as I said... you need tricks.
as long as the player you talk about is not playing on a training position it's good, if you need players you want to train away from the courtside, it hurts.
I tried the same thing as you for the league games, he got 5 minutes total playtime from that.
I think it would be best to just put him in the scrimmage with no back ups and reserves, as you said, and make sure you choose follow dept chart, because in my case my coach decided to have an other player play for him, even if he was not his sub, nor his reserve...
Taking only 5 players to a game is not only too risky for me, it denies some players training time...
But I think we agree that if you play 'normal' without using tricks, it takes about 1/2 season at least to get someone from atrocious to respectable, given he's good. If the player has'nt realy got better skills than the other player for his position, I doubt if he ever could recover.
I had a player I had to use tricks on or he wouldn't get any minutes, not even when I put him in the line-up 3 matches a week.
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