Sudden drop in performance

[moxphere]

I'd like to ask you about sudden drops in the performance of a team during a match. I play FM for a long time now, and could always detect the obvious reasons that have led a team to start a losing sequence: injuries, tactics broken by the artificial intelligence of the game, etc. I know most of the drills, like rotating the tactics, changing the orders for players on specific matches, improvising new things during a game according to the statistics and a few others.

However, sometimes there are drops I can't exactly figure out and I start wondering reasons "similar" to the real world. However, there are times where I don't know if these are only my imagination or they happen to other players as well. Is it possible to have sudden drops in the performance of the team due to any of the following reasons?

- important players are not "clearly" tired but have already "peaked" during that season and lost their form.

- important players not yet complaining, but not satisfied with the terms of their contracts and as a consequence, decrease their performance levels

- small squad that does not allow proper rotating.

To be clear: when I say "drop" in performance I mean something like having 2 or 3 defeats in the first 30 matches and then suddenly losing five in a row (without any particular sequence of very strong teams, for instance) without any injuries, suspensions, visible levels of insatisfaction, etc, including the rotation between tactics exactly the same way during the "victorious" period.

Let me know your views about possible causes to these slumps in performances and to know if any of you also went through situations like that.

Thanks

[Negatrev]

I find the most common occurrence is this cycle.

Good form -> Extended Good from -> complacency -> worse form -> ?????

Where this goes is mostly up to you. You'll never have a team happy all season. I had a tremendous season in the Skrill Premier where I won the league by a landslide, but I was going for an undefeated season (trying not to sound boastful here). I had one lull around Christmas where I won 1 of 7 games, but I drew the rest (at great struggle). Finally a good result (difficult, but fortunate win!) got the team back on track. The secret of a good season is getting in a good run and minimising the impact of a bad patch (which you're almost bound to have at some point). It helps having more experienced/determined/professional players of course, but it is an inevitability. When I secured the title mathematically, it was 4 games of not losing to get the extra kudos, but I could have easily lost if I'd tried to carry on playing like I had until that point.

I've probably gone a little off topic, but that's my view on the matter

[moxphere]

Well, I don't mean having bad morale, though. Usually, my teams have around 75-80% of harmony as there is always someone unhappy because plays less. Complacency could happen once, but I adopt a very harsh approach towards players when there is complacency (and it hardly backfires). Players simply start playing badly for no apparent reason. The squad in the matter is Dortmund, where most players are experienced, so I wouldn't say it can be lack of experience or mental toughness.

[ARodgers]

Could be to do with Pressure, particularly torwards the end of the season and fighting for silverware/survival if that's when your finding you have these drops in form. If so try going a little easier on the team talks to ease the pressure on the players and let their quality shine through.

[moxphere]

Just found out what was happening. This was the first time I had started a campaign with a team in Germany, where the winter break is longer than in other countries. I was making a mistake: I wasn't scheduling friendlies, so when the team came back, they were lacking match fitness. I started a new game and when the winter break came, I played a few matches to keep the rhythm and the drop hasn't happened. This was likely to be the reason.

Thanks for your inputs, anyway.