Maybe this is what the game (or most appropriately, the company) wants users to do; it make managers believe that their players are no more good and hence 'forces' the manager to buy other players,
Have you wondered why many scouts' list players performed well in the first season and then performed badly in the following season despite still having very good displayed quality? Some players are explosive in the first matches (or first season), earning a lot of high ratings (8-10s), but then slow down up to the point of getting 6s and 7s mainly. This seems to be the case for some recommended players also. There is a much better chance for managers that bought many scouts' list players to buy those players from that list again, and hence the probability of such managers to spend a lot of tokens is more compared to the other managers.
It is almost sure that some things are programmed in this game to occur as such, most probably mainly for the company to benefit financially.