Need help with recently relegated Bolton

[curetastic]

The story so far....
1st season: Bradford, L2 winner
2nd season: Bradford, L1 promoted to CH
3rd season: Bradford, CH midtable, end of season got offered a job from Bolton, PRM bottom of table with a crazy transfer ($22M) and wage budget ($875K)

4th season:
took the bolton job (obviously)
2 transfers on the way already: sebastien puygrenier (DC) @$13M, john kennedy (DC) @$6.25M

Some transfers i made:
OUT: phil bardsley @$2.6M, zoumana camara (UNH)@$4.1M, pawel golanski (UNH)@$12M, andy o'brien @$1.8M, Tamir Cohen @$200K
Release On Free: james sinclair, chris basham, david gbemie, gavin mccann, kevin davies, ali al habsi
IN: tomas frejlach (free), cameron jerome (free), barry robson (free), juanjo ($275K), diego placente (free), daniel fernandes ($6.5M), nick montgomery ($500K)

So the squad now:
GK: daniel fernandes -- jaskelainen (UNH)(transfer listed but no offers)
DC: s puygrenier, n nosworthy -- michael turner, john kennedy
DL: fredrik stenman -- diego placente, liam rosenior (wanted first team)
DR: jose bosingwa (UNH) -- nicky hunt, l rosenior
MCd: Fabrice Muamba (UNH) -- joey o'brien, nick montgomery
MCa: kevin nolan (UNH) -- dean whitehead, steed malbranque, tope obadeyi
ML: ricardo gardner (UNH) -- b robson, s malbranque, t obadeyi, nathan woolfe
MR: t frejlach -- b robson, s malbranque, d whitehead
FCd: Henok Goitom (UNH) -- kevin doyle, juanjo
FCa: kevin doyle -- juanjo, cameron jerome

Last year on contract: jaskelainen, malbranque, muamba, gardner, montgomery, placente
Tried to renew but failed: muamba (want to move on, asking $100K/w), gardner
Successfully renewed: doyle (double wage @$74K/w), hunt
Top earners now: goitom($78K), nolan ($77K), puygrenier ($75K), doyle ($74K)
Total wages: $873,129/w (budget $984K/w)
The team's finance is a bit helped by the chairman's donation of $29M, now had $35M in the bank and keep on dwindling...

My problem is so many of my first team is unhappy (because of the relegation) and wanted to be transferlisted (the UNH ones)
Currently still perform magnificently on CH with no losing from 10 matches
(1st place -- due to the PRM-class lineup i have)
Should i hold on to them and wait till promoted back to PRM?
Will the unhappiness go away then?
Or should i let them go and rebuild new first team?
So many of the UNH ones are very influential to the squad (especially Nolan--current captain, Goitom-Gardner-Bosingwa--many pleased playing alongside them)
So what should i do with them?
If i release them won't it damage the morale of the squad?
But if i keep them won't it eventually damage the morale too?
How about Fabrice Muamba? He's really good... I'd hate to lose him... My regret is I didn't extend his contract immediately (he asked $78K/w back then), now he ask $100K/w... What should i do? Should i wait a bit? Or give him what he wants?
Please... i need opinions... help me guys....

 

[nursemorph]

Give it some time with regards to the unhappy players if they are playing well. If you can keep hold of them till the end of the season and get promoted they may become happy again. If they ask to be transfer listed, I would agree to it but put an extremely high asking price on their heads, say £50M. That way you are doing your best to help them but its not your fault if no-one wants to buy them. In time, if the club is still doing well, they may ask to come off the transfer list.

With regards to Muamba, I wouldn't give him a new contract yet. $100k is a lot of money for a Championship side as you are not guaranteed to reurn to the Premiership. Once you are promoted, then you can offer him a new contract, but personally I would be looking for cheaper alternatives. But, at the end of the day, its your game so ultimately your choice.

 

[curetastic]

Thanks for the advice...
Currently on Week 15 of CH, more players become unhappy....
Most of them are shocked that they're not considered first-team players...
The AI must have taken the division they're playing in into consideration whether a player is wanting to be a first-team player, but not their own strength in regards to the other players in the club playing in the same position...
One in particular is Cameron Jerome... he is a new signing with a contract stating he will be regarded a backup to the first team... he said yes, and happily join the club, only for become shocked that he is not considered a first-team player a couple of months later...
Okay, he is regarded by the coaches as a leading star for any CH side, but he seems to fail to see that he is playing in the same position with the likes of Henok Goitom, Kevin Doyle, and Juanjo whose the coaches consider them as good players for any PRM sides...
And when i play him as a first team replacing Kevin Doyle (he was on 89% condition) for one match, there are no changes to his unhappiness despite he perform not so well on that match...
To make things worse, Kevin Doyle too became slightly concerned afterwards because of it (feels he should be first-team regular)...
This really frustrates me....
The old first-team regulars are unhappy because of the relegation...
Their backup players (either the new signed ones or the old backup ones) are unhappy because they think they should be in starting eleven for any CH teams...
Cleaning the former manager's mess is a really tough thing to do... *sigh*

 

[curetastic]

mmm... its week 18 now, and more players are becoming unhappy...
they all seem to think they are all should be first-team-players...
even those new signings i sign with the promise of only becoming a backup player...

The old first-team regulars are unhappy because of the relegation...
Their backup players (either the new signed ones or the old backup ones) are unhappy because they think they should be in starting eleven for any CH teams...
how to deal with this thing?
just keep doing what i can to get promoted and ignore them wishing that they would be happy again once we are back in the PRM?

 

[Khanvicted]

Keep playing the unhappy players you want to keep. get rid of the ones you dont. if you have money offer them new contracts (the ones you want to keep).

I reckon due to you being relegated and most of Boltons squad being prima donna's it will take promotion for most of them to regain full happiness.

There are a lot better players out there, cheap and very good pro's who can remain happy in a squad that rotates often.

put the ones you dont want into the reserves even tho you may use them for the first team.