2015 How to combat a Strained Relationship

[Dec]

How to combat a Strained Relationship

 

Having a strained relationship in Football Manager Handheld can really put a negative spin to your good results. Stopping this is imperative for team harmony and therefore your results/job but how can we do this? In this article I will explore the strained relationships and how to fix it.

 

 

What are strained relationships?

Quite simply a player (or multiple players) don't like another, found on a player's profile under the "Player Personal" tab.

This can be for all sorts of reasons and it isn't always mentioned in game why so prevention is difficult. From a training ground bust up, to underperforming all the way through to wanting to leave or being greedy with wage demands. You cannot stop one player from hating another, it just happens and the only way is to solve it when it comes around.

 

 

How do I solve this?

First you need to look and see if the relationship is an one-to-one or many-to-one. If many players hate one then it may be worth escalating the case quicker.

 

1) Bide your time: This is quite simple, wait for it to play out for a month or two. Form may pick up, players may forgive each other and so on. Sometimes the best solution is to just wait.

 

2) Drop a player: Never play the two players who hate each other in the same team or if there are many that hate one then never play the one. Even more so in close proximity (e.g. two central defenders), they won't work together well and will disrupt your team's harmony in the match.

 

3) Sell a player: If the relationship is many people then the culprit to sell is obvious. Even if he is your best player no one is worth 2 or 3 players being unhappy in most cases; unless the unhappy ones are fringe players of course, so selling up is the most ideal case to stop them upsetting team harmony. If it is a strained relationship between two players though then it is more difficult, you will have to decide who is less important and easier to replace and then sell them.

 

 

Does ... work?

Offering a new contract: No, this does not in most cases fix the problem, it may make the players slightly happier but they will still dislike each other.

 

Praising the players: Again, no. Like offering a new contract it will not fix the players' relationship but may raise their happiness.

 

 

Final Words

So now you know what can be done to deal with a strained relationship. Please note each case is on an individual basis and may require action quicker dependent on how it is effecting the team on and off the pitch. A strained relationship may make your board dislike you quicker and if you are fighting for your job can be a cause for a sacking. Remember you cannot like in real life make players forgive each other and get on, there is no quick fix in order to combat this and it will all be down to your judgement at the end of the day.

[Eliseo10]

To comment on this article, sometimes a player will express his desire to move to a bigger club and that will immediately garner negative feelings from the rest of the squad. This is usually quite the problem, even more so when the player in question is important or one of the best in the club. When this happend to me in my Everton Squad I did not want to sell Kevin Mirallas ( player in question). So I simply demoted him from the squad for about a month an a half. I then brought him back for a match or two at a time always keeping a close eye on team harmony. The situation seem to stabilize and the players who disliked him still did, but it did not seem to affect the team harmony at all. Mirallas being a good player started to perform at a high level consistently delivering goals and assist and really helping out the team. Several players still did not like him however the team harmony remained at a high point and Mirallas was forgiven. ( Note- the players who did not like Mirallas still showed it in their page but it became completely irrelevant after Mirallas was "forgiven".)

[Dec]

Thanks, that is what I meant by bide your time. Though dropping into reserves could work but it could damage player morale if the player is big so I didn't want to say that exactly as it is risky.

[JustM1kePlays]

Really interesting. I see people asking this question alot on vibe an now they have an answer. This will help a ton of people.

Great article Dec

[vcadu92]

I would have thought that offering a new contract both would work! Well I was wrong and thank you for this helpful guide!!

[LoGam]

Hi,

 

It happened that I had the case a few days ago. 3 players were unhappy mostly regarding IT or beeing a sub.

Then one of them criticized the team results and indeed I was struggling not to be sent in second division.

 

At that moment, 3 more players got unhappy, hating the one who criticized the team. Regarding the board comment, I was very low on both results and of course harmony.

 

I finally sold the "hated" player at the end of the season, stayed in first division and made some fixiing in my team. Each player is now happy to be here, results are great even though harmony is still very low and remains the main concern of the board.

 

I guess I should give it some more time as I don't see how to improve it further. I might try to level up motivation in training and see what happens.

 

In any case, great work thanks a lot for sharing.

[ahdeyy21]

so what if the strained relationship is between the manager and the player

[Dec]

If the player is between you and a player there are only two choices, biding your time or selling them.