Let’s Get Physical

Following on from Levo’s piece on the role of back room staff and how it could be improved in Football Manager 2010. The closing question was “can Football Manager find a serious use for the physio?” I for one sincerely hope so after reading about the BBC’s Ian Stringer’s experience at Leicester City this week of the ins and outs of the medical examination that players go through before they sign for a new club and it made me realise more than ever that Physio’s are nothing more than eye candy in the game.

The limit of a Physio as it stands in FM2009 is depending on how good he is at his job he will diagnose the injury and feedback how long he guesstimates that the player will be unavailable. This brings us to our first flaw in the current set up. This mostly is down to the Physiotherapy attribute, The higher the number the better he is at his job. Unfortunately attributes are also judged by what division someone is employed in so therefore their attributes are instantly handicapped. It seems a bit harsh to say someone isn’t very good at their job just because they’re the Physio for Accrington instead of Bolton. On the other hand there are different abilities that people have but you should be able to have a Physio with 20 for Physiotherapy in the lower leagues. Clubs and Physio’s should be handicapped by the medical and training facilities available to them rather than a single number (or three if you include mental attributes).

The only other function a Physio seems to have in the game is to provide you with a report on demand about a players overall fitness. Of all the fitness reports I’ve demanded none of them have told me anything that I hadn’t read on the player’s information screen. I remember in a previous version of FM (It may well of been CM4) that I’d request a Physio report and he’d tell me that the player had an underlying injury that required surgery or treatment by a specialist which would rule him out for months but would solve all the niggling injuries. Instead in the current game I get told my player is injured and a specialist can fix him in four weeks whilst the Physio will take 8 weeks. That makes absolutely no sense to me, specialist treatment takes half the time of Physio treatment? Surely by not sending him for surgery he’ll be back to playing fitness quicker as he doesn’t need to recuperate?

I don’t know what changes have been for Football Manager 2010 so I’ll assume at this point that Physio’s are still pointless and need expanding or just throwing out of the game and replaced with news items like dealing with your board is.

There’s so much scope for Improving the role of Physio’s in FM2010. One feature I’d like to see is much more detailed Physio reports especially when it comes to signing players. At the moment it seems as if a player is fit he passes a medical before you sign him but if he’s injured you’re board will cancel the deal. Some feedback from your head Physio before signing a player to advise you if the player in question is carrying an underlying injury or if there’s a part of his anatomy that would benefit from specific training along the lines of his natural fitness and stamina could do with targeting in the short term or concentrating on strength as he’s looking a bit lightweight.

Pre-season reports could be expanded to tell you which players need specific fitness training due to returning from Holiday after too many pies or which players have arrived in tip top shape. At the moment you only seem to get told of players who return still injured. The same goes for players returning from injury, some advice on how long to keep players on a light schedule to get them back to full fitness rather than risk them re-injuring themselves.

When I ask for a Physio reports I expect them to tell me how fit a player is, how fit he could be, what could be improved and if he’s got a niggle and how it would be best treated.

My last request is to sort out that Physio/Specialist/Surgery mess. The news screens are set up to make you select the right choice rather than the quickest. The shortest time period should be the Physio with the long term Specialist/Surgery options taking longer but stopping the re-occurrence. This would then allow situations as they are in real life where players have got themselves back to fitness to help their team on the pitch before having surgery later in the season or even in the summer break.

Hopefully all this waffle will be moot in a couple of weeks and we’ll find out that Sports Interactive have actually given the Physiotherapist a proper role in Football Manager 2010, until then I can only dream!