But it seems to me that many FM fans across the community felt the same as me about the last release, a recent poll we did also backs that up,  and although I can’t speak for them, the newly announced features list hasn’t exactly set my world on fire.

We can all hope that the one feature that we really think would improve the game and our game-experience will be listened to this year so we have scoured through the forums, listened to our readers and put together this little list of features that we, as FM veterans, think SI have neglected to include in FM 2014.

That said, we can’t be 100% sure what the new game will hold until we get our pale mitts on it in the next few weeks. But, if I were SI and these were the type of things my customers wanted, I would make sure they knew I had listened to them.

So here goes, here are the 25 things that the FM community want changing for the new game, but looks like SI have neglected to listen to (we think):

1. During the off-season, we should be allowed to schedule team-building activities, or take the team out (like the Manchester United squad recently went to the horse races). Such activities could make the players happier as well as increase team cohesion.

2. Would like to be able to be able to offer a certain club a player of mine in exchange of a player of theirs plus money. For example if I have a goalkeeper ‘A’, I could be able to offer it to a club for a player ‘B’ and a sum of 3m. The other club could haggle around with the fee if they are interested in ‘A’ or reject the deal completely.

3. Be able to have a conversation with a transfer target who has no intention of signing for your club to try and sell the club to the player.

4. When your team wins a trophy, there should be a celebration or a cut-scene showing your team lifting the trophy.

5. More atmosphere in stadiums, I just want to here the fans singing, that’ll make the match experience more realistic.

6. It would be great if we can assign fix tactic’s player instruction individually on the player itself that would replace team or position’s player instruction. For example, I wouldn’t want this specific (A) player to play long shot for his whole life so I set the Long shot bar to Rarely for this guy and whenever I sub him into the game I don’t have to worry about changing it again in team tactic.

7. I would like to apply for a job and have the club offer me an interview if they consider me for the job.

8. I would add a value graph just like the attributes graph but it will show the player’s value progress through the years just like the one that is in transfer market.

9. Want to be able to host friendly in different countries at neutral venues. For example: Celtic vs Real Madrid in the USA. Both clubs could split the profits and have a boost in their fan base and merchandise sales.

10. Foreground text linked to shirt number colour. That means reduced chances of unreadable colour combinations.

11. Online Hall of Fame leader board

12. Team building days when morale is low.

13. I would like us to get weekly training reports to see who has been putting in the effort and is looking sharp before a match. A lot more detailed than ‘Wellington Nem has improved significantly over the last month as a footballer’ would be nice.

14. Fan reaction. I’m an Arsenal fan and of course twitter went mental with the ozil signing for example. Thats one thing missing from the game, the fans. Give interviews on the teams website and get fan responses or gauge fan reaction to new signings – get to keep an eye on the shirt sales of specific players on the site to see how well your signings are being received

15. For free-kicks, I would like to be able to designate one player for crossing situations, according to his free-kick taking and crossing attributes, and another player to take them in shooting situations, based on his free-kicks rating and long range shooting ability. For example, James Ward-Prowse is now Southampton’s designated crosser for free-kicks and corners – Rickie Lambert’s aerial ability obviously makes him a target for Ward-Prowse’s deliveries. But Lambert takes the free-kicks when there is a shot-on-goal to be had.

16. Just to add some flavor to the game especially for those of us that play long saves, Dynamic rivalries. If you brought a small club up through the ranks and now are beating the big boys, some spice to some of the games would be nice. How about Derby’s being created and possibly even Cups. The manager would not have any actual control of these things. Maybe coming up with a name if you wanted. For example, I have been playing Dag & Red in my save. What if a fierce rival developed with West Ham? Make these matchups a bigger game then they are now.

17. Be able to announce your retirement/resignation months before you actually do so, and if your a club ledgend be able to choose who your replacement should be.

18. I’d love to see benefits for playing overseas tours. Arsenal just announced a sponsorship with Bodog based on their Asia tour success. Would love to schedule a tour or two in game and have the possibility of gaining an extra sponsor.

19. More control over financial aspects – choosing kit sponsors, stadium advertising, ticket prices including special offers etc

20. Basic character creator – decide how your little manager sprite dresses (suit, tracksuit, club kit etc.)

21. Would love to see a scenario like Gareth Bales/Luis Suarez appear within the game. Hurting team morale, eventually another figurehead or leader in the team coming to you asking him to be sold for the good of the club…

22. the chance to instill a philosophy at a club from the academy up to the first team, such as at la masia. Identify core values such as formation, possession, pressing, certain physical attributes etc and translate this over to the team in meetings with players coaches etc.

23. I would love some sort of stadium designer or being able to specifically request a certain size stadium or expansion.

24. Improve referees predictability. You can literally know when a player is about to be red or yellow carded. Maybe throw a surprise in, here and there. Also, a lot of fouls in the match engine look like perfectly good tackles or like nothing has happened at all and it ends up a foul?

25. Be able to buy 2 players from the same club for a combined fee.

If your idea made the list, thanks a bunch for your suggestion, we think its an awesome idea.

These 25 are, in our opinion, easy to include feature changes that would greatly enhance the realism and our playing experience within the game.

For me, theres 2 or 3 that really stand out and to be honest I wish I had thought for them myself, in particular the want for more information-rich and weekly training reports that gives us more information about the players form, training performances, morale and other stats that could effect our line-up for the next match.

The other 2 ideas that i really like revolve around transfers, which for me is the most exciting part of the game, number ’3′ and ’25′ are completely missing from the game at the moment and there is no real hint that they would be included in the next version but they are both real-world scenarios that happen all the time.

Combining a transfer fee for more than one player is a cracking idea and may lead to some awesome deals, you might want to purchase the best midfield two in the world, with all the chemistry and friendliness in one hit.

Also ‘tapping up’ a player before you make a contract bid would be a great way to convince a player to come and join you based on your long term aspirations for your club. For example, I found it totally frustrating that I wasn’t able to sign Cesc Fabregas for Arsenal on a recent save, he was on the transfer list but wouldn’t even speak to me. If I could tell him that I was about to win the CL, Premier League double and I wanted to build a team around him, he might have accepted my whole wage budget.

Anyway, at the moment this of course only speculation, but like I eluded to earlier, if I were in charge of SI’s marketing announcements and charged with driving additional awareness I would certainly start by addressing the concerns of those people that have been buying the game for over a decade, sadly this seems to be non-existent within their initiatives.

Sources:http://www.fmscout.com/a-football-manager-2014-new-features-suggested.html & http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-discussion/114200-football-manager-2014-new-features-changes-you-would-like-see-32.html

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

UEFA is becoming more supportive of the idea of supranational leagues. This idea is not new, because some European leagues were already investigating the feasibility of a competition grouping several countries: Belgium, Holland, Scotland, Portugal, Denmark. You can mark them as countries with a glorious past in European club football, that have slipped away in the last 20 years. So why is UEFA now positive towards these international leagues?

The answer seems clear. UEFA wants to have more balance between the different leagues in Europe. At this moment, there is a rather big gap between the big money leagues (Premier League, Primera Division, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1) and the other competitions. If some of these smaller countries and leagues bundle their forces into one competition, this could increase the quality level and the budgets for the clubs that play in them. So only a positive story, or not? And how can these leagues be formed in Football Manager?

 United = Stronger

Nations that unite will be stronger. That was also the starting idea for the BeNe League, that is to say the BeNe League for women that kicked off in the season 2012-2013. Eight Belgian teams and eight Dutch teams played the in first part of the season games in their country, after which the four best teams of both countries challenged each other in the BeNe League A. Dutch team Twente defeated Belgian team Standard in the last match to win the BeNe league, but both clubs became champion of their respective countries. In other words, no representative for European football was lost. And all clubs of the league attracted larger budgets and more spectators. Finally, the quality of play for the Belgian teams, at this time the lesser of both countries, was increased. In the long-term, this is a win-win situation for all clubs and supporters. So why was this example not yet followed by their male colleagues

Supporting the idea

Simple, there was still too little support by smaller clubs of both countries: fear of being left outside, holding on to traditions, rivalry between neighbouring countries,… Too many obstacles. So we will have to be patient for another few years, but the creation of supranational leagues seems inevitable. Because it is the only way of ever competing against the European top clubs with a reasonable chance of actually winning those games. Not only for Belgium and Holland. But think also about a possible Scandinavian league, a Balkan league or Central-European league. It’s all about removing the obstacles and keeping an open mind.

Superleague: step too far?

Just to be clear: a supranational league is not the same as the superleague that was proposed. This is the idea of some big European clubs, leaving their national league and getting together in some kind of everlasting Champions League. The result would be devastating on different levels: for the league they leave, for the other clubs that already can’t close the gap and for the present European competition. It would mean a revolution within modern football and a total change of the landscape. So who knows, are we evolving in 10 years to one big European competition with different divisions? With clubs as Anderlecht, PSV and Celtic somewhere stuck in a third or fourth division? No thanks! Although we have to respect that some football supporters would just love the idea and already fantasize about it.

So why not develop this fantasy features in FM?

Limitations

However, the FM editors amongst us know that league creation was somewhat limited up till FM 2013. The gamer can only edit existing leagues or create new leagues within one specific country. And more, this country can only be one of the official states.

First, this means no type of BeNe league or other league that unites countries, because you can’t select two or more countries in edit league mode. If we select one country to insert all the clubs (e.g. all Belgian and Dutch clubs into a BeNe League with one of both countries indicated), we will face problems with home-grown player rules and other regulations.

Secondly, the supporters of fantasy leagues with top clubs of different countries have presently no option to create this. So no luck for fantasy players or those fans that support the idea of European unification.

Finally, there is no way of creating leagues for new nations. So no strange fantasy league in a faraway galaxy… Yes, I know. Not the typical FM gamer profile, but it’s all about finding those future extra’s that will increase and entertain the FM audience.

So dear FM developer, please increase the league editing abilities for the creative FM fans.

Tom Schelfhout

So, to help you understand what is real and not real, here is what we know for definite so far from the twitter account of Miles Jacobson who is the ‘Head Honcho’ on FM for Sports Interactive: -

Cross Play

No, not cosplay. Miles has confirmed that as well as being on Mac and Windows, it will also be on Linux.

One price for all 3 – so if you have a Macbook, Windows laptop and Linux desktop (for example) you’ll be able to play the game on each of those machines via Steam.  For the more technically minded, the flavour of Linux we’ll be supporting is Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS)

New Languages

There will be New Languages available within the new game.  So good news if you can speak either Greek or Brazilian Portuguese.  Miles confirmed both languages will be added back in January and March.  This is due to the high amount of sales within Greece and Brazil.

Miles does however like to keep us hanging on with little teasers though like the following tweet he posted: -

“Have just finalised the feature set for FM14 to fit in with this years schedule. Happy. But no, I’m not going to reveal anything yet…”

More Leagues

Nothing is confirmed with regards to what leagues will be new to FM14 but Sports Interactive are on the lookout for Joe Public to work for them in a voluntary role to help them with the updating of Non-league teams.  So with this, could we start to see actual real players with real stats further on down the leagues in tiers 8, 9, 10, etc.  This is something that I am anticipating with bated breath.

Note from the editor: This would be amazing, real grass-roots football.

 A Women’s League

It doesn’t look like this will be included on FM14 or even a separate women’s version of FM14 being released at this present time.

The question was posed to Miles and he responded by saying that until it makes financial sense to do so, it wouldn’t be happening.

Steam Trading Cards

This is a new feature that has already been released on Steam and not just available on FM14.  Steam Trading Cards are collectible cards you get by playing games on Steam. Collect a set of cards to earn items that help you customize your profile and show off your gameplay.

Play as Club Chairman

Despite this being a popular request from you FM’ers out there, this doesn’t look like it will be happening either.

Miles has, and quite rightly, pointed out that the game is called ‘Football Manager’ and not ‘Football Chairman’ – a fair point well made.

He also goes on to say that there will not be the facility to save up your own managers wages in order to be able to buy your own football club within the game.

Despite not being able to do this within Football Manager, maybe there is a gap in the market for SI to create this ‘Football Chairman’ game? – although I wouldn’t visit Paddy Power and placing a bet that it will be anytime soon.

Steam

Football Manager 2014 will continue to be available to play through Steam and there are no plans to move away from Steam at any point in the future.

The reason FM is ran through Steam in the first place is to try to cut down on the number of people who illegally downloaded the game.

Since moving over to Steam a couple of years ago, this has been the case so I cannot see them moving away from it anytime soon.

Release Date

Nothing has been decided on a release date yet for FM14 but Miles has confirmed that they are looking at planning the release date at around end of September/beginning of October so keep your eyes peeled for around then.

Note from the editor: I reckon it will be closer to November, but fingers crossed!

Players

Nothing has been confirmed yet but SI are on the lookout for Non-league team researchers.

This could mean that there will be a lot more Non-league teams which can be managed from the off with a full squad of real life players.

Fingers crossed that this becomes a reality as I love managing in the Non-league more than the Premier League.

To keep up to date with FM progress, if you are on Twitter, why not follow Miles @milesSI.  He is being pretty cagey at the moment with regards to new features but come September, I would expect a lot more to be revealed.

In the meantime, keep reading our blogs for all the latest updates and gossip.

If you found this article interesting, why not have a look at another one of our articles listing out our FM14 wish list of new features which we want – some of them are up there with the Hovering Skateboard from Back to the Future!!!

I’m not one for following tactics, signings or managing ‘tips’ that I see online, I like to have my own managerial personality and although I learn from most of the stuff I read I like to think I’m my own man.

That said this is the first in a new series of ‘tips’ related articles, they will be massively different from everything else you read online and that’s the only reason I am doing it, I think there is a big void that needs to be addressed.

Most of the stuff you see around is ‘samey’ and ‘yeh, obviously’ type stuff, and I think I can help, if you want me.

We can all go searching and find a list of sixteen million wonder kids that are worth signing but how many of them are ever relevant  within our budgets, good enough or would dream of coming to our club? Not many.

This series will focus on real, actionable tips that every single football manager player can use in his daily gaming rituals.

The first in the series is focusing on scouts, the one thing that stands between many players and us deciding whether to sign them or not.

Scouts are for noddies

If you’re like me you scout wholesale groups of players at vital times of the year, pre-season, the whole of December (because you’re excited about the coming transfer window), a few days into and at the end of Jan then scouring the transfer and contract expiry lists on a regular basis ‘keeping you’re eye out’.

This is, I think, common-place amongst FM players who have their eye on the lists constantly but one mistake many make is entrusting the judgment on the hundreds of players they look at each year on their scouts.

Yes, they can give you a good handle on the players current and potential ability if that individual scout is 20 and 20 in the ‘judging current’ and ‘potential’ ability areas and has 100% knowledge of the country and league the player is located in, only then can you trust more than 50% of what you are being told.

Football Manager 2013 makes it even harder for you to trust your scouts, with the one touch ‘scout player’ option 99% of the reports you get will be inaccurate as the chances are slim that a scout with the right knowledge and skill is on your pay-role, let alone being the one that is randomly assigned to gathering the vital information on your chosen player.

The best way to evaluate a player is to scout a player to the best of your staffs’ abilities then give the players’ star rating a 1.5 star margin of error, evaluate him on the key attributes needed for the position you desire, then his previous year or two’s form, whether he is injured a lot, wages and general personality traits. If all those suit and he is half a star lower than you want, don’t be put off by this.

The general mis-conception with scouting is accuracy, the ‘sway’ of current ability is much smaller than potential but it still exists, I have seen players with anticipated 3-star potential hit 4.5 stars for a top prem team. Case in point, Will Hughes.

At the start of the game scout reports of Will vary between 2.5-5 star potential ability depending on what club and what scout you use, yet he is the best future English midfielder on the game, bar none, well maybe Nick Powell, but for me he has never performed. Lets see what my scout said about him off the bat:

My scout, with stats that should make him one of the best in the world, tells me that Will Hughes will be a 2.5 star player at best, this is first season, what a disgrace this man is, you’re fired my son.

Now, take a look at these pictures, this is Will after a handful of seasons, in a game that I owned him and a game that someone else did, bastard City with all there well-earned (sarcastic voice) dollars.

Look at the difference there, Will is playing at 4.5 stars on both games, that’s not potential, that’s current. He also is an unbelievable assist-maker, 20 or even 30 assists a season is par for the course. So why on earth did my scout rate him at 2.5 stars at the start of the game?

In all honesty, I don’t know the technicalities of why but my assumption is your scouts are ‘programmed’ to give a representation of what the player is currently playing towards, not what he could reach if he was playing in your club, week in week out and being trained under the wing of the best players on the game.

Again its just a guess, but surely that should be the way the game works, how difficult can it be to get something as simple as that right? After all, the players do have a rating of up to 200 (which you can see on the dreaded RTE’s of this earth) so surely the scouts are working on that figure right? Guess not.

The same cannot be said completely for current ability though, it is mostly correct so bear that in mind, there is probably only a sway of about half a star in some occasions, but most are spot on.

So if you’re not paying attention to scouts, whats the process for finding a player?

Although I am completely against using scouts knowledge as ‘read’, they do have a purpose in the game apart from special assignments, and that’s your initial evaluation of experienced players.

I rarely sign a young player based on my scouts’ report, simply because the ‘sway’ is too risky, I judge them on raw talent, mental attributes and whether or not they have the vital stats for the position they play. For example if you’re looking for a target man then jumping, heading, strength and first touch have to be high on your list. Remember though that a young 17-year-old could have a 10 point stat rise over a few years, maybe more.

On the flip-side I rarely I rarely sign an older, experienced player with my eye alone, stats can be deceiving when a player gets old and there are thousands of players on the game that perform far better than their stats would tell you (One of our authors is putting a guide to these together as we speak). For example, Hatem Ben Arfa is a world-beater, he is pure class and is always one of my first signings for ANY club but his stats say ‘average player’. Marek Hamsik on the other hand is a pile of poop, stats coming out his ears and bright blues all over the positions you would want to see them, never turns up for me, on several games over decades of seasons.

Now, if you compare these guys you see a few vital things that should be screaming at you when you look back having spent £40m on Marek with tears in your eyes:

Now tell me that you would sign Hatem over Hamsik if you had a free choice judging on just first appearances?

I guarantee if you sign Ben Arfa and save yourself over £20m that you will not be disappointed, this is the problem though, surely a scout should be able to tell the difference.

I suppose in fairness to FM, the scouts do say that Hamsik isn’t a big game player and that Ben Arfa is the opposite, but that isn’t enough in my book and one that lets the scouts’ down massively.

Some of these guys are paid over £10,000 a week out of your budgets, yet they can’t tell you that you’re spending £40m on a player who wouldn’t perform, fit in, get pissed off and fell homesick or that there is a player just down the road who would do a better job.

SI need to sort out scouts, they need to be reliable, I can understand that there is a need to match a scout and a players nationality and current league blah blah blah, but there really isn’t any excuse for players to be ranked much higher than others who perform far better.

Maybe there is a need for a ‘perfect fit’ rating, a star rating that gives you an indication of how the player suits your playing style, the rest of your players and how well they will ‘hit the ground running’ or not.

The moral of this story is simple, don’t trust what you scouts tell you no matter how much they are paid or how good at their job is supposed to be, use them only as reliable sources of current ability of older players, not for recruiting youth.

The inspiration for this idea came from an article I wrote on What Culture about features that I wanted to see in FM 14, well in fact it came midway through a reply to a person commenting on that thread, nonetheless from what public opinion seems to be, this idea could be ‘life-changing’ for FM gamers.

Before I spill the beans I just wanted to point out a couple of statements I have read and had put to me in the last week or two whilst running this site that kind of lead me to where I am going with this:

Alan Worral said (here): “SI do their best to attempt to create a real world but it’s near impossible”.

Jabb Cooper said (here): “besides it’s sure to spoil the fun when you already know your striker will be very good in advance before you train them”

After only a couple of weeks running this site, pooling opinion and writing about the subject I love it is clear to see one common feeling that we all have as FM players: the want to make Football Manager 14 as life-like as possible but without making it as life-like as possible. Confusing huh? Let me explain.

Computer games, films, TV and pretty much every piece of technology out there is trying to make itself as life-like as possible. With the fresh 3D TV’s, Smart technology and voice control coming as standard with the new XBOX  you would imagine that FM players would be playing ball and looking for a similar ‘feel’ with the new FM.

You big bunch of hypocrites!

The problem is most of the opinion seems to be hypocritical, in the forums across the FM’osphere everyone is calling for the game to be more realistic, myself included, calling for a change in AI and irradicating the sometimes ‘silly’ transfers, mistakes and inconsistencies that the game seems to throw up all to regularly. But in the same token players don’t want to see ‘out of game factors’ like injuries, transfers and form effecting in-game play, we can’t have it both ways people!

There were some great points made about the similar subjects on our recent interview with several real FM experts.

I think I have the answer, I think I know how SI can deliver a game that is the most life-like piece of entertainment that ever existed on PC/MAC and believe it or not it is actually fairly simple and obvious.

Here goes…

Scrap, get rid of and completely remove player attributes, by that I mean the 1-20 numbers that differentiate Messi from messy.

What is the biggest difference between real-world management and the Football Manager series? Yep, player attributes.

You don’t see Sir (won’t be long) David Moyes saying “I’m going to play Antonio instead of Nani ‘cos his crossing is 18 and I reckon that could make the difference in this game”.

Think about it, after your initial scout of the player and first impressions do you ever really pick one player over another simply based on the numbers on his profile? I know I don’t. My picks are usually based on form, consistency and my overall opinion of a player and his effectiveness.

In it’s place should be a more detailed break down of morale, performances, scout recommendations, form and detailed analytics about the current players’ playing level, mental state and other determining factors.

In it’s place could be things like “David Beckham is getting a bit old now but its really worth playing him alongside Will Hughes because they work really well together”.

Or even “Messi was looking a bit tired in training, give him 45 minutes tops in the game”.

Though statistical representations of this would be more suitable there is every possibility of this being a comments based breakdown.

What do you think?

Am I completely off my rocker? Do you have a better way of making FM more life-like without making it too life-like? Comments below.

We wanted to explore what could potentially be included on the game, put it one place and hopefully point one of the boys over at SI in this direction, you never know!

No doubt the guys at SI will be doing all kinds of research to see what the loyal gamer like you and me is wanting to see on their beloved games, but I don’t know about you, I have been slightly disappointed by the 2013 and 12 releases, I feel there are a few features that have been ‘overworked’ and some that are completely non-existent.

Anyway, lets be constructive about the forthcoming release (November-ish) of the 2014 version of Football Manager.

My FM 2014 feature wish list

There is soo much that is missing from Football Manager, it could be much more friendly to customisation and I wonder why SI have not made that step yet. For example:

Customisable formations are a must.

Of course you can customise your formations on most if not all previous versions of FM but I mean totally ‘drag and drop’ player formations, where you can create and tweak a players position to match their abilities. For example, we all know Eden Hazard is a great AMC but because his default (bright green) position is AML the only option you really have is to stick him out there on a AP or IF tactic to try and encourage him to come infield and influence the play more. But for me, for my confidence I want to play him slightly narrower than AML, but more wide than left AMC and I think I should be able to do this.

If i remember correctly, one football management game allowed you to do this, can’t remember which, might night even have been FM.

The problems this small adaption would solve for me is endless, 99% of the careers that I start and don’t follow up on is because I don’t have the team to match the formation I want/need to play or vice versa. Sort it out SI.

Re-invest in the game.

Owning and managing a club must be the want of all managers out there and I think enabling this would be an awesome feature for Football Manager 14, let me tell you why and how it could work.

Throughout the game you build up money, no doubt ask for higher and higher salaries from your club for no other reason than personal achievement, why not give us a way to spend this money, invest it, earn dividends from the club we manage etc.

Or even better, after I have taken Arsenal to 10 seasons of unrivalled success, let me resign as boss and use my millions to buy hard-up Northampton Town FC, improve their stadium, inject money in to transfer funds and manage the team myself. Maybe you could just own the other club but keep your Arsenal job until your own team get promotion to a league you want to play in.

Improve the pre-match and half time team talks.

It is soo annoying only being able to use a couple of the ‘multiple options’ to inspire your team, what is even more frustrating is the fact that 9 times out of 10 you are using exactly the same team talk, it just becomes a case of another annoying couple of clicks before you get in to your game.

This is far too one dimensional, even though there are quite a few options most are never used.

For me there is an easy fix, bring across the ‘team meeting’ type arrangement, where you can have a full blown convo with your team about the match ahead, give yourself the chance to correct or try something different if your first approach does not work.

But, also on that note, the team meeting engine is the worst part of Football Manager 13, it never works the way it should, you are nearly always 50/50 with the obvious choice of words working and for some comments, the outcomes make no sense whatsoever.

Decimal places on stats.

Though this, for me anyway, should be a feature that you have to dig for or turn off and on I think it would make great sense to have 1 decimal place on each stat, so you can more accurately gauge the growth of the player. For example finishing doesn’t go from 19-20, it goes to 19.1, 19.2 etc. Of course this would happen at the same/similar speed to the current format but give the manager a far more accurate idea of training success/failings.

Give us a metric to tutor/train harder/more efficiently.

There isn’t many months that go by without getting several million messages from your back room staff that you should be training blah blah to be doing this or putting some regen under the wing of some old player to help his growth. Do we ever really know the success of this?

I can’t imagine it being too difficult for the training report/staff member reasoning to include something like:

Mr Trainer thinks that WIll Hughes will benefit from learning from Frank Lampard, he estimates that this will improve his training success by 6%.

Or

Mr Trainer thinks that Sumyoung Striker will improve his finishing by 10% if he is put on a personal training schedule.

Revive Manager Contract negotiations

This one isn’t my own idea but I loved it so much that I just had to include it on this post, thanks to MyPassion4Footballmanager.com for letting me use it, you can find his post about his ideal Football Manager 14 wish list here. 

Manager contracts are very basic in Football Manager 2013. Apart from being able to request your own footballing philosophy, I would love if you could set some minimum requests or demands for accepting a new contract, just like in real life with reference to the Jose Mourinho saga, which is going on these days, for instance:

• Be able to setup a shopping list of possible transfer targets which you demands that the club approaches to sign before agreeing to a new contract or signing for a new club.
• Request that the board upgrades youth facilities or other important assets to the facilities for agreeing to a new contract
• Request that the board makes room for a specific favorite backroom staff of yours. This backroom staff member could exceed the limit set by the board.

What would you like to see in Football Manager 14?

Send us you ideas using the contact form below and we will add them to this list, lets hope SI spot us!

I am a perfectionist, on Football Manager 13, 12, 11, 10 and many more I have always got bored of the formations, I don’t want to stick to a flat back 4 or have my wingers tight on the touchline permanently.

Football Manager 14 will be so far advanced, many new tweeks, lots of perks etc but if Sports Interactive fail to let you create your own formations the shelf life on the game, for me anyway, will be minimal. I mean, when you watch footy on telly, does Hazard really stick on the left wing, does Rooney play up front? Nope, they play in slightly tweaked positions that are not at all possible on any FM games yet.

You should be able to drag and drop your players where you want.

I typically have very heavily midfield biased formations, but because if you play anything other than a flat back four you concede a ludicrous amount of goals it leaves me having to play 1 striker or missing out on the ‘perfect’ formation for me, this ruins it slightly, I find myself starting new games or even not playing because when you go on a losing streak and are not completely happy with something, it is the first thing you blame, especially when you are as stubborn as me.

It can’t be that difficult, can it.

For me Football Manager 14 needs to include a ‘drag and drop’ formation feature, it has to be completely customisable.

The great thing about the best teams in the world is their fluidity, Barca playing 6 in midfield, I want that!

Surely if EA can do it with Fifa, SI can achieve it with a massively more adaptable format?.

Firstly though, let me quote something I read previously about Football Manager 13, may even have been 12. When choosing your team talk statements, do not overuse one or two statements in particular, players will grow ignorant of your talks if you do so.

Back to my confession: there is only 1 pre-match and half time team talks that actually works, well sorry I mean 2 but the principal remains the same.

Pre-game on Football Manager 2013, anything but ‘I have faith’ type talks go un-listened to, if your lucky ‘for the fans’ may get you one or two ‘green’ players, if your even luckier ‘no pressure’ will result in only a 4-0 loss. So what choice do you have?

It’s the same story at half time, you have to choose either ‘I have faith’ or have a go at your players if you are losing to get a decent reaction.

So there are probably 3-4 choices you have to actually help your players.

I hope that SI improve this functionality on Football Manager 14 because it is so frustrating.

What is even more frustrating is when you say ‘I have faith’ and all your players are looking happy and motivated, you are playing away to Millwall (2 divisions below you) who all have very poor morale. Guess what, you lose 3-0. WTF?

For Football Manager 2014, they have to either scrap the team talk situation or create an easier but more elaborate array of conversations. Perhaps even use the ‘Team Meeting’ type scenario, where you actually address your team and can gauge reactions on comments and answer player concerns.

Though, this does need tweaking to, how frustrating is it when you say something like “come on guys, lets kick on and win the league”, all your players react positively, you ask the Captain and he says “he’s right, lets do this” and you say “that’s exactly the reaction that I was looking for” and all your players go red, unhappy with your statement, WTF? I have played around with this loads, none of it makes any sense.