Player wants to leave

Hello,

I have just been promoted to the Premier League with Leeds, and I am, of course, very pleased with that. However, now my star player wants to leave for a club that plays European football. My contract with him ends in 2 years, so I hope I can make him happy before it runs out. Does anyone have a good way to please an unhappy player?

Basically, winning games and trophies. If the option is possible, meet him and try and promise him that you'll qualify for Europe this season and that you'll let him go next summer if you don't. Unless he has Leeds as his favourite club, there's little chance of keeping him otherwise. You're lucky that you can keep him for a year and change his mind in the interim; if his contract expired next year, then you'd have to either sell him now or lose him for naught...

I remember in previous versions of the game, the player would very often change his mind after being unhappy. This is not the case with FM 2016?
The mentioned player does not have Leeds as a favourite club, however he does have me as favourite person. I already had the talk with him before I wrote this, and I told him that we would qualify, but he answered that this was not realistic.

I know what you mean re the part in italics, but you have to admit those instances were often somewhat unrealistic and the person's volte-face made no sense at all. In that regards, it's more realistic this way.

You also have to admit that trying to convince a player of a newly-promoted team that they'll qualify for Europe that same season is a hard sell at best, and that he is frankly justified to say it's not realistic. How many times has it happened irl, after all?

That being said, you can always pray for good draws in the FA Cup and the EFL Cup and hope you can somehow win either of them. It remains to be seen whether he'd be mollified by an EFL Cup win and a lowly league finish, but you can always give it your best shot.

I know it's a wrench to lose your best players but that is what happens to all the managers in the world (unless you're at Real Madrid or Barcelona); it's how you manage the situation which shows how good a manager you are. Do you play him despite being unhappy or do you just sell him now and extract maximum value out of him? Do you spend this season trying to identify his replacement and start to tap him up? Etc. etc...