Player has crazy wage demands - sell him or keep him?

[danej]

The case: Managing Man Utd. Towards the end of season one, April 2023. Sancho now wants a new deal. He is already borderline overpaid, the 4th highest earner at the club at 275k p/w.

 

He now wants at least 400k. Even though he has around 4 years left on his current deal. In any case, I am not increasing his wage. I was already slightly considering to sell him because 275k for someone of his ability is stretching, not ideal use of the wage budget.

 

Anyway, I rejected his request. Now he is p*ssed. 4-5 backups support his moaning.

 

What do I do? Sell him in the summer, or keep him?

 

I would probably prefer to keep him if the unhappiness is likely to disappear eventually. If not it is probably best to sell him.

 

So in other words, how is such a situation likely to end up? Will Sancho stay disgruntled as long as he is at the club? What is the chance the he would at some point forget about his demands and be happy with his current wage?

 

I imagine that he will probably stay unhappy forever. But I don't know, I haven't been in a situation like this before, I haven't played FM for that long.

[warlock]

8 minutes ago, danej said:

What do I do? Sell him in the summer, or keep him?

Get rid. Players can get over a lot of upsets but wage demands are likely to remain an issue.

[Cloud9]

23 minutes ago, danej said:

The case: Managing Man Utd. Towards the end of season one, April 2023. Sancho now wants a new deal. He is already borderline overpaid, the 4th highest earner at the club at 275k p/w.

 

He now wants at least 400k. Even though he has around 4 years left on his current deal. In any case, I am not increasing his wage. I was already slightly considering to sell him because 275k for someone of his ability is stretching, not ideal use of the wage budget.

 

Anyway, I rejected his request. Now he is p*ssed. 4-5 backups support his moaning.

 

What do I do? Sell him in the summer, or keep him?

 

I would probably prefer to keep him if the unhappiness is likely to disappear eventually. If not it is probably best to sell him.

 

So in other words, how is such a situation likely to end up? Will Sancho stay disgruntled as long as he is at the club? What is the chance the he would at some point forget about his demands and be happy with his current wage?

 

I imagine that he will probably stay unhappy forever. But I don't know, I haven't been in a situation like this before, I haven't played FM for that long.

If you haven't broken any promises with him, give him lots of playing time and he'll drop it eventually. 

Usually it works best to say to them:

• They're a leader and drop it (if they are).
• That some other squad player came to you with the same request and dropped it (if they aren't). 

You only really need to be concerned with a disgruntled player if they're high up the squad hierarchy. 

 

Since he's young and developing, I would give him time to see if he improves before making a decision/cashing in. If he doesn't, move him on. You can also fix his happiness by giving him a new contract, so if he drops his wage demands at any point that's a surefire fix. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Cloud9

[danej]

19 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Usually it works best to say to them:

• They're a leader and drop it (if they are).
• That some other squad player came to you with the same request and dropped it (if they aren't). 

None of these are an option unfortunately. He isn't a leader. And noone else has come to me yet with a wage demand, so I couldn't pick that option. When that option is available I usually pick that one yes, it often shuts them up.

[danej]

The latest twist to the drama

[Gangor]

Tell him there's plenty of time left on his contract. Get insistent. If he gets angry then reduce his playing time expectation - that should eventually reduce his wage demands, even if he complains about it in the short term.

[Andy1979]

Offer him a bit of a wag  increase and a very cheap relegation release clause. You will never go down so Don't matter an  it seam  to work sometime.

[Left right out]

Hopefully he'll get over the upset in time. Wage demands seem to be a bit seasonal too. I've had players demanding large wages one month and then a month or two later its dropped significantly for no discernable reason, but probably due to some misfiring game engine formula, like not picking up that off-season doesn't mean their form is down or somesuch.

[danej]

15 hours ago, Gangor said:

Tell him there's plenty of time left on his contract. Get insistent. If he gets angry then reduce his playing time expectation - that should eventually reduce his wage demands, even if he complains about it in the short term.

I already demoted him to being a fringe player even though his actual playing time is regular starter. That happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with the current wage dispute. It happende because I tried to sell him already in the first transfer window and put him as surplus to requirements in the process. Eventually I gave up getting rid of him since I got no reasonable bids.

 

I haven't tried your other tip though. Too late to try it now unfortunately, but I will try to remember trying this type of chat next time I am in a similar situation.

 

[danej]

11 hours ago, Andy1979 said:

Offer him a bit of a wag  increase and a very cheap relegation release clause. You will never go down so Don't matter an  it seam  to work sometime.

Seems like a good tip but personally I probably won't use it. For me subjectively stuff like that feels like borderline cheating, abusing the game mechanics.

[danej]

7 hours ago, Left right out said:

Hopefully he'll get over the upset in time. Wage demands seem to be a bit seasonal too. I've had players demanding large wages one month and then a month or two later its dropped significantly for no discernable reason, but probably due to some misfiring game engine formula, like not picking up that off-season doesn't mean their form is down or somesuch.

Interesting. Something like that could happen with Sancho I think. He has been playing incredibly well this season, avg. rating 7.25 and 35 goal contributions in 32 starts, see pic above. So perhaps his current ability is artificially inflated at the moment due to his good form. And perhaps this influences his wage demands. We shall see.

[priority76]

1 hour ago, danej said:

Seems like a good tip but personally I probably won't use it. For me subjectively stuff like that feels like borderline cheating, abusing the game mechanics.

Oh for goodness sake! It's a game, use whatever abuse mechanics you can to succeed.  The game doesn't care about your feelings when it makes players come to you with unrealistic wage demands, why should you play fair with it? 

[iAlwaysWin]

hes a outstanding player in the game, one of the most creative young players there is, me personally would pay whatever he wants as long as hes performing.

[danej]

19 minutes ago, iAlwaysWin said:

hes a outstanding player in the game, one of the most creative young players there is, me personally would pay whatever he wants as long as hes performing.

His star rating suggest that he is mediocre for a top club like Man Utd. I don't have the ability nor the interest to judge players in more advanced ways such as attributes.

But in any case I think you are right. As mentioned he has performed extremely well during this first season, must better than his current ability star rating would suggest.

[Gangor]

Another thing you can do is try to find other things that could make him happy. Praise his training or match performance if he's played or trained well. Criticise him if not. Ask for and follow his advice (if it's not too unreasonable) with respect to player or staff signings. 

[Brother Ben]

20 hours ago, priority76 said:

Oh for goodness sake! It's a game, use whatever abuse mechanics you can to succeed.  The game doesn't care about your feelings when it makes players come to you with unrealistic wage demands, why should you play fair with it? 

Many people find FM far more rewarding if you don't try to game the system.

[danej]

This seems to be the end of the Sancho saga for now. He now seems to want to stay and doesn't want a higher wage anymore.

As an interesting twist I am still trying to sell him though. I feel like even his current 275k p/w is more than I would like to pay for someone of his ability. But we'll see. So far no decent bid seem to be incoming, so I might keep him. It was the same when I tried to sell him a year ago (now summer 2023).