How can FM improve for FM10 and beyond?

For me, Football Manager 2009 was the greatest football manager simulation I had ever played as it combined all the great features of past games with the added bonus of a 3D match engine that was better than anything I had seen before. There were still some minor issues such as injury bugs on certain patches as well as the centre midfielder bug which meant they very rarely got a rating of above 7. For me this wasn’t a problem as I avoided having injuries completely ruining any of my games and the centre midfielder bug was frustrating but nevertheless easy to ignore. So despite being the greatest game I have played, it certainly has a few ways to improve for this upcoming years version to be a masterpiece and I will give you an insight into what would make FM10 better than any of its younger brothers.

The first thing I would like to see is a more accurate reflection of the financial side of things, especially when its come to small town clubs. For example with my team Blackburn Rovers it is too easy to make profits year on year while spending a lot of money, when in reality with a small crowd, no financial backer and such high wages, we are always going to have to sell players for a profit to survive in the Premier League. However when it comes to FM you can have a very high wages, spend more than you take in and it doesn’t offer a true reflection of the real life financial constraints. Also on the theme of finances there have been times when I have been badly in the red and yet the board don’t get that concerned, now with a small team in the lowest tier of Polish football, you would get sacked if you put the finances in the red for a long period of time, this should be addressed for FM10 and would make management that bit more challenging.

One aspect of the game that really could be improved is something I have thought about for a while now would be a very simple but effective feature. Interaction with players and managers has improved in recent times, but for the feature to become even better it would fantastic for a rival manager to question how well you handle pressure going into the last game of the season. For example if you are managing Man Utd and Arsenal are behind you with one game to go with you needing to beat Portsmouth away to win the league, it would be great for Arsene Wenger to come out and question whether you have the team to cope under the pressure with a rookie manager at the helm. Following on from that if you tackle ‘hard’ during a game and get a man sent off while injuring two of the opponents players, the opposing manager should come out and claim your team are dirty and played with intent to injure his players. Similarly with players, if you sell a player and he then hits a hatrick past you, he should come out and say that he was delighted to prove a point to his old boss that he should never have some him. Basic things like this would give me a real connection with the players and managers on the game and would make it feel even more realistic that ever.

For a long time now training has being the same and although it is okay as it is, I believe this is a feature that can be vastly improved upon in future releases. The first place I would start would be to have four different sets of default training groups, Goalkeepers, Defenders, Midfielders and Strikers. Then by having a simple system whereby each attribute has a training level of none, 1 or 2, with a limit of maybe 30 as naturally players wont have the time in the week to train in every single area. This way you could have default training for the four positions and then if you have a pacey striker you could have him on an individual training programme on level 2 for pace and acceleration whereas creativity and heading would be at level 1 and tackling and marking at none for example. Although  there is a nigh on impossible change of SI using something exactly like this, I feel a change to something similar to what I have suggested would be a big improvement and something easier to control. In the long-term it would be good to watch players training in some capacity but maybe that is a few years away, we can wait for that fantastic day.

One of the features of FM09 that was particularly good was the scout reports which gave an in-depth review of a player, how much they would cost and whether they would be willing to join your club at the current time. However I feel a couple of additions to this would be great, the first being a suggestion of whether a player has the adaptability to play in a different position and if so which would he recommend to retrain the player to. This would improve the versatility of the player and would also help in injury hit spells when players may be needed to play elsewhere. Another simple but useful addition would be to simply suggest whether there are any cheaper alternatives who may want to join the club. Scouts in real life football will no doubts advise managers of any cheaper alternatives and this would be a perfect way to complete a scout report.

From a very popular feature in the form of scouts reports to press conferences which certainly didn’t prove to be anywhere near as big a hit. The problem that many of us had was that it was a very repetitive process that eventually led to the assistant manager being trusted with the task week in, week out. Unfortunately this is part and parcel of a press conference but there are certainly ways to make them a tad more interesting. A more diverse range of questions would actually make me want to take part in the conference and if my answers had more of an effect on personnel then this would make it a little more interesting and worth participating in. From the pre-match press conference to the actual game itself, in game simple tactics changes from the sideline would be a fantastic bonus and are being introduced for FM10. Further improvement to the matchday would be any slight improvement on how the 3D game play is played and also more camera views such as an actual manager sideline view as mentioned in another piece of writing I recently read.

Whether many if any of these features will arrive in time for FM10 it remains to be seen, but if just a few of the ideas mentioned above are introduced to the game in the next few years then it will just add to the already oh so addictive experience. It isn’t possible for Sports Interactive to satisfy ever single one of the people who play the game and therefore my suggestions wont be on the agenda for everyone else but for me would definitely improve the game experience. FM09 was such a fantastic all round game with many of the new features being instant hits with the fans, if the new features for FM10 are just as well taken by the masses then we may well be in for the best football management simulation yet.