6. Don't Be Sentimental Bring In Youth
Look, everyone gets attached to stuff. Whether its teddy bears, your home town, your mum's cooking or digital avatars of real-life players, you like what's familiar. Yet unlike your mum's cooking or home towns outside of Swindon (sorry Swindon), players don't stay on an even keel they can suddenly, unexpectedly fall out of form, or in the case of older players, just physically decline. It's what you do here that could potentially make or break your season. Do you persevere with that high-attributes player who consistently plays below himself, or that raw youngster you didn't want to squander on loan? Here's my advice if a player, regardless of squad status, is consistently awful for three games, drop his arse to the subs bench and give youth a chance. By all means talk to him, but if it's clearly not working, don't persevere. If he continues not performing, sell him. It sounds cruel, but it's a sad fact of FM that certain players will always underperform, and a strange quirk that seemingly-terrible looking players (often youngsters) will consistently gazump their god-given abilities and play a blinder, and it's only by being bold and regularly twisting the line-up that you discover these deceptive jewels. I once had a season where Jack Hobbs got the highest average rating in the Premier League. Jack. Hobbs. I had another where Wales won the World Cup (in 2014, no less). The point is that attributes sometimes don't mean everything on FM, and it can pay out big-time to chance your arm on a youngster. There's the added bonus that at his age he can develop into a squad lynchpin or be sold at a profit either way, it's better than sticking with the apparently-finished article who can't seem to summon a good game.