Opportunity and Expectation.

I'd reiterate pcmac's comments on form and player retention. Some roles are given more opportunity to do the rewarded things and others are given more opportunity to fail or just see the game pass them by. Those central midfielders (including dmcs)are just such an example and can be forgiven 6s if they are infrequent or in a winning set up. But if a dmc in an ND is not rating fairly often above 6 then either change the dmc or ND wasn't the best choice, imo.

I'd prefer it if the OP would post Squad stats.

Quote Originally Posted by pcmacdaniel View Post
Reiterating the form thing, its bizarre but I have come across a one-star defender that got MOTM against me in the cup when I was level 6. This players quality was 16, so he was one-star for level 3 and I my strikers ranged from 5* to 7*. It was the only match I lost that entire cup tournament, which I went on to win. At lower levels its rarer to find low quality players dominating, but at higher levels where the quality gap is smaller (25 Q vs. 15Q is a larger percentage gap than 85Q and 75Q) so a players raw stats impact the match less, whereas hidden mode stats play a larger role in shaping player performance.
I'd probably say that ratings also include an 'expectation' factor. If players are expected to fail in an action then they will be greatly rewarded when they succeed and punished relatively less when they fail. Just a theory.