How well a player trains is impacted by a number of things:
Age is a factor and as players approach retirement you may start to see decreases in certain skills.
Coaching The quality of your coaching team.
Player condition Players with high fatigue and/or knocks wont respond as well as they could.
Players need matches Training is all well and good but there is no replacement for matches. To develop, a player needs the opportunity to play.
All players are different and are of differing abilities. In principle each player will eventually reach a maximum in each skill and if that happens, the skill bar will show as red. The better the player, the harder it is to get him to his maximum potential. A poor coach would never be able to take a great player all the way. Its more likely that a player will simply stop improving because your staff are not of sufficient quality to take the player beyond that level. You should consider this when changing your coaching staff and when buying new players. Player skills will only decline in the event they miss training for a prolonged period (even if injured) or if they are getting closer to retirement. This slowdown will occur for all players, however when it starts in relation to when they will retire will vary, that is to say for some players it may start 2-3 seasons before retirement, for others maybe only half a season.
The Coaching Screen:
There are a number of training assignments that can be selected and these are listed below, along with the players skills they effect. Some of these assignments focus on serveral skills, whilst others may focus on only one or two. The fewer the skills trained, the better the improvement. For example selecting a 'Training match', will give all skills a small boost, where as selecting 'Cross country' would give stamina a much larger boost.
Attack overloading Focus on general attacking skills. Improve crossing, shooting, movement, technique, accuracy, control, dribbling and anticipation.
Attacking set pieces Not converting enough corners or free kicks ? Improve set pieces, crossing and anticipation.
Closing-down Having trouble getting hold of the ball ?
Improve communication, marking, movement, passing, stamina and tackling.
Cross country Fitness is crucial, especially in the final stages of a match, make sure your team can keep going right to the very end. Improve stamina.
Defensive overloading Focus on those defensive duties.
Improve awareness, clearance, communication, concentration, handling, heading, marking, reflexes, tackling and timing.
Defensive set pieces Conceding too many goals fron corners and free kicks? Improve set pieces, awareness, movement and heading.
Five-a-side match Nothing gets the heart going like some fast and furious five a side. Improve control, dribbling, handling, marking, pace, passing, shooting, stamina, strength, and tackling.
Goalkeeping A must for keepers. Improves awareness, clearance, communication, concentration, distribution, handling, reflexes and strength.
Long-range passing For switching play and the long ball specialists. Improve distribution, accuracy, passing and clearance.
Shooting Improve shooting, anticipation, technique, heading and accuracy.
Crosses A key skill especially for those wide players. Improve Crossing, distribution, set pieces and timing.
Sprints Lacking speed ? Always second to the ball ? Improve pace and reflexes.
Technique Need to work on those silky skills? Improve control, passing, dribbling, technique and timing.
Training match A good general work out of all player skills. Try and get one in every week. Improve all skills.
Weight training Improve strength and Concentration.
Rest Rest is crucial. Make sure you give players enough rest especially when heavily fatigued. Constant training and playing can result in serious injuries. You need to ensure players have sufficient time to recover. You can vary the training intensity to help manage fatigue.
Intensity You can set a training intensity. The higher the intensity, the better the player will respond in training. Be careful though, higher intensity can result in increases in fatigue and injuries are more common.
Creating Training Schedules
Schedules have been created to allow you to develop and maintain training plans. You plan out the required training assignments for a 7 day period. All managers can maintain one schedule. If you subscribe you can have many schedules which you can tailor to individual players or groups. For example you could create a training schedule specifically for defenders and then assign your defenders to that schedule.
Creating a Schedule:
