Star players with poor ratings - should I be concerned?

[TheWhiteMamba69]

I'm halfway through the first season in my Hertha BSC save and while I'm doing pretty well overall (3rd in the league), some of my star players (especially new signings) have pretty poor average ratings.

This is my tactic (it's pretty much the default gegenpress one, except I replaced the AM with a DM):

(FYI - the match load is usually low or medium - it's heavy now because I've had a very tight schedule in the past couple of weeks.)

 

In the summer window I signed Manuel Locatelli (£25m + optionals) to play as my Deep Lying Playmaker and Bryan Cristante (£11.25m + optionals) to be my Ball Playing Defender. Sadly, both have underperformed in different positions and I have no idea why. I'm attaching their details below:

 

Locatelli:

Attributes

Form

Cristante:

Attributes

Form

 

As you can see, I've played (and trained - so they are competent. Their training rating is also usually high - at least 7.5, sometimes even close to 9) both in different positions but no matter where I play them, they mostly get mid-6 ratings. Their pass completion % is pretty high but they just don't get goals or assists. I would ideally like to play Cristante as a centre back and Locatelli as a DM so that I can also play Guendouzi (who by the way has also played poorly as a Mezzala - 6.76 rating in the league).

 

I feel like this isn't necessarily the players' fault but maybe the fact that they are for some reason not correctly utilised on my team? Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve their performances? I don't mind switching the formation to something drastically different if that would benefit my team.

 

Thanks in advance.

[glengarry224]

Some guesstimates based upon skimming your tactic and the 2 players:

• Locatelli does not have enough 'key passes' for his ability = maybe his teammates are not good otb runners?
• Locatelli should be fine as BBM but his speed/agility are mediocre for Bundesliga, plus he has the trait 'comes deep to get ball' - agree that he is better as DLP
• both players have the trait 'dictates tempo' which could conflict with 'higher tempo' TI
• 'higher tempo' might be your problem because players will act more urgently and they just might not have anyplace to pass the ball
• Locatelli has the trait 'tries killer balls' and combined with 'higher tempo' requires that he must make difficult passes to players who might not be in space; also don't know the quality of your forwards/wingers
• Christante is very slow, with very poor aggression = bad for counter-press; yes, he'd be a much better CB but beware playing a high DL (though his anticipation is good, but his positioning is mediocre)
• sometimes BBM and IF(a) attack the same space OTB, sometimes not

Maybe try lowering the tempo one notch.  If teams are packing the middle/box, maybe play wider, maybe play your LOE and DL one lower.  

[TheWhiteMamba69]

12 hours ago, glengarry224 said:

Some guesstimates based upon skimming your tactic and the 2 players:

• Locatelli does not have enough 'key passes' for his ability = maybe his teammates are not good otb runners?
• Locatelli should be fine as BBM but his speed/agility are mediocre for Bundesliga, plus he has the trait 'comes deep to get ball' - agree that he is better as DLP
• both players have the trait 'dictates tempo' which could conflict with 'higher tempo' TI
• 'higher tempo' might be your problem because players will act more urgently and they just might not have anyplace to pass the ball
• Locatelli has the trait 'tries killer balls' and combined with 'higher tempo' requires that he must make difficult passes to players who might not be in space; also don't know the quality of your forwards/wingers
• Christante is very slow, with very poor aggression = bad for counter-press; yes, he'd be a much better CB but beware playing a high DL (though his anticipation is good, but his positioning is mediocre)
• sometimes BBM and IF(a) attack the same space OTB, sometimes not

Maybe try lowering the tempo one notch.  If teams are packing the middle/box, maybe play wider, maybe play your LOE and DL one lower.  

 Thanks a lot, this is very helpful.

 

Later I changed my tactic a bit to this:

 

I think this formation suits my squad a bit better.

 

Like you said, I'll move Locatelli to DLP and lower the tempo a bit more. Should I have higher passing directness or keep it on standard?

[Mike J]

I think the most important question is are they playing how you want them to? If they're contributing effectively I wouldn't worry too much about the in-game rating as long as it's not really bad. From what I can see their average ratings are actually pretty decent. They're not going to win player of the season but they're consistent enough and don't seem to have too many terrible games. I found a similar "problem" in my Barca save where de Jong would often have lower ratings than those around him. When I looked into it properly it appeared the problem was he was often the one initiating attacks but rarely the one providing the assist or scoring the goal. I don't know how the game tracks key passes but many of his passes weren't counted as key passes either, which probably affected his rating.

In the end I stopped worrying about it. He was consistently performing well, making good decisions and rarely had a bad game. Yes, he maybe didn't get the rating I thought he deserved in many matches but as long as I'm happy with his performance it's not a problem worth worrying about.