As FM fans there is one thing we all have in common, one thing that takes us to the internet (unless you are dodgy and have the RTE) searching for, wonderkids. The young whipper-snappers that can make the difference to our teams in the years to come.

Wonderkids are like gold dust on many of the FM games of the past, but with the invent of the real-time editors lists can be found across the web from all and sundry, but how do you know which ones are any good? That’s were we come in.

I used to spend hours finding lists and scouting every player on their to then find that i was looking at a list of ‘Wonderkids for the Championship’ or like, so now, with my headache of the past in mind I have put together the ultimate list of wonderkids.

Whether you are looking for the best young stars of England, cheapo’s, foreigners or conference players they are all on this page, you will never need to go anywhere else to find wonderkids, star players and must buys for your team ever again.

Football Manager 2013 Wonderkids: Ultimate List (link)

This is a great list of over 200 wonderkids for FM 2013 from Aid the Boss. A cracking collection containing most of the ‘obvious’ choice wonderkids and some players that would suit mid-lower premier league teams, it contains everything from name, age, club, country and value at the start of the game.

Star player form the list: Kurt Zouma

List rating: 4/5

Ideal list for: Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle

Football Manager 2013 Wonderkids and Young Talents (link)

A very comprehensive list of FM wonderkids from True Football Manager, you can find everything here from decent Championship signings all the way up to superstar Champions League winners, my favourite and most used list which also has  all the key ingredients for finding the player on the game as well as some idea of wages.

Star player form the list: Luke Shaw

List rating: 5/5

Ideal list for: Everyone from low-level Championship teams to the best teams in the world.

250+ Football Manager 2013 Wonderkids (link)

A good-looking list from FM Scout, a good selection of players but only really useful for the best teams in the World, I feel there is also some TOP quality obvious English talents that are missing from the list, i.e Will Hughes and Luke Shaw, both 5 star Premier League players after several seasons. There is some great players on the list though that some others haven’t picked up on.

Star player form the list: Raheem Stirling

List rating: 3.5/5

Ideal list for: Mainly top teams but the odd ‘bottom half’ signing about.

250+ Bargain Buys (link)

Another decent list from the guys over at FM Scout, presented as well as the others but I feel this is more useful than most as its very well researched, bargain buys for FM 13 are harder to find. Its a decent list, would be nice if it was presented in a way that ‘filtered’ out unrealistic targets for those in leagues above or below the players’ expectations.

Star player form the list: Felipe Anderson

List rating: 4/5

Ideal list for: Just about everyone.

Football Manager Wonderkids Shortlist 425+ (link)

This is a good list from My Passion for Football Manager, it does require a download to see the whole lot but you can upload that straight into your game so the shortlist is on the game, no need to copy and paste for a few hours! It’s also great for finding the perfect player match as it breaks up players into playing personalities, I.E Ball Winning Midfielders. The only problem I see with this bunch is the presentation for those who don’t want to download the FM 13 Wonderkids Shortlist, the formatting isn’t the best.

Star player form the list: Sime Vrsalijko

List rating: 4.5/5

Ideal list for: Everyone, especially if you’re looking for a gem of a particular playing personality

250+ Best Free Players on FM 2013 (link)

Another list from the guys over at FM Scout, though I rarely use this type of player I’m sure there is a few of you out there who have a bigger interest than me, looks a good list and I can see a few cracking signings who I will definitely be checking out next time I start a new game.

Star player form the list: Roysten Drenthe

List rating: 4/5

Ideal list for: Lower league teams and teams with zero budgets (Liverpool)

Football Manager 2013 best wonderkids list (link)

For me this is the best list out there, its comprehensive, it offers so much more depth that enables anyone with a little time to see what the player looks like in a few season in to the future. Kudos to Darren Smith for putting this together, it must have taken weeks to perfect it. There isn’t much more to say really, this is THE place to be for finding, researching and signing players for any team, in any league.

Star player form the list: Kevin Volland

List rating: 5/5

Ideal list for: Everyone

400+ 2013 Wonderkids (link)

A nice little list from FM-Indo.blogspot. Fairly comprehensive and contains a LOT of players that are not picked up on any other list, its a brilliant resource for mid-table clubs and those on a tight budget. Can’t fault the list though I wonder if missing out a lot of ‘big names’ is intentional or not.

Star player form the list: Moritz Leitner

List rating: 4/5

Ideal list for: Something for everyone here, from lower leagues to CL winners.

Best Of FM 2013 Wonderkids and Young Talents 500+ (link)

A really good list of players from all across the globe, though I do feel that there is a few missing from the English leagues which is normally a staple diet for me, fairly good collection with something for most but like all of the above, what is lacking is some kind of segmentation for those looking for a particular ‘level’ of player, Championship, League 1 for example. Has everything needed to find the players you want quickly.

Star player form the list: Granit Xhaka

List rating: 3.5/5

Ideal list for: Loads of players with some uniques in there too, something for all.

The Ultimate Wonderkids Shortlist For FM13 (link)

A good little list of a couple of hundred names, there is some good picks in there but some that you wont be able to find unless you have some not so popular leagues activated on your database, you do need to download the list though, there is no mention of it online at all.

Star player form the list: Nick Powell

List rating: 3/5

Ideal list for: Plenty to choose from for everyone

Best French Wonderkids

Italian Wonderkids on FM 13

English Wonderkids and Must Buys

Spanish Wonderkids

Best Brazilian Wonderkids

Top Wonderkid Strikers

 Putting an end to the post…

Well thats it, we couldn’t find any other lists online that offered any value to you guys so thats the end of it.

There will no doubt be a lot of duplicates within the lists above but just pick and choose the ones that suit your current team and transfer policies best, for me the wonderkids list by Darren Smith is the best by a long way, check it out, the work that went in to it is ridiculously complex and you will definitely find some players on there that you would have never seen or heard of before.

Get involved, if you have any lists to add to this let us know using the comments below.

My aim with this save was simple, to do things I have never done.

So first up my standard variations on the 4-2-3-1 formations were ditched, in its place stood 2 fresh 4-3-3 alternatives with one being 3 narrow strikers, the other being 3 wide. Something that I had never done.

Next up in my big change, my transfer policy.

Usually I am a creature of habit, buying a selection of players all the time and adding a sprinkling of fresh faces along the way, not this time, this time I was going for the 1 or 2 big signings, world class players that would change the game, consistently.

All I can say is wow, I never knew that a measly team like Arsenal could attract such players and win what I did within a couple of seasons.

Before I tell you who I have in my lineup, let me tell you what has happened.

I’m in 2016 and already at the top of the manager hall of fame, last season I won every trophy possible and went the whole season unbeaten, in every competition.

I won the charity shield, the league cup, club world championship, champions league, FA cup, premiership and the super cup. A clean-sweep and a first for me and only the second time in my FM history that I got the ‘invincible’ achievement.

To do that, this was my starting line-up for the season.

Just to note, all the players were bought fair and square, there was no ‘tinkering’.

Sczesny

Caravjal   Varane   Koscielny   Santon

L Bender   Fabregas

Wilshere

Sharaawy           Neymar          C Ronaldo

Bench:  Sakho, Shaw, Ramsey, Bale, Lewandowksi, Falcao

Never in my FM career have I signed the likes of Fabregas and Ronaldo.

Never would I spend £31m on a right back or £110m on Ronaldo when you can pick up others with better potential for 10% of the cost.

And never in my career had I signed Lionel Messi, who has just signed on the dotted line of a 450k a week contract to come to Arsenal at the end of my third season. I had to pay him £275 a week for 5 games then bump his wages to 450k and offer him top-wack on everything else to get him to come.

My biggest realisation with this was the fact that I could actually afford these players at Arsenal, yes my funds are going down by £11m a month, but my ‘normal’ teams still lose 75% of that so whats the difference.

The one thing that is clear though, is the game really does favour these legends of our modern game. So far in my 4th season, after dropping Jack to MC and playing Messi at AMC, I am yet to concede a goal in 10 games and have put 45 goals away. Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar are truly astonishing.

One thing that does have to be said is that Arsenal actually have a good foundation to build a team like this and although nearly every player was bought over months, the funds were not hard to raise.

With players like Podolski, Giroud, Walcott, Cazorla, Vermaelen, Mertersacker and many more being easy to sell at £20m+ and the likes of Park, Bendtner, Denilson etc on high wages in the reserves, its easy to terminate contracts to raise wage budgets and make astronomical amounts of money from sales.

In my second summer, I spent £186m on 4 players, but sold £163m worth of talent, 18 players.

Give it a try, stop bartering over a few mil here and there, stop buying bargains and players with potential, buy the big names now and have a play. It really opens your eyes to the difference between a player with 5 start potential and one playing at that level already.

How this will end I don’t know, I’ve won it all with this team and although it was enlightening to see the constant big-name signings come in to the club, the long procession of regens is likely to start a takeover soon.

I must say though, this game has been enjoyable, its opened up a new chapter in my FM book that I didn’t realise was possible and one that will be an exciting prospect come Football Manager 2014.

Until now.

Or, well, I suppose in the rest of the world it is. But I’m most decidedly not a guy, and I’ve become sucked into FM13. Having owned the game for about six months now, I’ve played through a few times…and I fail pretty dismally. I have a tendency to lose more matches than I win in particular, which I blame on FM13 being very complicated and my lack of understanding about football tactics (and football in general). Hardly surprising when you consider that I only got into football about six months ago, and that was because of FM. So I’d like to ask for help from all of you, to help me make it to the end of a season without losing more games than I win… and to keep me from being fired within the first two seasons! It’d be a first for me! Comment below and help me out, I need it!

I’ve just started a new career using the 13.3.3 database, and working at Fulham in the English Premier League.

First thing to do in a new club is to go look at the squad (after the obligatory meetings and before the press conference).  It looks like I’ve got a strong striker, attacking midfield left, attacking midfield right and centre defender. So my tactic is going to have to be fairly attacking then, using wingers or inside forwards.

My senior team also seems to have a couple of still developing and very promising players: Kerim Frei and Alexander Kacniklic (both AMRs) and Emmanuel Frimpong (a DM/CM on loan from Arsenal).

In the reserve and youth teams, there are a couple of promising players. By far, the kid with the most promise is my 15 year old goal keeper from Swaziland. Other than him, there’s Mousa Dembele (15 year old striker) and Cauley Woodrow (17 year old striker). There’s a few others showing 3.5 stars in my reserve team, but these are the three to watch.

Question number one for you guys then: how do you decide who to keep in a reserve/U18 team? I’m tempted to go through and just cull anyone with a potential of less than 2.5 stars, maybe even 3. Is that a bad idea, even when I’m working off a decent AM with 17 in JP?

So the board offered me a budget of 778 000 for wages, and 4 million for transfers. 5 million isn’t going to get me anywhere on the transfer market, I have to say. Not when it looks like I’ll need at least one back-up poacher and two decent midfielders since Steve Sidwell has prefered player moves that kind of screw up his BWM/DLP stats and Giorgas Kangounis (my AP) has PPMs that are awkward to say the least (dwells on ball and argues with referee). Question number 2, then: how important are the PPMs? Would you run Steve Sidwell as a BWM/DLP, even when he has the PPMs of an AP? Or should I sell him on and look for someone better?

But before I start fiddling with the transfer market, let’s take a look at the rest of the set up. First step, to completely revamp the staff. Every time I open a FM13 game, I’m appalled at the level of the staff there. I hope it’s not a real life reflection of the people who are working in these clubs…

So, first up is a new Assistant Manager. Although Michael Lindeman is a pretty good AM, I don’t like him because he has pretty crap JA and JP stats and some shaky man management skills. Also, as a fitness trainer, he’s just rendering my second fitness coach useless to the Senior and Reserve teams. Although given who I eventually decide to go with, that last one is a bit of a moot point.

Tord Grip is a great AM with one glaring weakness…he is a crap coach. Seriously. I can get 3.5 stars out of him in Tactics, and that’s it.  But he fits the bill for everything else except motivating (but by all accounts, no AM ever gets the motivating talks right anyway…). What do you look for in an AM?

I changed every other staff member, except for my Chief Scout (who is vastly overpaid but I’m struggling to find decent scouts so I can’t afford to release him) and one of the Goalkeeping coaches. All I’m finding, incidentally, is English scouts, mostly with poor adaptability. There’s only one or two non-English scouts with JP/JA stats above 15, and I have to pay through the nose for them. Plus, I simply cannot find a decent tactical coach willing to talk to me. My best find is a 3.5 star guy for my main team and a 4 star for my youth team. I guess I’ll have to send him on a coaching course asap…  With all the shuffling, I still managed to reduce my staff budget by about £4000 p/w, which will reduce the drain on finances.

Right, that’s about long enough for the opening set up, I think. Next time I’ll look at the transfer window, although any suggestions you’d like to make now will surely be of great help!!!

I’ve got £ 5.1m to spend, plus whatever I can get for Simon Davies (£1 mil) and maybe Hugo Rodellega (£3.4 mil) (so about £ 9.5 mil in total), and I need four players: two in midfield to cover D.L.P/A.P/BWM roles and a striker to cover the Poacher role (and a second to cover D.L.F if I sell on Rodellega). Alternatively, since of my three tactics only one calls for 2 strikers and my top two strikers can work in a Complete Forward role), do you think I need to have two back-ups or can I get away with one?

I’ve got one last questions before I sign off…. Was anyone else having the same problems as me with finding appropriate tutors. It seems like every club I load has all its best players with inappropriate PPM’s for the role, rendering them all but useless as tutors out of fear they’ll pass on the PPM (and because they’re getting on in age, they’re really reluctant to unlearn something).

Thanks for the help!

The amount of free stuff on the net, blogs giving you advice and lists for this that and the other can be daunting, especially when you don’t know who to trust or are just starting out with FM.

So we have cut the wheat from the chaff and put together the ultimate cheat-sheet for you.

The one big bug-bear with FM is the lack of imagery, be it player faces, badges or league images, they are all lacking and for many it’s a big problem so there is no better place to start than that.

Note: We are in no way associated to any of the websites we recommend, we just think the content we have linked to is the best online for that category.

Face-packs

Talk to anyone about face-packs for Football Manager and they will probably tell you to get the DF11 mega-pack from FM Scout, it’s the best out there by far, only problem is its size. At over 5GB it can be daunting and cumbersome to newbies trying to keep a ‘clean’ laptop.

Another notable mention is the ‘Cut out player faces mega-pack‘ from Sortitoutsi.net, there’s almost twice the amount of faces compared to the FM Scout version, but it also a bigger download. For no reason whatsoever I have always used the FM Scout version, not to say it’s better, just personal preference.

You can get the DF11 face-pack here or the Sortitoutsi.net version here, but for those who want a smaller, tighter download area covering a league or two then your best bet is to read on.

You can’t really go wrong with Sortitoutsi.net for face-packs and their section dedicated to single club face-pack downloads is second to none, if you just want to get the faces of your team, this is the place for you.

FM-base is also fairly good for face-packs, especially for single clubs or leagues. There are a couple of not-so-good packs thrown in so just look at the comments before you download, there’s loads of packs here.

Team badges

Though I’m sure you would be able to find some real good team badge packs over at Sort it out SI and FM Scout I have never gone further than the offering from Aid the boss.

The badges are clean, crisp and fit in to the game perfectly. This pack also contains every badge/icon for every team on the game, it’s a fairly big download, but its well worth it.

You can download the pack here.

I’m not going to recommend anyone else’s packs, there is no doubt some good ones, but I only use this one so it’s the only one I can vouch for.

Theme-skins

The world is your oyster for skins, there’s thousands about and everyone will like what they like so its difficult to recommend individual skins, but here is the one I use, it’s a fairly dark model from Football Manager Story.

You can pretty much find whatever you like, just beware with some skins not working with certain patches especially if you are using the latest updates, they will nearly all work but some will have some gnarly positioning if they are older models.

FM Scout have a really good index of potential themes, most are just colour changes, but there is certainly a lot to choose from on this page.

Theres plenty more skins here and here, from Sortitoutsi.net and truefootballmanager.com respectively.

How to install this shizz

Just a quick note, if you’re downloading all these packs for the first time, you are going to need to install them.

Unfortunately it’s not as easy as uploading to the game (there’s one for you SI), you have to actually place the files in the right place within the games’ folders. It sounds complicated, but its fine if you have the right guide showing you how, I nicked most of this from True Football Manager, thanks dude.

• Download the file.
• Unpack the download archive file via WinZip, 7-Zip, or WinRar ignoring warning messages.
• Go to My Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2013/Graphics
• If there is no “Graphics” folder, create one.
• Put the now un-archived files into the “Graphics” subfolder.
• Load up the game, go to settings/preferances and set “Use caching to decrease page loading times” to “Off “
• Then set “Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences” to “On”

You’re done, once reloaded this should put all the new images in to the game.

Player lists

For the player list section I am only going to recommend one for each category, there are literally hundreds to choose from and each one contains thousands of players, most of which are duplicated so you would just be getting the same lists with a few additions each time.

So, the lists I recommend offer the biggest and best collection of players while also offering the most accurate and most diverse player-profiles.

Best players

Now, I realise that ‘best players’ is relative to what team you’re using so rather than give you a huge list that you would have no idea of who fits what team and you spending days scouting the players to find that you are not worthy of his services, these two suggestions have taken the statement literally.

The first selection from Football Manager Story is a great resource, it literally shows you the best 200+ players in the game according to in-game ability. So these are literally, the best players on the game, here’s the link.

The second ‘list’ is one of our own, it isn’ a best players list like the above, its a free e-book that we put together fairly recently that identifies 12 players that perform better than Messi. They don’t have stats better or better star ratings, they just perform this week in week out on the pitch and most will go to ANY top-flight team in Europe. Here’s the link.

Free players

You can’t go in to any game on FM without checking out who is available on a free transfer, every team from CL winners to semi-pro teams are in need of free transfers and there is some great finds to be had.

Because of that, there’s hundreds of these lists about but IMO, this is the best one.

It’s another list from FM Scout, they’re shit-hot aint they!?

You can get your hands on it here.

Lower league players

If you, unlike me, like the challenge of taking on lower league teams there can be a lack of information and resources around for you to find the players that suit your expectations in that division.

I have found a couple that look pretty good and the players they recommend are certainly awesome in the lower-leagues.

Heres a great guide from Football Manager Story, you can skip over the first half of the page unless you need some help setting up the databases.

I also saw this small collection of players, but after scouting them, they’re great finds that will certainly perform well in the lower leagues.

Wonderkids lists

We have covered the collection of wonderkids’ lists loads over here and to be honest, that is a great place to find some wonderkids, theres thousands of them on that page.

But if you had to push me on one list that is the best around, I would definitely say this one from True Football Manager.

Formations

Formations are a huge consideration, especially when you’re trying to fit all these new awesome players in straight away and still get some results.

I tend to stick to the same 2 formations but have a 3rd ‘winger’ tactic that is something new and out of the box, take my current 1-2-1-3-1-2 formation for example!

I know a lot of you out there like playing around with formations more than me and some of you have even published some awesome results online, these are available for download if you’re interested and I reckon this and this are your best option.

Optional extras

We’re pretty much there, you are all set and now have the best collection of downloadable content available online but I just wanted to give you one quick nudge towards our e-book, which gives you all the strategy you need to win every single penalty shootout on any FM game.

It’s here and well worth a look, especially if you are in lots of finals!

It’s a rhetorical question, please don’t answer with “my sisters undies”.

But really, the hours you spend in front of your PC or Laptop deserve to be comfortable, I’m a baggy shirt and tracky bottoms kind of guy, my lappy gets hot so I can’t be flexing no shorts.

I was looking online earlier this week for some Football Manager clothing and couldn’t find any at all, which, for a moment lead me to think “what a shame I fancied some new threads for lounging about playing Fm” but then I decided to launch my own t-shirts instead.

Check out what I came up with, what do you think?

^ Only available in black ^

We are launching our first range of T’s at a special introductory price of £12.99, we only have 100 of each shirt so get in quick if you want one.

To buy one just use the Paypal checkout button at the bottom of this page, job done.

If you want your own FM-related slogan, wording or image on any of our current shirts or want to create your very own, drop me an email and I will get it made for you. Make sure you get in touch first though before you buy.

This is all very new and we can be totally flexible, so if you want a different colour shirt, long sleeve or even an embroidered model email me at lucasmaynardschooll@yahoo.com and I will get it sorted for you, the embroidered ones are more expensive though.

Printing and delivery is fairly quick but please give it 14 working days to be sure.

In little over 4 weeks we have had an astonishing 5,620 responses and if you took part, thanks a bunch!

We thought it would be selfish of us to keep the results to ourselves so here we go, lets see what you lot had to say.

The first question in the survey was “What is your overall opinion of Football Manager 2013?”

The responses matched our opinion of the game really, 43% said the game was “pretty good” and 39% answered that the game was “awesome”.

Importantly for SI, only 6% believed the game was the “best one ever”, which when you consider the game was the best-selling version of the game ever, isn’t the best feedback.

Interestingly though, not one single respondent said the game was “very poor”.

What does this tell us?: FM 2013 was by far the biggest selling version of the game in its existence, more people are buying it that ever so surely each one should be better than the last? Guess not, in my opinion 2012 is the best version in a long time and it seems everyone else isn’t too far behind those thoughts.

The second question in the survey was designed to understand the age range of the respondents.

The largest proportion of which were 22-29 years old which was more than double of that in any other age range.

What does this tell us?: Some people and some FM bloggers around at the moment believe FM is only a game for younger-heads, kids who need their parents to buy the game for them, it certainly is not. The majority (large) of our 5,620 respondents were between the ages of 22 and 29, couple that with the fact most people are playing the game ‘most days’ it seems the average FM player is a working man. That’s certainly the case in my experience.

Thirdly we asked “What ‘stature’ of team do you usually manage in your first season?”

We felt this was an important question to ask, though not relevant to much other than ‘how people play the game’ we thought it important.

The results of this question was fairly unexpected by us, we assumed that most people would be taking over at ‘top 6′ teams but the majority (28%) of our visitors were taking over mid-table teams in their first game on Football Manager 2013.

Only 8% of people take over the ‘best teams in the league’, with 7% taking over at the helm of ‘relegation battlers’.

What does this tell us?: You could be forgiven for thinking that people would follow their off-game support of football teams with their first club in-game but this doesn’t seem to be ringing true.  With only 8% of people taking over one of the best teams in the league, it seems we FM prefer a challenge over our loyal support.

The fourth question in our survey was designed to understand the credentials of our respondents.

“How long have you been playing the Football Manager series?”

By far the biggest response, over 54% was from people who had been playing FM ‘since Champ-man days’ which really added some authority to the answers we were getting.

What does this tell us?: This is a crucial question for the credibility of our answers, more than 54% of the people who got involved in our survey have been playing the game since Championship Manager days. In combination with some other answers you can start to see a loyal fan-base maybe turning slightly sour with the way the game is progressing.

Fifth in the survey was “How often do you play Football Manager?”

Only 3 answers were really used with this question, 94% of the respondents either played FM every day (27%), most days (41%) or a few times a week (26%).

The 6th question was by far the most important for our survey, it signifies what the real experts of the game think could change, the question was:

“What changes would most improve Football Manager 2014?”

Lots of the answers on the list were popular, with “Improve youth training – give ability to ‘mould’ young players” being the most popular, 69% of respondents wanted to see changes in this area of the game.

The second most popular answer was ”Improve youth training – give ability to ‘mould’ young players” with 67% of respondents thinking it would be a worthy addition.

Other notable answers included improving scout accuracy, giving the manager more control over sponsorship deals and to give the manager the ability to spend his/her personal earnings in-game. All of which were wanted by between 50-55% of the respondents.

Question 7 was designed to understand the buyer behaviours and the anticipation of Football Manager 2014, this, along with the first question gives us a realistic barring on the real-success of the game.

We asked “When will you buy Football Manager 2014?”

The answers were split across a few results but the bulk of people were either going to buy the game “as soon as it is available for pre-order” or on “the day it is released”. These made up 56% of the answers.

Question 8 was “Not including in-game issues, what is your biggest frustration with the FM series? “

A lot of the answers to this question were popular but the biggest concern was users getting bored and needing to start multiple games, 22% of respondents had the same issue.

This has to be a big concern for the game makers and I can say that I agree, I find myself getting bored after a few seasons because the game becomes ruled by regens. I know they are a necessity in the games longevity but there is ways and means of extending the life-span of any given game. For me the best way to do this would be to build a proper Youth Development structure, where you could recruit kids as young as 10, because these regens would have been developed by you, they wouldn’t be as detrimental to the future annoyance of them taking over.

For question 9 we wanted to understand what information people look for online, this was mainly so we could make sure we had that information on the site for you, the question was:

“What information do you look/search for online about Football Manager?”

Turns out you all want to see information on the best players and downloads, go figure!

The final question was ”How many of your friends play FM?”

This was a bit of a wildcard really, I have several friends that play FM but its a fairly ‘solo’ game so we wanted to know if it was the same for everyone else.

Over 28% of you have ’2 or 3′ friends that play FM, snap! Seems we are more alike than you might think.

I’m sure you are drawing your own conclusions about what this information means for the game, for SI and for the forthcoming 2014 release but what other things can we learn about FM based on these results?

For example, when you combine the age groups and the fact people play ‘most days’ more than any other result, you can safely say that most FM players work full-time.

You can also assume that because the majority prefer a challenge over team-loyalty they, in most cases, will need to find online help and guidance to find the players that suit the team they have chosen rather than knowing that already.

Do you have any conclusions? Let’s talk below.

Boost what you already have!

If you’ve already got a desktop or laptop that you’re fairly happy with but just want to give it a little boost to cope with the rigours of FM there are a few things you can do to improve the performance.

For smoother graphics on a desktop try upgrading your graphics card. My best buy would be this Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 660, that’s a great price for the high level of performance you’ll see. If you have a laptop I’m afraid the only viable upgrades are a Solid State Hard drive to make load times quick and extra ram if your programmes are bogging down, that’s about all you can do I’m afraid.

Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive Full Upgrade Kit
Komputerbay 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 SODIMM (204 pin) 1333Mhz PC3 10600 8 GB Laptop Memory

Laptop or Desktop?

Probably the most important decision to make when buying a computer is; do I need a laptop or desktop? It comes down to your needs and your funds. Personally I’ve gone for a desktop pc as my powerhouse for Football Manager and other games but I have a laptop for work and surfing in the garden.

Some people prefer to just buy a laptop capable of both. The advantage is that you’ve probably saved money compared to having to have both and you’ll have more space at home. The advantage to a desktop is that you can get much more power for your buck, you can expand it and you can change components (almost) at your heart’s content.

Laptops

There is such a vast array of laptops available these days that it’s hard to spot a good deal and even harder to know whether what you’re buying is any good. Here are three options all capable of running FM14 but some better than others.

The Budget Option

£330 for an i5 laptop is in itself awesome.

Okay it’s possibly not everyone’s idea of a budget Laptop but if you can fork out the extra view quid it’s worth it. In my opinion £200 laptops aren’t worth looking at, they’re slow and outdated quickly and won’t get you the full FM experience, after-all that is the only reason to own a computer isn’t it?.

This Fujitsu is a very good deal and, while it may look dull, a very good laptop.

The Lifebook will run Football Manager 2013 and I’d expect it to run FM2014 too. Don’t expect the matches to run on high superbly but that i5 will handle the games’ CPU needs admirably.

Heres the best place to check out the spec and prices.

The Middle Option

£634 for i7 and dedicated graphics, bargain!

It’s not a serious gaming machine but it will play games like Fifa to a good level. This would be my weapon of choice for Football Manager 2014 if I wasn’t sticking to desktops. It’s excellent value and powerful enough for most people’s needs.

Heres the best place to check out the spec and prices.

The Hardcore Gamers Option

Want your laptop to play FM 14 and make you sandwiches? Try this bad ass laptop out.

This laptop is the argument for buying a desktop for your gaming needs, sure it’s powerful but the equivalent desktop PC will be at least £2500 cheaper. If you have the dosh to buy one of these you truly won’t be disappointed though, lightening start-up and most games on Ultra graphics. If you want a gaming desktop computer though, my best advice is to keep reading…

One final point for those people asking: “Should I buy a Macbook?” Unless you have a beret on, thick rimmed glasses and a meat-sword up your orifice, no.

Desktops

Desktop pcs seem to be going out of fashion, at least as far as sales are concerned…it’s not true though. What’s really happening is that more and more people are realising that the only way to buy a desktop pc is to build one. Sales of motherboards and graphics cards are skyrocketing. It sounds complicated but quite honestly if you can manage lego blocks, you can manage this.

I’m not going to go into how to put a PC together, it’s simple and there are millions of guides out there already. These prices don’t include Windows, it’s up to your whether you want Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8. I’d go for Windows 8, it’s actually very good, people just like to moan about Windows.

The Budget Option

This little baby will only set you back £270 but is well capable of out-performing very high-spe shop-bought PC’s, here’s the components we recommend.

Fractal Design Core 1000
Palit 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 630
AMD Athlon II X4 651K 
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt
Asrock Socket FM1 A75M-HVS
Corsair CMX4GX3M1A1333C9 XMS3

The Middle Option

It’s not going to be as fast as the £3500 Gaming Laptop but it’ll probably be better than the mid-range laptop I chose and will certainly run most modern games on low at least. A definite FM14 PC. My tip would be to spend £30 quid on a CPU cooler and look into overclocking if you want a little more power too.

This lot will set you back £550, but what you get back is amazing performance and an ultimate desktop FM machine!

Zalman Z11 Plus Midi Tower Case
Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 650
Intel Core I5-3570 Processor
Western Digital 1TB internal Hard Drive
Corsair CX750 Builder Series CX 7
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (120mm)
Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Motherboard
Corsair CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9B 4GB

Make no mistake, this is a powerful PC, perfect for gaming and if you have any friends obsessed with Macs you can show them this and make them weep for their wasted money. The CPU might seem expensive but it’s worth it for a super-slick experience. This PC will play most games on high, and for all you console fans it’ll perform around the xbox one/PS4 mark, if not better.

The Ultimate Option

I’m not going to list the better pc’s you could build, the sky’s the limit really.  But I would personally recommend the above as a bench-mark then to upgrade using these parts if you so wished.

This will deliver much better graphics:

Asus Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 680 DirectCU II OC Graphics Card

FM will run smoother and your PC will run faster with these:

Intel Core i7 4770K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.50GHz, 8MB, Haswell, 84W, Intel Graphics, BX80646I74770K, 4th Generation Intel Core, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)

Asus Z87-PRO USB 3.0 Motherboard (4x DDR3, ATX, 2x PCI Express 3.0/2.0, Intel, Wi-Fi )

Your new FM PC will start at the speed of light with this little fella:

Crucial CT256M4SSD2 256GB M4 SATA III 6Gb/s MLC 2.5 Inch Internal SSD

And to add a final bit of class to your awesome new FM PC, you must buy one of these:

Fractal Design Define R4 PC Case – Black/Pearl

I hope this helps you choose a computer for playing FM14, in all honesty some of the suggestions were a bit silly but the more reasonable ones are ideal for avid FM fans.

Football Manager has managed to stop the clock, the calendar. Time has ceased to move on. Time has acquired its own sense of values, speed, dimension. Even though it is FM 2011, time has skirted through to 2019, and I am still with Wycombe Wanderers.

But, the grapevine has been greased and Football Manager 2014 is soon to be released, and this fanatic, curiously, cannot wait. But why? I have hopes and dreams of some improvements, though not comprehending the changes wrought in 2012 and 2013 – but notwithstanding, I have a few hopes for FM2014.

Now, football oriented minds far superior to mine have already waxed lyrical of their wants and needs and hopes for the new release. To expound upon these views would merely be re-hashing Santa’s Christmas list. But, yes, of course, I would love to see better and more in-depth team talks; individual player heart-to-hearts; training to make a real valid difference for players; and much more diverse questioning during press conferences.

But … I would love for FM2014 to be much more Aesthetically Pleasing ! (as well)

As someone who has taken Christopher Lloyd’s advice in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ to heart (“play the game, play the game”) – I always play the whole match through – love the match engine ! – I really feel it would be a gem if Sega sharpened up a wee bit in their visual area.

Introduction – Stadium – Walk On

In FM2011, match play begins directly from the kick-off. There are no close-ups of players nor introductions. I just feel it would be nice to see an opening scene outside the stadium, and then switch inside the park to the teams walking out onto the pitch, dissolving to a view of the opening line-ups, similar to the one we see whilst watching the telly. I believe it would be a neat lead in touch and one to really set up the match for those of us  who play the match engine all the way to see how our game plan works (or does not, for that matter – and attempt corrections during the match)

Shirt Numbers and Closeups

In FM2011, we are asked, as manager, to assign shirt numbers to each player – yet just what does this mean ? Not very much, I dare say ! We never see nary one numbered shirt during the match – they very rarely, if ever, come into play. I feel a close-up or two during stoppages in the match – a player scooting over to take a corner – the free kick specialist lingering over a 30 yarder – the goalkeeper brushing the snow flakes from his eyelashes on a cold January night – would add visually to the game. It would also give us a sighting of the shirt / team logo plus a name / number on the back.

Substitutions

Here, I believe, yet another area for visual improvement. In FM2011, we have to be eagle-eyed and very alert to be sure just when the opposition makes a substitution. It turns up on the bottom of the screen on the ticker tape – that is, if it is acknowledged at all. Subs are important ! And many times I have been caught out unawares – the other side may have already made all three of their changes. I feel it would be good, and sensible, to show us the change. For instance, one player coming off over to the bench, and replaced (with a handshake) by the player coming on, and on the screen the numbers and names of the players thus affected should also be shown. This way, we who watch the entire match engine, will know the exact point of the change, and can adjust and adapt immediately, if need be.

Press

I would like to see a visual press conference. That is, the manager standing at the podium with various news-hounds in attendance. We could point at each of them for their questions and they would be recognised as either local/national/international from either newspaper/radio/television media. Their questioning would be much more in-depth and diverse than it is now. We would have a much larger range of answers for them as well. As of now, we have the very same BOOORRRRRINGGG questions asked yet again and again and yet again. We need more variety and some strange and some in-your-face stumping questions, where we, as manager, can get ourselves into real hot water if we are not careful. In response, it would be brilliant to actually see the headline and the story connected on the ‘sports pages,’ or even the video in the ‘sports tv news’ clip.

This would add more options, more fun, more explaining for us as manager, and more interest in the game itself. It would also accomplish the fact of making press conferences much more fun, have much more meaning, and add more interest to the game, than the present press conference options have at the moment.

Fan Chants

Ok, technically, this does not fall under a visual improvement, but still, I feel, this improvement in the audio portion would be, yes, aesthetically pleasing. Would it not be grand to have the fans singing the club songs and chanting the player’s names? FM2011 sees no players ever fall into the fan’s bad books (not during the match) It would be much more interesting if the fans put some pressure on the player in the match, maybe boo someone in disfavour, and, yes, perhaps even get on the manager’s case too. It would bring more fire into the game – seeing how the player would react, and indeed, how the manager responds to game pressure from the fans.

Touchline Instruction

Whilst the match is in progress, would it not be good to yell instructions from the sidelines? – and not just ATTACK or DEFEND. I would like to also be able to issue instuctions to individual players during the match and not just at halftime or prior to the kick off. Perhaps we can light a fire under a player during the actual match play – might be interesting to see the reaction – perhaps the player can then give us their thoughts at halftime or after the match !

Winning Celebration

Now I am talking about winning big here and not just winning a match – but winning a competition – a trophy – promotion. Now there is nary a flutter – it is life as usual – you would never know we had attained something worthwhile. No ecstasy, no happiness, you would not think you had scaled a height. I really think a good celebration should be in order if your side manages to win something !  The players, fans going wild – a lap of honour – a raucous crowd – some celebration is needed ! Needed when a cup win or even promotion has been achieved ! A cup presentation may be in order too – a really good hearted victory celebration for promotion – the players jumping all over each other. Please, FM14, add something for winning – it is a mountain climbed – and should be celebrated as such (even in the visual format)

Annual General Meeting

Now how about, as manager, attending the AGM for your club. The owner, club chairman, could also be present – along with all the fans. The manager could have a selection of words to say and then the floor could be opened to the fans to ask any and all the questions they wish. Perhaps, it could be set up for 20 to 30 questions from the floor. The fans want to hear the manager in person, and of course, it depends on how the season is progressing as to whether you still have the standing of a hero or could come away from the meeting a wee bit worn and beaten down by the experience. You may just have to try all the harder to get the fans and the team on your side again and pumping all in the one direction. I just feel this would, once again, add lotsa spice to the game. Perhaps a groundswell of negative opinion  will be against you but … but, then again, depending on your performance, the fans will support you even more and act as a bulwark against the Board who are, in fact, itching to have any excuse to cashier you and bring in a new man. We would all have to be nimble on our feet, thinking and answering difficult queries, but we just may come away with more allies and be in a much stronger position. The AGM, I think, would be an interesting addition and bring the fans more into play in the game.

Summary

Perhaps my eight points are pedantic, and useless, to most Football Manager players. After all, the name of the game is to get results (well, to have fun as well!!)  and the end justifies the means. , and let us not get carried away with particulars – let us just burst into the room –and empty our weapon – and scatter the inhabitants !! … and just who – surely – plays the whole match anyway ??? We want to play 20 years as quickly as possible (heh heh) and watching our matches is labelled BORRRINNNGGGGG !!!

So, perhaps, my wish-list is only geared towards those of us in the boring section (heh heh) Yes, I would love to see improved tactical formations; coach talks; better training results – but for those of us – pedantic; slow; cautious – some tweeking audio/visuals would just set our imaginations into overdrive and allow us to saunter into the room –threaten slowly and softly – and charm the inhabitants over to our way of thinking

 The tall tales of Eamonn O’hanlon

Here are a handful of scouts who you should seriously look at recruiting once you have ‘hit the big time’ as let’s face it, you have no hope in recruiting these in League One!

Name: Luciano D’Onofrio
Age: 57
Club: Unemployed
Scouting Knowledge: Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal
Reason: High attributes for judging player ability & potential with knowledge of 4 countries

Name: Newton Motta
Age: 57
Club: Bahia
Scouting Knowledge: Brazil
Reason: High attributes with good knowledge of Brazil.

Name: Bryan Robson
Age: 66
Club: Sunderland
Scouting Knowledge: England
Reason: Probably the best scout within the English league but beware, he will only accept a Chief Scout position.

Name: Frank Arnesen
Age: 48
Club: HSV
Scouting Knowledge: Denmark, England, Holland
Reason: Not the best at judging players but is very adaptable and working with the youths.

Name: Norbert Ziegler
Age: 58
Club: Unemployed
Scouting Knowledge: Germany, Central Europe
Reason: Good knowledge of Central Europe

The first person I will be checking out when FM14 is released is the Peterborough United scout.  The players they have signed over the last three years have been immense (Craig Mackail-Smith, Dwight Gayle, George Boyd to name a few).

Ok, so they do not produce their own players, but instead take straight out of non-league but that has got to of came from having an excellent scouting network.

“Lets do it on wonderkids, people love wonderkids!” was the sentence that followed.

Cutting a long story short, we have, its finished and although the sound quality isn’t the best and our nerves are certainly on show for the first few minutes we are definitely happy with the content.

In the ‘poddy’ we discuss what we have called the ‘Wonderkid Conundrum’.

The Wonderkid Conundrum is the situation you find yourself in when deciding which youngsters to buy, which ones are worth the money and which ones to avoid. In the podcasts are some real life examples, some wonderkids who really take the bull by the horns and deserve a place in the first team of the top clubs in the world.

It’s the wonderkid equivalent of our ’12 players better than Messi’ ebook.

And of course, there’s a few who are not good enough but would still fit under the ‘wonderkid’ banner and cost you many-millions to buy.

Also included in the 40 minute podcast is an interview with a sports journalist, author and avid FM player for over a decade. We discuss what he thinks needs to be included in Football Manager 2014 and why, believe it or not Womens’ football is one thing! Shocker.

Anyway, listen to the podcast to find out more, you can play it straight on this page, no links, opt-ins or dodgy webpages, just play it on this page by clicking the play button below.

Let us now what you think in the comments section.