Before starting every new Manager Career mode save, you must carefully navigate the pre-career mode configuration screens, prior to advancing to the first day of the career, as a number of these settings are hardcoded (unable to change, once the career has initiated). The game system, by default, sets the manager expectations category to 'Strict' as one of these unchangeable adjustments, and must be altered, before continuing to avoid the circumstance your son is facing. Options for that setting are 'No Sacking', 'Lenient, or 'Strict', and as a result of numerous game bugs and glitches, in my opinion, the 'No Sacking' option (can never be fired, regardless of failure) is the most favorable for the current state of the game, unless someone does not care about managing the same club for multiple seasons. According to your post, the 'critical mode' mentioned is probably referring to 'Strict' for manager board expectations, meaning, any failure to complete the outlined Board Objectives, will result in a manager sacking (firing), and therefore, the only option is to select an open position with another club; impossible to remain at the current club. Even in the event that your son made a secondary backup save file (separate from the default autosave that is overwritten after all significant occurrences throughout the career), and could backtrack to an earlier date in the Real Madrid career, the manager rating would likely be below the threshold for sacking, regardless of changing match outcomes, or whatever objectives were not completed.
Since you have to restart another career mode, my suggestion would be to first select the 'No Sacking' option, in addition to going through all other setting options, then create a secondary save file, as soon as the career begins. Just as you are entering the career mode for the first time, you are prompted by the game to name the autosave file for overwriting changes. What I do is use the name of the club, and append the name with the letters 'MS', for manual save; i.e. Real Madrid MS. Next, immediately upon entering career mode, navigate to the last menu tab (believe named 'Save'), then duplicate the file, this time changing the last two letters, I use AS (to denote auto save), i.e. Real Madrid AS. Whichever file is created last, will be the one that game constantly overwrites, while leaving the other one unchanged. Therefore, the AS file will be updated as players are transferred, matches are played, etc., and the manual save file, if loaded from the game dashboard, will resort back to the first day of the career mode. As the career mode advances over months, and you are satisfied with the progress, the manual save file should be periodically updated to avoid backtracking too far, and losing substantial progress. Remember, with this new ridiculous autosave file process incorporated in the game this year, the last file saved becomes the autosave one, regardless of the name of the file. First, manually overwrite the MS file, then immediately follow up by manually overwriting the AS file.
