There has been a bit of push around the FM Community forums lately with Los Wonderkids & FM View promoting the Lower League challenge for when the new Football Manager 2010 hopefully arrives at our doorsteps on Friday. One of those rules within an LLM challenge is the ban on using the player search/filter feature within the game to find the players that you want. It is argued that it is so easy to build a world class team in a few season just by knowing what attributes to search for, even for the high league teams, but is this cheating? Or can the Football Manager player filter be used in such a way that assists and not plays the game for you?

Using the players filter, is it cheating?

At the end of the day we are playing a game, games are made up of rules and we giving tools be it from the game or our own skill to compete within that framework. Obviously the Football Manager player filter is one of those tools therefore no, using the players filter is not cheating. People will use the player filter to the best of its ability to find the best players that they need to fill their fantasy team full of players. But instead it begs another question for us Football Manager gamers, who from the community at least bang on about realism within the game.

Is the player filter realistic?

From the basics of what the player filter does, no of course it isn’t. Only David Moyes at the moment has the ability to filter through a database full of some of the best players in the world, among those players are those players of the future. If know what you are looking for and you can grab yourself one of the best players in the game, using the right option you will know as well if that player would be a realistic target for a club like your own.

But this way of playing is obviously down to the FM gamer to decide how they want to play. But from a personal view I think using the player filter takes a little away from the game. Using the filter is just like using any of the many fantasy football websites or newspapers. You take the budget you have and then throw it towards those players that come in the search and look for the positions that you want them in. What is the point in using the scouting system, taking any advice from your backroom staff or the joy in genuinely discovering a gem of a player through hard word? I think it takes alot of the enjoyment out of the game when you aren’t made to work as hard to find success in each aspect from tactics to results.

But how can the player filter be an assistance?

The filter can’t be totally ignored though, it allows us to do a few things within the game that we wouldn’t be able to do elsewhere. View a transfer listed players, surely it is only realistic for those players that have been placed on the market for you to be made aware of, especially for big clubs with a huge array of contact and ears to the ground they will know who is available from the other clubs on the transfer list. What is the point in putting them on the market if you can’t market them to other sides? As well as being able to filter out those players that have got only six months left on their contract. Until the game finds out another way to let us know how those players who want to leave on the Bosman ruling we are only left with trying to filter them out every December to see if we can nab a deal, from one of these. In my view this is the only way that you can keep to the realism of football management if thats how you want to play the game, everything else is just like searching a huge database and the game can only be viewed as a big excel sheet if this is the way you play it.

A little addition to the filter, that could make a huge difference

Although one of the features that I would like to see in one of the next game is to be able to filter those players that you have already scouted, that makes more sense to me to be able to only include the players you or your scout has already reported back to you on. This would be more realistic and help aid in the sorting through the mass of scout reports that you gather throughout the game. Maybe keep a little to the LLM philosophy while doing it and just use it to sort those players so you can look at them in an easier way. When I have used the player filter in the past I usually have my searches sorted with the highest recommended players at the top, only actually taking notice of those players that I have already looked into before either personally or via my scouting network.

Something Interesting

Although some people can take the realism to the extreme Rob discovered over at the official SI Games forums. One gamer has decided to ignore the attributes all together. Arguing that being able to see such stats is unrealistic and instead uses his own ability to spot the players on the pitch, his scouting reports and real life performances to gather whether a player is worth buying at all. This is not something that I subscribe too though, but an interesting extreme. I think that there is always going to be room for the attributes to be visible within the game as they allow us to compensate for the shortcomings of the game being a virtual environment, there are certain aspects of a persons game you can’t see till they are on a training ground or you have spent a little time with them on a daily basis as real life managers get the opportunity to do.

In conclusion, the player filter is an aspect of the game that for the more enjoyable experience I believe should be cut out or just stripped down because in fact it does take away from the gaming experience of a Football Management simulation. It is easy to ignore for many players and I can see why it is in there to help along the casual gamer who does just want to build their fantasy football side. Those who are going to play the LLM rules for the next game as I think a few people seem to be on board with will want to disregard the players search all together, making sure you use your own scouting skills and those of your backroom staff to make the final decision on who the best players to sign for.

What are your views on the player search function, is it cheating or part of the game? Do you use the search function in an innovative ways or any suggestions or comments please leave below or discuss them at the forums.

As I mentioned in my previous piece ‘Deflated, dejected and loving every minute’ I decided to take up the challenge of managing what was perceived to be the worst team in the lowest playable league in Germany. For my sins that turned out to be SV Sandhausen.

For those that haven’t played yet alone thought about managing in the lower leagues it really isn’t for the faint hearted. Not only are you limited by the talent (or lack of) that your squad possesses but there’s other limiting factors to contend with like a very small back room team and an every decreasing bank account. Don’t let these put you off though as once you learn to ride the roller-coaster it’s very difficult to get back off.

My spell started off with what can only be described as a false dawn, 6 wins in 6 pre-season games including a 6-0 win over Bonner SC is enough to make anyone think it can’t go that badly over the rest of the season. two defeats and three draws in the first five games took me back to the realisation that beating Lower league opposition in pre season doesn’t guarantee you results in the league. By the time the mid-winter break had come around we’d picked up 6 wins in 20 games which when as spaced out as they were seemed worse than it was. The first six games went much better after the winter break, three wins and 2 draws helped push us up to mid table, what was looking like a possible top half finish was dashed when we failed to win any of the last seven games. We ended the season in 14th 18 points clear of relegation. At this point in most games I’d be looking for a new challenge as I get itchy feet quite easily but I was determined to see if avoiding relegation was a fluke or if I could better it.

Better opposition in Pre Season meant 3 defeats before the league was underway, once again we didn’t win a game until the sixth game of the season. Entering the winter break we had six wins in 20 games (I see a pattern emerging here!) but with the summer reinforcements I’d signed we were getting better performances than the previous season. Unlike the first season though we finished much stronger finishing the season unbeaten in five games. We finished the season in 11th, three places higher and 2 points better off than the previous season.

At the beginning of the third season I used my assistant managers network to recommend some players that we might be able to strengthen our weak spots with, Four players arrived from the reserve squads of Stuttgart, Hoffenheim, Leverkusen & Kaiserslautern. Coupled with a couple of youngsters I picked up on free transfers from Duisburg and Dortmund meant I was much more confident of our chances and hoping for a top 10 finish.

The start was our best yet, it only took four games to win our first game! 8 wins and 6 draws leading into the Winter break was beginning to put my head in the clouds a bit. Thankfully a 5-0 defeat to Kaiserslautern bought the teams confidence down a peg or two in the mid season friendlies. Not for long though, in the first 8 games after the break we picked up seven wins and one draw. Leading in to the end of the season we suffered only one defeat in our last six games as we finished the season with 21 wins and 8 draws from 38 games to finish the season in 3rd place with 71 points, 22 more than the previous season!

For those that don’t know how the German League system works the 3rd place team in the 3rd Division plays off against the team who finished the season 3rd bottom in the second division. Unfortunately for me after leading my team of relegation hopefuls to the promotion play-offs was always going to end in defeat when you find out that the team you’ve got to play is Armenia Bielefeld! We played the first leg and home, which for us you would think would be some advantage. We lost 4-0 and then drew the second leg 1-1 with a much better performance.

At this point I’d love to tell you that I’m still managing Sandhausen and that we’re going places – Unfortunately neither is true. At the end of the 3rd season I’d managed to reduce the growing debt by selling a couple of players. The wage expenditure had been around the budget’s level for most of the last season without going over budget, season tickets were up on last year and gates had been rising year on year. Unfortunately for me I had a stingy board who decided that they would reduce the next season’s wage budget by 25% and demanding I sell my best players. Rather than seeing sense and agreeing to the boards demands I decided that my three years of improving the team were of more influence than the board trying to manage a bank account majorly in the red. Needless to say that my ultimatum to make more money available for wages was met with a swift goodbye and my P45 in my hand.

My successor didn’t make any effort to reduce the wage bill and led the team to a 10th place finish so in hindsight maybe I left at the clubs high point. I spent a short spell at then bottom side Union Berlin before resigning just before the seasons end after leading them out of the relegation zone but frustrated by the inconsistency shown by the team. I later found out that if I’d paid attention that my predecessor had employed similar tactics to me leading them to the bottom of the table. My successor on the other hand went for a completely different tactic and got much better results. On that thought I’ll leave you with an oft repeated quote regarding repeated failure in Football Manager

It’s not the game, It’s your tactics!

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!

First of all I must explain the title before I leave the whole world in wonder but also before I get a knock at my door from the police who wish to charge me for attempted murder. Sammy Lee as you will all know is Liverpool assistant manager and legend. I wouldn’t wish harm on the guy, I think he is a fantastic assistant for Liverpool and long should he reign. But recently at a Liverpool reserve game I spotted him in a line of traffic going into the ground as I ate  my chips before nipping into Prenton Park. Being a bit struck by his awe I had to catch his attention for a wave, shouting SAMMY towards the car, Mr Lee and his driver both looked into my direction startled. The guy is getting on now and to be honest does look like he may suffer from high blood pressure, such a shock on his face made me fear as I thought maybe I could have possibly killed him with fright.

But now if your still here after that long winded explanation of a title I will go on to tell you why I make it. Football Manager has begun to reflect how important not just an assistant manager is but the whole backroom team. The best managers in the world all have something in common and that is that they have the best assistants working with them. Sir Alex Ferguson has had a string of them, over the years watching how they have developed a team with them, most notably Carlos Queiroz who helped influence one of the greatest United teams of all time influencing the 4321 system and bringing with him a certain Cristiano. But Cloughie & Taylor, Jose & Clarke and many more pairings are key to the success of the biggest teams.

The game is moving towards this each year we are seeing the role of our staff grow increasingly, only last year though did we see the real importance a good assistant manager could be, giving us many more options to help us do a better job. Tactics feedback, training reports, coaching reports and news of what loan deals are available in a certain position. For a time backroom staff in the game were merely but names in the game, put there to look good and marvel when your able to tempt a former legend to your club, I have enjoyed the pleasure of working with, Toldo as a goalkeeping coach, Beckham taking care of set-pieces and oddly enough Michael Owen training up the defenders. But they had very little influence on the team. Football Manager has made in roads to the development of training and how the coaches can influence the effectiveness of training, but more work needs to be done so that the selection of coaches can have a bigger overall affect on the squad.

One way in which this may happen is that coaches could bring with them their own training schedules, I would be surprised if the staff themselves didn’t have a big hand in building what the players do on a regular basis. depending on their expertise the coach could come with a favoured package of different activities to get the best out of them in a particular area. You could choose to tinker with it as a sort of discussion or let him go wild, this would then be good to be able to assign certain players to work with certain coaches. Maybe it is a little gimicky, but wouldn’t it be good to have an option to send your team to an army training camp at the start of the season to get them fit again, just like Roy Keane? Another thing that may be helpful extra one-on-one coaching, David N’Gog could work more with Ian Rush in order to develop certain parts of his game, maybe it is in his personality to spend extra time on the training field everyday, this could quicken up his develop and help reach a bigger potential. The introduction of coaching badges to the achievements screen showing the ability of each of the coaches and players in some cases, on this judging how much the coach can actually do, what limit they can coach or manage at. Although one thing that we have to be careful of doing when introducing such aid for the manager is not to distract from the game itself and instead enhance an already great experience. The managers ability should always be at the forefront of any decision, so building these at tools for the manager and not replacements is of highest importance.

Yesterday Liam published an interesting article discussing the ease of the transfer market in FM, more to the point the ability to find players is far to easy if you know the right numbers to pop in, again the ability of the backroom staff and your own ability to look at a player and know if he can fit in should be the main aim of the game. I have to agree that being able to search the players that would best match your need in FM is so not as enjoyable and in fact no more then picking a fantasy football team online. An improvement in scouting could be a better way to guide and manipulate the scout to produce better reports as JP suggested. But not only that, the experience of a scout should count and even the coach for that matter. You pick up a member of staff from Manchester United, they should be able to come straight to you suggesting players that they have had the pleasure of working with. A final suggestion to make the scouting system a little better, but your own experience and contacts should matter, being able to call in favors with staff you have had interaction with in the game to suggesting players and grab a loan deal here or there, I think something like  that could work well around the LLM fans. Without Roy Keane’s Manchester United connections I doubt that he would have made half the signings that he did, but while at Sunderland, maybe that would have been a good thing.

So there is still alot to do before Football Manager can reflect the importance of a top team behind the scenes as well as on the pitch and I am sure as they always do they will make good progress in doing this as games go on maybe at some point down the line we could actually see coaches raise in experience, knowledge and intellegence the same way that we watch a wonderkid reach their potential and with the longer the coach has been in the game the better he may become. Could there be a time that I feel as attached to my Number. 2 as I do for my Number 9? But first things first, can Football Manager find a serious use for the physio?

Right up until Football Manager 2008 I didn’t use the scouts as much as I could instead I used Genie Scout. For training I downloaded Tugs training and for tactics I downloaded a tactic and fashioned it into something half decent for whatever team I was managing.

That’s all changed in the games I’ve played on Football Manager 2009, out has gone Genie in favour of trusting my scouts, out went Tugs training in favour of building my own framework and I’ve built myself a half decent 4-4-2 formation that works well in the German 3rd division.

It dawned on me that with all this help I wasn’t actually winning games I was cheating my way through the game. I wasn’t managing what I had, I was checking the Current abilities of my squad and that of any potential signings to improve my squad, with the training any success wasn’t my own it was done by someone else and the same can be said of the tactics.

For my current game I chose SV Sandhausen of the German Third Division mainly because they were tipped for relegation. Starting a game with a team expecting promotion or aiming for the top half of the table immediately puts pressure on you, picking the team that is expected to finish bottom means you can’t do any worse than is expected of you.

Not only is there no expectation it also gives you the opportunity to learn without worrying about losing, so what if we lose 3 games in a row – the Chairman most certainly doesn’t!

I started building a framework based on the type of players that I had within my squad so all the wingers had the same schedule, all the experienced midfielders had the same schedule etc. etc. Although it works in most cases it doesn’t work in all cases. If I learnt one thing from Football Manager 2009 it is that training schedules/frameworks aimed at a group of players are a thing of the past. The best effects can be found from training your players individually, I’ll trademark it as the ‘Ultimate Ledley King Training schedule’ I think! Training players as a group assumes that all the players assigned to a schedule are equal in terms of progression, believe me they’re not!

With tactics the key is to set Individual instructions as much as possible with team instructions as a fall back. But I’ve been caught out by trying to be too clever and leaving gaping holes trying to play to all my players’ strengths (or at this level, lack of them). I found out that the cleverer you try to get with tactics results in only outsmarting yourself.

Scouting has been much more fun this year, I’m now judging my players on the number of stars they have rather than how big their Current and Potential abilities are. Without buying vast amounts of players I’ve been blooding my 16 year olds from the youth team to negate the players in poor form rather than looking for a quick buy or trawling through the free transfers. Getting a big club as my parent club and them deciding who they are going to send me on loan was an eye opener, you’d think they’d send their highly rated youngsters out on loan to you but beware I got caught out by them sending me a couple of duds!

One thing I’ve been repeatedly guilty of in the past is being too competitive. If I go on a run of five or six games without winning I’ll usually either resign or start a new game mainly because I think I’ve failed. Recently I’ve just ended a thirteen game winless streak and boy did it feel great. Not once did I think about quitting this time, I knew the run had to end at some point and it was just about keeping my players spirits up and keep driving for a result. Playing with a team in this position is great because instead of playing 38 games and winning the league, every game is like a cup final. I’m expected to lose most of the matches anyway so as long as my team go out there and make a fist of it then everyone is happy.

All I need to do now is find a way of making a lower league team profitable when there are no Middle Eastern businessmen on the horizon!!

A couple of days ago Miles released a blog, discussing new features that have been placed into this years FM data editor. The data editor is part of the game that most people who buy the game won’t be too interested in, the data editor is used by many for two reasons 1) the most obvious, cheating. 2) to make your own data update, taking control of the summer transfers during times when SI are distracting developing their latest installments. But the interesting thing is these new developments that have been made in the data editor will now allow us add our own leagues & nations as well as teams. The latest FM-View podcast with Jordan touched on the potential goldmine that the FM community is currently sat on, can is this latest data editor become a free resource in the ability to print money?

Now firstly the FM community has been sitting on a potential business model for a while, the market maybe small but it is reasonable to make a quick buck for anyone who is able to tap into the market that is the size of roughly around a 1 million people globally at the moment and consists of more then just the community. FM sites have tried a businesses models before, SUSIE and FMG have both tried out a premium membership models. But in truth the premium model lacks value to the actual consumer, who cares when they get the download straight from the site or a mirror? As long as they are getting it for free surely they won’t see much added value in getting it directly from a server. It is a model that is produced from these sites mainly to cover any costs of running the site and all claim that money doesn’t fall into the personal bank accounts of those involved. But these models also rely on having a member base that is prepared to pay for this the premium account and come back on a regular basis. SUSIE have a  current membership of 51,186 and is one of the most active sites on the web, but even SUSIE have a small percentage of people paying a monthly subscription.

For those sites that have been producing products for the Football Manager community for so long have been doing so  for the love of what they are doing, a hobby. But why shouldn’t a hobby be used as a profit making scheme? Some of the best businesses men and women have started out turning something they love into a money making. Alot of these guys on the community have talent, plying their early traits and developing skills and sometimes careers within the community. Creating an environment where these graphics can be downloaded and paid for at a click of a button could be key in creating a business model that could work making the experience easy and simple. One of the key turns offs in internet retail is the complex way some websites setup their checkouts. The market is there and the demand for such developments in the game, again without doing in depth research into figures and talking to a few people I don’t know for sure, but surely this type of things has been modeled somewhere before. The one that comes to mind from the top of my head is EA’s The Sims, which has spawned a community of people who will produce items that you can dress your Sim with, decorate your house with or just admire within the front garden and many of these sites do charge for the privileged of downloading these products. If FM was only on a console we would be having to purchase Xbox of PS points to use as our currency to update to add on things in the game, such as maps if we were playing Call of Duty.

The community may rage up in arms about such a change in culture and the fact that they have to pay for something, but what iTunes and Spotify have shown in a competitive market is that it is possible to turn freely available (pirated) products in to money makers. But what we have to remember is there is a huge silent majority that come to these sites looking for such content who don’t make themselves known to the rest of the community. Taking what they want and leaving. I think that the pricing for downloads will be a minimal amount of money, something that an average young person can spend a percentage of their pocket money per download, some sites may want to include super packs for discounted prices.

But has Sports Interactive just opened up a new line of revenue for the community? The data editor surely is one of the biggest potential for profit, especially now that they have added the ability to add your own leagues to the game. Imagine the money that could be made on creating add-ons to the game that SI don’t currently allow you to do. One league that comes to mind straight away is the German league, a massive league that is currently left out of the game, (some work here for Q?). But then your own fantasy leagues, done with quality and with enough appeal can raise a decent revenue from like minded individuals that also might want to take control of a Premier League 1990/91 and see if this time they can take Liverpool to an extra point and win the league.

Much time and effort has been put into these sort of projects in the past and with the added incentives, such products will breed quality due to the laws of capitalism and competition. Market these right and you would see them sell pretty well. There is always  a demonstrated demand for data updates, we all know how picky any FM player is (even those not in the scene) and how much they want their FM database to be as update as possible, I have just seen Jason Manford requesting an update from Miles (but maybe that has alot to do with him being a Manchester City fan), surely it would not be unreasonable for the likes of FMupdates to get paid for their efforts? After all they are done with quality and alot of time and effort.

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.

Niniev is joined by JordanC of GameWorld One on this one!

Discussion about US football, FML and a bit of Scene and FM as well to keep the crowds happy!

I have lost count the amount of times I have restarted this game, but I thought that I would start one more St Helens FC game before I lock the 09 disk in the draw of forgotten games, then I most probably will start it all over again for FM2010. I do enjoy starting with a blank canvas seeing if I can compete with the power houses of the Premier League on a modest budget, demanding Russian chairman and a non-existent Premiership reputation. Building a squad that then you feel is yours and a relationship builds between your virtual team.

St Helens is back and at FM-View, for the next two months at least. Hopefully now with a little more experience of 09 I will be able to put that to good use in order to pick out the best players in the game and a chance to win a cup or two, but I won’t be holding my breath as this game does take time before success comes about and I have had limited amount of time this year to get to grips with this great game.

So setting up the game it is basically down to have some realistic aims for this game, the first being avoiding the drop, my first attempt at the game the bugs in the database and the FM game meant that it can be hard to set up finances within the game that actually with translate when playing, it is simply not a case of sticking in millions and millions into the balance. Instead a fine balance needs to be found which I haven’t found just yet in setting the balance and the transfer budget within the editor. These bugs put the club in a financial spiral and administration giving me docked points and sending me down before  an investor saved the day to help us compete in the Championship.

I am looking for big names that can fit into the Premiership straight away to keep up a float, as obviously there is no time for players to sit around developing, they will be thrown into the deep of a relegation battle, meaning gelling quickly is a must. Mixture of old and young will be needed to give balance to the squad and a little depth to cope with injuries, not an easy challenge with only weeks before the first game against my supported team Liverpool FC, an easy game to introduce ourselves to the Premiership. So the first major move will obviously be for a scout that will help me make any important decisions.

At the start of the game I have a players in mind the first one being my biggest target.

David Beckham

We all know that Becks has still got what it takes to play at the highest levels in the European game, he might not have pace he might not be getting any younger. But has he ever been any of these two things? with amazing technical skills, able to take free kicks and cross the ball to within a blade of grass he will be an ideal starting point for this ambitious project. if I am manage to persuade such a big player to the club it will make a moment of intent and bring a very good captain into the club early to drive the team on.

Davide Santon

There hasn’t been a game that I haven’t bought him, even when I started at AC Milan he was one of the first players I ever bought, making the unpopular move from Inter. Even at 17 he is still a good starter for any lower Premier League side giving much in terms attacking spirit when playing as a forward as well as a defending the same position when as upon with his pace, skill and ability to cross a ball.

Vincent Enyeama

It is so important to get someone between the sticks that will give the defense confidence, a good keeper can save 12 valuable points a season, the difference between going up and down. The Nigerian is still a youngster so he will be a good place to start with trying to build a defense.

Other targets include Palacios, Riquelme and Buonanotte.

So with the team ready and setup a player yet to sign, it will be a exciting two game months.

One thing we’ll definitely not see in Football Manager is the addition of Streakers. Not only would it be pointless but only Hentai fans would get excited at the prospect of computer generated boobs! Whilst not a regular occurrence every weekend the fact that most streakers are overweight, middle aged men would quite frankly scare most young children that play Football Manager.

An old feature that used to be in the game was complaining about the referee. From what I remember there’s an agreement in place between the Professional Game Match Officials and Sports Interactive that means we can play with proper referees in the game on the condition we can’t complain about them. Now if Referees and their assistants were given the tools to do a half decent job week in, week out we wouldn’t moan at them every weekend and then the Professional Game Match Officials wouldn’t need to run scared from a computer game.

Thanks to rival studios having exclusive licenses we won’t be seeing the J-League anytime soon in Football Manager. Whilst I agree with the concept of having licensed content I hate exclusive licenses.  Surely someone must have realised now that restricting licensed content to a console game when you could license it to games which are played  predominately on a PC can exist together? For this reason as well don’t expect to be able to have the German National Team playable soon either.

Due to the world we live in today, don’t expect failed drugs tests or the return of potentially life threatening injuries to the Football Manager series. Because people take how they can be perceived too seriously these days and will threaten to sue anyone that paints them in a negative light, Sports Interactive won’t be adding these to the game in the future. It really does annoy me that people can’t get to grips that whilst Football Manager may be based on reality it isn’t! The fact that with time, dedication and some serious cheating you can make Accrington Stanley champions of the Premiership. Drugs tests and the bans that follow are a reality of football (Armstrong, Bowyer, Pagotto, Ferdinand, Mutu & Kenny being case in point). If a virtual Lionel Messi fails a drugs test and is banned in game then so be it – it’s a game for christs sake!

Another thing which reflects badly on those involved and is another contentious point is Hooliganism. Although not as prevalent as it once was it’s still around not only in England but also in other countries. I can’t see clubs allowing their image and name being used in game only for a 3D replication of 1,000 fans invading the pitch and ripping out seats. Whilst it would be great to see your finances suffer from the ensuing repairs and fines and having to play behind closed doors, I don’t think SI/Sega would be so happy to see their finances suffer when the legal action starts!

The other things that always get mentioned that people would like to see are becoming a Director of Football or starting off as an assistant manager. Whilst I can understand the reasoning behind it for the most part it would be like being an international manager. You only concentrate on doing some of the job some of the time. Surely that’s taking the fun out of the game?

Other ‘shouts’ for features to be included are becoming chairman, Wags, buying a house, setting the ticket price, selling concessions in the stadium. If some can explain fully when any of the following have been part of Football Manager’s job then I’ll accept they are valid additions to the game. To me they are pointless side shows designed to keep occupied when the rest of the game is shit.

If you can think of anything which I haven’t mentioned then feel free to comment below