did any of you have similar experiences with other players?

[R0ca]

What is there strength, natural fitness and stamina? And how well are they actually playing if at all, personally I've found all of these factors important in player development

[Marsupian]

Also do you let them train something else like a new position or a specific attribute. It could be that by learning a new position or training something which costs a lot of CA like strength of pace some CA is taken from other attributes and if they are all just on the breakoff line between what they are now and being one lower they will all drop at the same time. That wouldn't explain the attributes declining over longer periods but it is usually the case when a young player drops suddenly attributes for no apparent reason.

Or maybe the problem is that Arnautovic is very unprofessional and thus not training hard enough.

[Frenck]

What is there strength, natural fitness and stamina? And how well are they actually playing if at all, personally I've found all of these factors important in player development

This is how they start out:

http://i53.tinypic.com/2i7pxfl.jpg

Obviously not perfect but surely not destined to fail either.

As far as their performances are concerned. Arnautovic does unusually well on a fairly consistent basis on the right wing but he's terrible in most, if not all striker positions. Hunt does well as an inside forward in attacking midfield but he also does well up front and on the wing, he usually makes his Germany debut in the first half of the season before he starts losing technical and physical attributes.

Also do you let them train something else like a new position or a specific attribute. It could be that by learning a new position or training something which costs a lot of CA like strength of pace some CA is taken from other attributes and if they are all just on the breakoff line between what they are now and being one lower they will all drop at the same time. That wouldn't explain the attributes declining over longer periods but it is usually the case when a young player drops suddenly attributes for no apparent reason.

Or maybe the problem is that Arnautovic is very unprofessional and thus not training hard enough.

In the beginning I retrained Arnautovic into a natural right winger or at least I tried doing that and I thought that was the reason why he lost his most important attributes but I tested it again in another save where I played him in his natural position and didn't give him any position or move training. The result was the same. The first big decline across the board came after a few weeks, I told him to train harder in order to make the first team and by January he took another big hit across his physical attributes.

I also tried different training schedules without any effect. It would make sense to put him on the same winger/flair player centric schedule as Marko Marin since both of them are very similar players, that didn't help. While every other young player in the team makes progress on the same schedules these guys actually go backwards. It's like I'm playing 35 year olds.

Players drop attributes in training all the time and usually it doesn't matter all that much since most of them recover if you talk to them and tweak their training schedules, this is especially true for younger players and I count Hunt/Arnautovic as younger players. Yet in their case it only gets worse later on. It's weird, their attribute decline almost seems like it's hardcoded into the game. I occasionally have a look at their respective careers when I'm coaching other clubs and it's always the same story, always around the same time.

Both are difficult players both in the game and IRL but so far it looks like there isn't any way to get them back on track in the game, they are basically doomed from the start and that's a shame.

Arnautovic actually improved for me in pre-11.3 saves. Sometimes I got his pace up to 18 and his composure up to 11. His CA and PA are fixed and I don't think SI changed anything between patches. Poor discipline can't be the sole reason, I give them special attention because I know how difficult they are but it seems like it doesn't matter what I do.

[R0ca]

has there been any attributes gained during these period?

[jim morrow]

During their training, do you check their training arrow to look if you have some orange or red arrows on one or many particular workshop ?

How their training graph it's look like ?

[Burford]

determination 6 and 5 sell them both unless you can get arnautovic tutored.

hunt is useless very low determination and natural fitness i dont think you have no choice but to get rid of him

[Frenck]

has there been any attributes gained during these period?

In Arnautovic's case yes, when his attributes drop for the second time late in the season he sometimes gains a few points in mental attributes. Hunt just loses points and never recovers.

During their training, do you check their training arrow to look if you have some orange or red arrows on one or many particular workshop ?

How their training graph it's look like ?

I checked the training levels occasionally and they always stayed blue colored even if the training performances were pretty uneven (darker blue in some areas).

determination 6 and 5 sell them both unless you can get arnautovic tutored.

hunt is useless very low determination and natural fitness i dont think you have no choice but to get rid of him

That's what I resort to now, selling them I mean, since I can't keep them from declining massively as footballers. It's kinda sad to get rid of Hunt because he came through the youth ranks and because he can play in all attacking positions. It feels wrong to sell him even if he's always the first candidate to be subbed off when things don't go well. Arnautovic actually has potential, his mental attributes are awful but for some reason he always starts out very well with the team when played on the right wing. I don't think he'll let anyone tutor him however, the option doesn't even show up.

As I said, I don't expect them to become world beaters and I don't regard them as key players but I wonder what causes their attributes to drop so rapidly at such a young age when none of my other players are affected.

I'd be shocked if their low attributes (in some areas like natural fitness or determination) caused this, that would mean that no matter what I do, they will always be useless after a while.

I've never come across something like this in any of my saves. You can even stick Balotelli, who is a very difficult player, into your reserve side for two seasons and he'll only decline a bit if at all. Maybe this situation comes up more often in the lower leagues but I think I would've noticed that. Who knows maybe it's a bug after all or my save is corrupted (I start all my saves from the same 11.3 saved game).

[R0ca]

determination 6 and 5 sell them both unless you can get arnautovic tutored.

hunt is useless very low determination and natural fitness i dont think you have no choice but to get rid of him

This is a very good point, if there determination are so low, what are there hidden mental stats? maybe these players have no desire to improve and are happy to decline as players, i'd be interested to know bothere personality and there media handling type, as this will tell us more about there hidden attributes.

[Ville Valo]

Chances are, the attributes are redistributing themselves because of your training schedules.

[jim morrow]

Those two players have very bad note in Profressionalism also.......so a bad training schedule and you will encounter some big troubles......

[Marsupian]

When a player declines it has nothing to do with the training schedule (maybe overall workload but not the schedule itself). The training schedule only governs which attributes decline or go up. The only way attributes can decline from a training schedule is when attributes in a low workload category get lost and attributes in a high workload category are gained (sometimes the attributes go down first and the gain comes later as some attributes cost more CA than others). I think the only reason these players decline is because they are not professional enough to train well and have no determination to get better at football. No training schedule will help these players as they put no effort into training anyway and you should be glad if they show up at all. If you can't tutor them sell them immediately while they are still worth a penny.

[jim morrow]

very funny Marsupian, perhaps it's a better way for those two players to stop their career now........or finish their football career in a low division.

[Marsupian]

Until the last sentence I was very serious. If there are no other reasons to explain this decline than you can safely assume it's their personality. The chances of tutoring them is very small and if you can their personalities will probably make it fail as well. You can try to give them a high workload and keep their important attributes up for as long as possible but your fighting an uphill battle. If they don't get professional and start putting work into training to get better they won't ever improve and apparently they have even started to decline. Do you think they can play on this level much longer? If you don't try to get better you can only go down and that's the case here so yes he will in time have to step down to lower level football. Maybe if you threaten to drop him if he doesn't improve in training he will see he has to change his attitude if he want's to play on this level but if he doesn't there is no future for him on the current level he plays at. If there were other reasons for his decline than it may not be as bad but if there is no other reason he won't be playing at the top for long, despite his huge potential.

btw. I'm not saying this is the case in real life. I know Arnoutovic had professionality problems but this didn't stop him from growing in the Eredivisie. I don't know how he is currently playing and I suspect he has grown both as a player and as a person but in this version of FM (from what the OP has told us) there is no future for him.

Edit: I just checked my save which is one year in (29 june, 2011) and Arnoutovic has dropped 1 point in:

First touch, dribbling, finishing, crossing, heading, long shots, passing, technique, free kick taking, corners, penalty taking, long throws,

Anticipation, decisions, off the ball, positioning, teamwork, workrate,

Accelaration, agility, balance, pace and strength

Also 2 points in tackling and concentration and 3 points in marking

As you can see it's pretty bad, all his techniqal attributes went down, almost all mental attributes and only stamina and natural fitness stayed the same on the physical side. Also no attributes went up. If it was only due to positional training or proffered move training or similar he would have had at least some attributes recovered by now.

[furiousuk]

As someone else has already stated, players with low determination and low professionalism will NEVER amount to anything. They might see some slight increases as teenagers (unlikely though) but they'll never make top level footballers.

Balotelli in 2015 is pap, a useless waste of 100k per wk that city would love to offload but no-one is interested, I would assume this is the same for every save.

Determination and professionalism will improve with dedicated tutoring although with levels this low you would have to find an intermediate tutor with reasonable stats and then an outstanding tutor and at 21 and 23 they are probably too old even if they were willing to be tutored. I've found that even 16 year olds with stats so dreadful won't respond well to tutoring, meaning they will never be anything other than carp.

[jim morrow]

yes but here the first post talked about decline........Those such of player need a micro-management on training, player talk, good squad status, good rotation, team moral, team blending, respect of his QPN etc......

he will never increase to a top player, but you can avoid some decline if you manage him very well and with accurate according to his deter and pro attributes. If you don't want to spend time, yes so best solution it's to transfer him and buy a better guy.