Distance Running

For those statistic obsessed Football Managers, we have a new number to the spreadsheet that greets us everytime we load up the game. This time we can see the distance that your players are running within each game. The feature will probably do more for player selection then anything, now we will be able to present the evidence to the players who just aren’t trying enough within the team and replace them, I like it and it will certainly make it easier for me to make decisions about substitutes during the game or see in which areas of the field your players are getting run about too much, causing them to tire.

Improved Team Reports

Team reports have been something that I have found useful since their introduction in 2008, especially when you first arrive at a new club, you can see at a glimpse where you team needs improving and the up and coming players you should keep hold of. But now you assistant manager will be able to give you more information then that, he can even suggest players for you to buy now. But is this taking the games AI involvement with the manager too far? I will have to play with it before I truly know what I am talking about, but I feel that this is starting to bridge the gap between you playing the game and you just following a series of instructions to success. Indeed it probably does happen in real life that assistant manager will be able to suggest players though so maybe not all bad and hopefully all this will rely on the quality of you assistant manager.

Award History

Awards that you team get will now be stored so that you can look back and marvel about how good you have done over the years. A new feature that will help you gloat to your mates or analyse how players have done over the years. But I think just a little bit of window dressing, good implementation but nothing that will change the way we play.

Returning from holiday

More options then you can shake a stick at, now if you play the game in holiday mode? I don’t understand why you would (when was the last time you seen Alex Ferguson taking a break during the seasons proceedings?) You can now apply for jobs in certain leagues instead of applying for everything (although you still get this option). The only way I would find this useful for myself is when I have been sacked or resigned from a club, it can tire when you have to endlessly hit continue or when going on holiday, it returning you with a approach from MK Dons after you have won the Premiership and World Cup 5 times in a row with Millwall and San Marino. I can now narrow it down to a particular league my skills will be best utilised within, but again another one of those features that will just come in handy.

Improved Player Ratings

An addition that has come from the Football Manager Live development, player ratings during games will have decimal points, for the die hard statisticians another good introduction. Once again it will help improve the decision making during games, it can be so hard when you are looking at ratings and two players have a 7 but you need to replace one and for a long time now FM has been crying out for the difference between a good 7 performer and a bad 7. Because if your team is winning you will more then likely or not see alot of 7’s in your side and miss a weaker link in the side and quickly lose your hold on a game.

Pick Your Feeder Team

At last you will be able to ask for a specific club to be linked with in this years game. As you have had to do so far, you will still need to get gain the boards confidence before they give you such powers, but now you won’t have to rely on the luck of the draw to get to the teams such as Crewe who have a great youth policy. But also teams abroad and teams you want to loan players to it would make more sense for the big clubs to give their players better experience playing for the better clubs.

Ask if a player is loanable

You have been able for some time put in enquiries of the availability to buy certain players, but now you can find out if you can loan players. I think a fantastic addition for the lower league managers, as when I am in the lower divisions I will go through team upon I will go through team upon team to see if I can loan one of their youngsters. Enquiring will make negotiations much quicker and easier. Or those players who are hardly playing in the first team, but would fit in fantastic for yours despite that tight budget.

Improved Stadium Expansions

Football Manager strangely has always expanded the stadium during new seasons, this would rarely happen in the upper leagues, causing you to lose money as seats are unavailable during construction and it takes that much longer. SI have made expansions quicker and more realistic by allowing the workmen in after the last home game of the season.

No More B Teams

Now the B teams will be separate entities in themselves, B teams are mostly associated with management in Spain and now the B teams will be regarded just as affiliations of the giant teams, I am guessing this is what happens already in the real world. I don’t know what difference this will make as this is as much information as I have got and I have no clue how this will play out in the game. Will you now have to loan you first team players to the B teams or will you still be able to drop them up and down like a reserve team? Only SI has the answer.

Rules Fully Shown

Just a little bit of house keeping for SI, making sure are gaming experience is as real as possibly can be. Rules will now be displayed for individual competitions such as the French ‘Joker’ Rule. Can anyone actually tell me what this is?

The game is looking better and better each time you see it, a fine balance between new features and the improvement of the old ones. I am really getting excited now about the new game and have high hopes that it will definitely live up to being one of the best games SI have ever made.

I am sure it is something that is short-lived and as a result I am calling for a short break to proceedings of the site till the release of Football Manager 2009.

This will give me time to re-evaluate the role of Life in Football Manager and what it is going to offer come the release of the new game hopefully with the established popularity the site may or may not have I will be able to offer a better quality website when I return. but this break will help me strategies the whole Levo empire which I have in the pipeline.

Regular visitors will be familiar with my St Helens game, I am hoping to produce a Inverness Metros style fansite for the team and the new 2009 version.

Also with the help of the members of Goal Kick, I also have The Scouting Network, a site dedicated to the most important aspects of Football Manager, the players. We will try and uncovers some real gems for you all.

This is nothing new to the world of football, but instead only new to English football. This system where by we have a director of football who is making all the big management decisions like who will be the next strikers while the head coach will be picking the tactics and playing those players how he sees fit and dealing with the day-to-day running of the football squad.

But this is becoming more of a trend in our league as big money foreign investment comes into the Premiership. Chairmen want to know that their money is safe and they have a man acting on their behalf to bring players in and giving him more control in the process. But how can Football Manager deal with this?

There is no question that the introduction of this to Football Manager would not be met with much pleasure, as one of the most enjoyable past times of a virtual football manager is the ability to negotiate the purchases of the next Cristino Ronaldo to Hull, or in fact actually buying Cristino Ronaldo for Hull. We like the control to create our own fantasy football team and to have that power taken off us would be something that would definitely happen, my own at least, the enjoyment of Football Manager. We want to feel that the squads that we are bringing into our chosen teams are ours.

But there is still an argument for the implementation for such a feature. The great thing about Football Manager is the ability to play it how ever you feel fit, spawning small group community groups within the scene who love to share their experience in how they play their games, implementing their own rules for their enjoyment. Be it the die hard Lower League Managers who like to see everything being played out as if they were really there. Or the fantasist who messes around with the database in order to create different challenges. So therefore I can’t see any reason why there isn’t someone out their that would enjoy playing the game in a more of a Head Coach sort of role.

The game in itself has become a much more sophisticated in the simulation of football and from this a further grasp of tactics is needed. This has created a whole new dimension to the game and now it is more important to work on tactics development. Meaning that the creation of tactics and putting them to use is a game in itself and the Head Coach role could aid in further concentrating on this part of the game for some people and the general running of the players you have at hand and setting another challenge for Football Manager users. It is becoming less and less likely for a Football Manager gamer to be able to set up one tactic and bring in the players and just press continue until the next game comes along. Meaning that we have to get more involved with the Head Coaches role at the moment anyway and further SI games will continue to build on this.

It is something that would surely be easy to add in at the start of the game, whether you wish to allow chairmen to have this sort of option, liking masking of attributes and it will add something different, when you are picking new clubs to go to in a career game. You can either go to Manchester City who will give you full control of the squad and everyone who comes in or out. Or take the Arsenal job but only on a head coach basis. This will give some more validity to managers contracts that are in the game already that don’t really mean much to the average player apart from just a chance to stay in a job for a few more years.

The system of Head Coach and Football Director can work well in the real world, if only those impatient chairmen would only see that a good relationship is needed between the two men. The way the system has proven successful is for a manager to be able to identfy which players he wants for his club and pass that on to the Footballing Director whose job will then to be to capture these players, Arsenal is a good example where it is working. Allowing the Head Coach then to concentrate on the more day to day aspect of his squad, without having to worry about negotiations with other clubs. This has been something I have said before would be an good introduction into Football Manager, instead of transfers budgets, hand your chairmen a selection of players you want at the club and within the financial boundaries of the team and type of chairmen he can go away and try and get the players you want.

Although I doubt SI games has any intention on bringing this system into the Football Manager game, I don’t think that Football Head Coach 2010 would be as dire as many people would expect it to be and instead offer more realism and a different way to play the game.

It’s been a while since I last wrote one of these Managerial Reversals about our managers taking up new roles at different clubs, to see what all this is about and for links to the other stories then please view our managerial reversal page.

Tony Adams was born in a fantastic year for English football, in London 1966. Adams started his footballing career as school boy when he signed for Arsenal Schoolboys. It wasn’t long before he made his first appearance in the first team not long after his 17th birthday. Becoming a regular in the 1987 season and winning the League Cup of that season with Arsenal, beating Liverpool. Adams was probably part of one of the most famous back line’s in history during his time at with The Gunners, the Famous four was made up of Lee Dixon, Steve Bould and Nigel Winterburn playing under manager George Graham.

The former Arsenal and England captain never left The Gunners and played with them till 2002 and in that time playing under Arsene Wenger and enjoying masses of success. Adams walked away with four league titles, three FA cups, two League Cups and one Cup Winners Cup. But the success was something that Tony never always handled well and in 1996 Tony Adams admitted to a long battle with alcoholism and in that time even crashing his car in a drunk driven incident. But despite those problems Adams overcome them to become one of the most respected men in Football and revered at Arsenal.

After finishing his career at the top of his game in 2002, it wasn’t long before Tony was back on the footballing scene and this time in a management capacity. Taking over a troubled Wycombe Wanderers in the November to help steer them clear of relegation, but it was too late and in 2004 the club were relegated and Tony resigned from the club due to personal reasons. But from that experience Tony decided to look for more experience and training elsewhere. Tony left, accepting a coaching role in Holland with Feyenoord taking control of their reserve side and then spending a short time at Utrecht. Now Tony Adams is currently the understudy to one of the England’s best managers Harry Redknapp, Tony Adams now the assistant at Portsmouth has had much success with the Pompey winning the FA cup and finishing 9th in the Premiership.

So now Tony will get back into the managerial seat and take control of the club where he spent all his career, the fans will love him and the he will know and love the club. But can he take the young and talented club to success? Only FM can tell.

Season 2007/08

Tony Adams seemed be able to identfy easily the areas in which Arsenal were lacking through the past couple of years, first of all something that they have been crying out for is some experience to spur on the young players at the club. Secondly it was an area which he knows very well, the defence which he sured up spending £23 million in total in his first season.  The first player to arrive was Mauro Camoranesi the 31 year old Italian arrived from Juventus for £13.5 million, the winger looks fantastic down the right wing able to cross the ball to any pin point of grass and despite his age can jinx past a defender like a 21 year old, a good signing by Adams. The second signing who arrived in the Janurary window was John Heitinga the Dutchman commanded a £7.5 million bill and will act as a backup for Toure and Gallas.

The English Premier League got off to a good start a 3-0 win against Newcastle giving Camoranesi a début goal, the form continued win after win after win, but it was the away games which Arsenal stumbled at drawing to Portsmouth and Everton while on their travels. A first defeat didn’t come until November when Blackburn managed to take a 2-1 win away from the Emirates in a game full of penalties, an 82nd minute spot kick from Rigters was enough to send the three points Blackburns way. But after that form continued as normal, The game to big rivals Manchester United came about late in the year. The 1st December marking the busy period Arsenal travelled up north to Old Trafford. Rosicky scoring a fantastic shot as he ran towards United’s defence to put Arsenal in the lead, but right into the final minutes of the game in the 86th minute veteran Ryan Giggs saved the point for the title contenders. But the end of December came a loss of form and loss of league position especially failing to score against local rivals at home a 0-0 draw against Spurs marked the start of the slump. Next Torres and Gerrard sunk The Gunners at Liverpool and then a loss up in the North East to Newcastle. But they quickly turned the form around again, but the difference between Arsenal and the rest of the teams was that they weren’t consistent enough, they drew silly game and lost against other title contenders, Van Persie though helping them beat United when the arrived at the Emirates. Arsenal were out of the race for the league pretty early on and were competing against United for 3rd place, the win and the draw against the Manchester side gave Arsenal the advantage as they pipped them by goal difference.

In the Cup competitions Tony Adams proved very successful, the League Cup campaign kicking off at Sheffield United 3-0 win brush them against, Plymouth once again gave some of the young stars a chance to shine, Arsenal went down with an early shock going 1-0 at the Emirates in 8 minutes, but Bendnter and Walcott quickly tipped the balance in Arsenal’s favour. Once it was down to the quarter finals, Adams started taking the competition more seriously, the competition which he first won in 1987 was looking good for his managerial silverware. Playing a strong side at Goodison, Arsenal did enough with a Gallas header to send them through for a tie against rivals Tottenham. The first game was at the Emirates, and Arsenal hit early Camoranesi from the kick off got the ball down the wing, running straight for goal he hit a fabulous long shot to put the game 1-0 in the first minute. Van Persie and Eduardo both scored in quick succession to put the game beyond Spurs before Robin Van Persie put the final nail in the coffin just after Malbranque pulled an away game for Spurs which will probably made little difference. The away game was a little tighter, but still Arsenal came out on top Fabregas scoring on the hour to deflate the Tottenham fans and Eduardo sealed it. A bad defeat going down 6-2 to local rivals, but now it was time to face United at Wembley. In a tight game at Wembley it was anybodies game, no one really took control, but their was man that was the difference on the day and that was as usual Ronaldo who scored in the 70th minute to win the game for United. Rio Ferdinand having a fantastic day meant it even more difficult for any of the Gunners to fire.

The FA Cup drew up Reading in the 3rd round, The Royals not doing themselves any favours as they brought down Bendtner in the box for Van Persie to score early, Cesc Fabregas then scored to win the game in which was more impressed by the young Theo Walcott who is staking his claim on the first team. Again in the 4th round a lower league side faced Arsenal and just like in the League Cup Arsenal were stunned early. former Liverpool man Nardiello scoring in the first minute, But despite Heitinga getting sent off just after the first half Arsenal managed to claim a 2-1 win. Fulham were then easily passed at Craven Cottage 3-0 for a draw against Portsmouth who travelled North to London. In a heated game with 3 red cards once again Heitinga amongst the the pack again. But a late goal by Adebayor gave The Gunners a place in the semi finals against London rivals West Ham. The difference in this game was the team that was able to make their chance count, unfortunately for Adams that team was West Ham. Ashton scoring early on in the game before Camoranesi quickly equalised but that only sparked a flurry of goal both coming from Bellamy scoring 2 in 10 minutes gave West Ham a place in the final.

Europe threw up a tough draw for Arsenal after they qualified beating Rosenborg. Valencia, Marseilles and Red Star Belgrade. First up was the Red Star two goals by Eduardo secured a victory, before Arsenal travelled to Spain and the Spanish were typically strong at home Zigic scoring the only goal for Valencia. The French also proved difficult as they crossed the Channel to play Arsenal, Gunners target Samir Nasri showing why he was attracting so much attention and stole a point for Marsielle. But in the return game Van Persie showed why Arsenal are one of the favourites for the competition. Another two wins secured a place in the next round for The Gunners, Van Persie being a big hit when it came to games in Europe scoring in each of the games. The knock-out stages Arsenal took on Italian giants Roma and what a tough two games it was for club, In the Italian capital the game finished 1-1 Van Persie getting the away goal for Arsenal. When the return leg arrived at the Emirates, Perotta quickly got the Italian teams back into the game cancelled out the away goal, but Van Persie is true European form forced extra time. But when Pizzaro was quickly tumbled down in the box, it marked disaster for Arsenal and Taddei put Roma in front with the advantage of the away goal, Hleb’s late equaliser wasn’t enough and knocked Arsenal out.

Impressing in a debut season were both Eduardo and Adams signing Camoransi who gave Arsenal attacking power and experience Camoransi even though was a pricey buy was deemed the best signing of the season. Van Persie thrived off this and taking 28 goals for the season in all competitions and finishing with the EPL golden boot. The usual characters were on good form as you would expect, Cesc providing many assists and winning Young Player of The Year, but the great thing about this side was that everyone was creating goals for the team and young players Bendter and Walcott got the chance of putting the ball in the back of the net themselves. The underachiever for the season though was Adebayor who failed to impress playing 15 games he only managed a 6.35 average and 4 goals, he will have to do better when competing against alot of talented forwards.

Season 2008/09

Tony decided to spend big once again, something unsual when it came to Arsene Wenger’s days. Adding to the Arsenal talent was a 22 year old with 49 Mexican caps, Andres Guardado the left winger will make Arsenal a even bigger threat now down both of the flanks with Camoransi on the other end. The guy likes a shot at goal and give him any chance and he can be dangerous, the pacey Mexican looks a decent player who has yet to reach his peak, he commanded a £25million bill from Deportivo. Next in was probably a replacement for Camoransi who was now entering the late stage of his career, Alessandro Rosina who arrived from Torino for £19.5million. Leaving Arsenal was last years disappointment Adebayor who went to Lazio for £6.25 million. Diaby and Diarra both left for Newcastle and Senderos for Juventus. Finally Mathieu Flamini left in the January for Fiorentina for a cut price £1.6 million.

The season started with a tough game away to the league champions Liverpool. This game was all about who came out the blocks the quickest and this time it was The Gunners who fired first, William Gallas getting on the first corner of the game, just a minute later Van Persie doubled Arsenals lead. Kuyt scored early in the second half but they couldn’t break down a good performance by Arsenal. Result carried on in the same way and Adams quickly found himself at the head of the table, the first two months only saw Arsenal drop 4 points, a single goal from Crespo at Villa park marked the first defeat of the season and West Ham did well at home the Arsenal defence holding on for a goalless draw.

Good form continued between the months running up to the New Year, a 3-1 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge was made easier when at home Arsenal gunned down Manchester United Rosina and Bendtner taking the credit that day. It was just a pity that straight after the United game Derby managed to humiliate the Arsenal team and take a 1 goal victory at Pride Park.

Into 2009 and it was definitely a new year as teams started to reap their revenge on Arsenal, Torres and Crouch cancelling out Rosicky’s goal to become victors and end a 13 game run without dropping a point at home in the league campaign. It wasn’t helped by the sending off of sulky captain Gallas with United to play in the next game, Manchester United took full advantage of the missing Gallas as Rio Ferdinand scored the only goal of the game, in the 60th minute of the game. This again was not helped as Gallas replacement Djourou was sent off only half an hour earlier. After that it was hard for Arsenal to get a run of wins back together again, dropping points all over the place and dropping places. Tony Adams inconsistent 2009 only earned him a 3rd place in the Premiership, disappointing after the good start.

Europe started off with an early shake as Ukraine side Dinamo Kiev were home victors in the 3rd round qualifiers. But two Eduardo goals plus one from Clichy before he was stretched off made sure that the London fans would see Champions League football next season. The group was fairly easy; Lyon, Sporting Lisbon and Belgium side Anderlacht. Needless to say that Arsenal topped the table after qualifying winning their first 4 games, Arsenal took the gas off the and cruised to the end taking a point from Sporting and Lyon in the final two games. But they then forgot to put their foot back on the pedal and the German side Werder Bremen won 1-0 both home and away to knock Tony Adams out of the competition. Pretty hard breaking as Arsenal rued missed chance after chance in the return leg at the Emirates.

The cups were no better really, inconsistent form is not something you want to have when it comes to cup competitions It was fierce rivals Spurs who were the first to knock them out of a competition. The League Cup 4th round tie at the Emirates was dominated by the 10 men of Tottenham, Lennon scoring in the 4th minute. Van Persie thought to have gave Arsenal a lifeline as he came out early in the 2nd half to equalise the scoring, but a Berbatov penalty was enough to see Spurs through. Bendtner shined in the FA cup his two goals against Blackburn up North and then his goal against West Brom set up a 5th round tie back in the North West to Manchester United. But home advantage really did show through as Man U dominated the game from the off, an Arsenal side who had enough of the ball just couldn’t get it past the the back four. Tevez and Ronaldo scoring to kick Tony Adams out and give him another trophyless season.

Player ratings for the season were rather disappointing only 10 players reaching over a 7.00 rating, the usual characters topping the charts Cesc hitting winning the Gunners hearts this season playing over 49 games and coming out with a 7.37 enough to earn him the player of the year award. But what Tony Adams has been lacking over the season is goals, not one of the players managed to score over 20 goals, something needed by any top team. But on a positive note, youngsters Walcott and Bendter show that they are the future of the club and could be those players that will start producing those sort of performances over a season.

Part One

The first 7 minutes of the new announcement was basically a clever bit of marketing for the game , even though it was mainly to advertise the Football Management series to new customers. It gave details of the history of the game, what Miles thinks of the series and a few Z list celebrities telling us how much they love the game themselves and something to show the awaiting ‘Gaming Press’. Although nothing was mentioned in this first video it was well put together and interesting from a marketing point of view really but other then that I think it is over to review Part Two for the best bits.

Part Two

Part Two is for the real Football Manager fan, the second part of the documentary is where Miles is going to take us through a selection of the new features, I am going to go through my inital thoughts on what Miles is presenting us.

Football Manager Handheld

FM:H is not a game I have played or know of anyone playing, it definitely has a market, but I don’t feel that these FM Lite games have much room in the PC addicts collection, unless to kick Chelsea’s arse on the tube. The news for those who are fans of the FM:H game is that now you will be able to play more then one league, just like you would do on the PC, you can have a career that will span over a few countries. You will be limited to about 3 other countries and will only be able to select the top leagues in those countries, after you have picked the main country you want to start in. Also because of the indecision of the SI team you will be treated with two skins in the game in contrast you will have a dark one and a light one.

The big news though for the FM:H users is that they will at last be able to play the game with the 2D match engine. An addition that transformed the game when it was introduced for the first time, will really help the FM Handheld users really get more involved with the matches they are witnessing, there may be an increase of cheers on the trains to work with this little addition added to the game.

Assistant Manager Feedback

So now onto the PC version the game that most of us will know in more depth. This first thing is Assistant Manager feedback. Being a Football Manager isn’t meant to be a lonely job, its not you against the world, it is important for any top manager to have a good backroom team with them and more importantly a top number 2. Where would Sir Alex Ferguson be without some of the famous fellas he had next to him? Most notably his last assistant Carlos Queiroz or Liverpool without Sammy Lee? These guys have a lot to add to the way a team is managed.

What I find interesting about the new feedback system is the tactical analysis the assistant is now going to give to the game where you are being exposed or how you could get at your opponent. This will help immensely for people like myself who are really struggling to get to grips with the more sophisticated Football Manager where tactics are more important. Knowing where you are going wrong or where you could be doing better could really prove useful in developing new tactics or just to get to grips with the new game. It has been a feature that I have wanted for a while, some way to help you with your tactics without giving the whole game away.

Press Conferences

The biggest argument about the media engine has been that is it so repetitive and it is something that just holds no value and is clicked away quickly as you play through the game. Something I fully agree with I begin to just ignore the media unless it is a big game where I think that the comments could really shape something out for me.

Now we will as many other managers abide by the FA laws and attend a press conference, there will be one at the start of a game and one after. The change from the previous editions is that the press conferences will allow us to build up relationships with the journalists themselves. What does this mean? I am not too sure yet, but the idea sounds a good one. Beating the repetitive and impersonal nature of the media a lot better if you have to strive towards getting the media on your side, or using the relationships to your own advantages. But now the media will have a memory and whatever answers you give at the start of the season may come back and haunt you later on in the game, so no longer should you just breeze through the replies without considering the consequences. It is definitely a push forward in the media interaction and should make a dull part of the game much more interesting.

Players Perferred Moves

PPM’s have been in the game for a few years, meant to give players more personality, doing tricks, diving in for tackles and hopefully having some sort of indvidual impact on a game. In 2009 you now get the chance to ask your young players to learn one of these perferred moves.

This is not really a new features, you have always be able to get your players to learn new PPM’s by learning them from other me

mbers of the team using the tutoring aspects of the game. But from that you were restricted from only learning PPM’s that players already had. This aspect now will allow you to add new PPM’s into your team.

I have never really took much notice of the PPM’s I don’t feel they make too much impact on a game, I think attributes are much more important part of the game and quite rightly. But I have never looked at the PPM’s when picking a player for my squad. That could be me making a big mistake and I can really see the value of the new aspect of training and it really can’t harm anything by putting it in, you never know I could set up my own Brazilan training scheme at the club, working the players to play with flair and trickery all over the pitch.

Playing as a Female Manager

Not ever been a problem for me, but I am sure there is plenty of ladies out there that feel that they should be able to put their own personality into Football Manager, lets hope it doesn’t tempt my own girlfriend into FM world. A useful way of showing the lady players out their that FM really do care or just for the fellas who want to be know by a different name at the weekends.

Board Confidence

A great feature that has been added to the game in the 2008 edition and just like many of the new features they start simple and develop over the editions. It was predictable that SI would be making improvements on this aspect of the game and we will all be glad that they will be doing. Miles says that they have tried to fix every bug that has been reported to them about the feature and hopefully it will work much smoother then before. My biggest problem of it was that sometimes the plan of the board was sometimes a bit unrealistic for the club, or failed to update after you had achieved their goal.

In 2009 to the board confidence will be added Squad Harmony, a decent feature to see how you squad is developing as a team and whether it is time to get them all down to the pub for a team bonding session. Club Stature will also be in their. Both these newly added confidences have also been visibale to see in the game in one way or the other, but putting them in with the confidence section of the game will mean they are much easier to read for the not so observant user.

Financial Modelling

I have found that the finances in 2008 were a little unrealistic and could really allow you to plot your team in the red way to easily and then what would happen in real life unintendedly. So it is good to hear that SI have spent alot of time in modelling the financial structure for each country. This will hopefully have a real impact on the economy of the game making it more realistic, keeping transfer prices at a reasonable price throughout the game.

Wide Screen Support

At last in the era that mostly everyone who buys a new PC now will buy it with a widescreen monitor. Even laptops come in widescreen now. I have had widescreen for a year now and I have never been able to play Football Manager full screen. At last I will now be able to do that and actually get lost in the game, I have found that playing it in windowed few just allowed me to get distracted easily meaning that I lose something from the whole Football Manager experience.

Transfer System

Apparently SI have actually rewrote this feature to help make transfers more realistic, making the shortlisting functions of managers alot better. I have never really had too much of a problem with the transfers that happen within game. It never has bothered me whether they are real or not, but I am a minority in this aspect and we do know how FM players love their realism. It will be a pity to not see the likes of Eddie Johnson go to Juventus for £50 million, but at least I can start using past transfers as a measure of how good a player is.

3D Match Engine

Probably the biggest change to the game and one that will get the scene’s big tongue wagging. The debate will now be on and the cries of it killing the game will emerge quickly. I have been around long enough to remember the last debate about the 2D match engine and now I don’t think many of us will do without it. If SI get it right and more often then not they do, the 3D match engine will be a huge installement into the game and could transform the way people play it, making it alot easier to view the way the football is played and how tactical analysis.

With the match engines foundations being tried and tested throughout the year on a mass scale with Football Manager Live I am pretty confident that the new match engine will probably be the best so far with the feedback that is coming out of the FM Live circles avoiding the problems that we seen when the 2D match engine first appeared in CM4.

But what I think is really cool along with the 3D view of the game is the introduction to the craze of web 2.0, Widgets. The new TV View will allow you watch the games in full screen and bring up these widgets to appear on the screen while watch the game. It will make it just alot more easier to view different aspects of the game w

hile not missing any of the action on the pitch. But for those who don’t like the sound of all this don’t worry nothing will be taken out from the current match engine and you can enjoy the good old panel view of the 2d match engine.

Overall

I think that this announcement was well worth the wait and I pretty pleased with what SI have told us, this only be a selection of what we should expect from the new game. all the features revealed should really make Football Manager 2009 the best SI games so far and I will look forward to what they have to offer in the future. But obviously most of the proof will be in the pudding and lets hope that these features will live up to the hype they will create.

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The First Team

Goalkeeper:

Sebastian Saja - During a flurry of bids and last minute running around looking for someone to keep the sticks safe for the season, I came across Saja in Argentina playing for San Lorenzo, no need for a work permit as he holds a Spanish passport. I rashly stuck £7.25 million in a desperate attempt to get a keeper and thankfully I don’t regret a single penny of it. He was amazing between the sticks this season, strong and reliable everything you need in a keeper, Sebastian even made it onto the Best EPL Team of the year bench. At 29 he is hitting the peak years so I think that this guy will be good to hold this position until Edwards or somebody else wants to come in and take the gloves.

Defenders

Jeremy Mathieu - The young left back was pretty decent in his début season, he was moved around all over the shop to where he was needed and provided consistent result each time. He was decent down the wings and linked up well with the midfield and even venturing to help out the attack as requested. I have no complaints really, consistency was just key for a player who I am sure will grow and grow as the seasons go on.

Jay DeMerit - An American from Watford, who I really didn’t expect much from, Jay was brought in as a cheap player who looked decent enough to start, but when I got the chance I would be looking for his replacement. He was named as the club captain his wealth of experience over the other members of the team meant he was a popular choice amongst the rest of the players with good influencial skills. Jay infact impressed and was very solid at the centre back position and will be first choice for the next season and will wear the St Helens captains armband with pride. He was more or less ever present \for us last season he was another consistent player great at cutting out crosses and keeping players at bay.

Gonzalo Pineda - Pineda made his mark this season in the centre of the park, I would have rather had him on the left but due to the lack of players and the option of Mathieu I could afford him next to DeMerit. He didn’t play as well as I expected him to do so, although still solid and I think with time he will become an important part of the team as the seasons go on. He has already started getting some interest from teams across the Premiership and it will be a struggle to keep hold of the Mexian international next season.

Darjio Srna - Another ever present figure in our defence last season again because there was no one else to contest, Srna looks good but he does need a little more time to settle down and join up with the midfield a little better which I think he failed to do so this season. But he will have to keep a look over his shoulder come the new season as I look to bring in new players to compete with his new positon. But Srna has already stated that he wants to move to a bigger club and if I can find a decent replacement for him he will surely be shown the door.

Midfielders

Renato Augusto - The Brazilian playmaker would rather see himself behind the strikers, finding himself on goal and attacking defenders, but due to requirements over the season he spent most of his time playing on the left hand side. He didn’t do too badly their but I think that Renato is a little to young to expect anything big from just yet, he filled a hole and when Leto came in to relieve him from some pressure and let him go in the middle he had some decent games. I am expecting more from him in the coming season as hopefully the time of the field has made him a better player.

Arouca - Winner of the young player of the year, Another Brazilian but this one has a little more experience under his belt making him an ideal member to put in the centre of midfield and play most of the balls through. He did it expertly, scoring a few goals but mostly creating them, feeding through balls into Love, Stancu and Arshavin on a regular basis to keep them tallied up with goals. He is only 22 so still has many games in front of him, but the £6 million rated player is attracting alot of attention and it will be a fight to keep hold of the player who will surely want to go on to bigger things.

Andrey Arshavin - The Russian wizard just loves to play football, happy to play on the right hand side and most games he did but when called upon would move to striker to not only supply goals but to fire them in as well. You could tell what his motivations were as when he played on the right although he did well and caused problems for the opposition on numerous occasions, when he was put into the forward positions he made up for it by scoring 2 or 3 each time.

Forwards

Vagner Love - Fans player of the year The fans Love to Love, and he Love’s to score. 21 goals in this campigan his pace and deadly shooting proves lethal infront of goal and he has be an important part of the push for the top half of the league. With such good form I am sure that he will be attracting attentions himself, that has been the only problem to over achiveing is that now everyone wants my players. But Love seems settled at the club and pretty happy to stay on for next season and if he can repeat what he did this season we will be happy to keep him.

Bogdan Stancu - Having never bought this player before and hearing so many rumours about this Romanian striker who arrived at £2.5 million he was a great partner to Love and scoring 13 goals himself. Only 21 now he should be becoming more prolfic as the seasons go on. That is what I just love about this side is the amount of potential their is behind it, if I am able to keep these set of players together for a good few years I believe they could become one of the best teams in Europe, but that will be easier said then done.

Best of the Rest

Defender Simon Kjaer was forced into the limelight of first team action early on in the season due to their not being anyone else. He found it difficult at first to adjust to the pressure put upon his young shoulders, I quickly moved the side around so that he would have less pressure on him to perform which seemed to have great affect as he in the post season his attributes are increasing nicely and I think he could soon be a permanent fixture in the middle. Simon did do well enough in the 27 games he did play to earn himself a call up to the Danish first team and win his first cap. Loan signing Sebastian Leto as well gave the team that much needed balance down the left, someone natural to the position made a big difference if you believe what form says.

First Team Screenshot

After the fantastic début win in the League Cup it was back down to business, taking our form back into the Premiership we set ourselves apart from the relegation candidates beating Reading 4-1, Arshavin proving himself in front of goal scoring a second consecutive hatrick. But our away form was far from the success we were having at Knowsley Road. Not good when we went into three away games in a row losing to Newcastle and Arsenal. But the players were still putting in the performances. The League cup though continued in good form as we got past Crystal Palace to play Liverpool in the 5th round.

After the Palace game the team went into a home game to Aston Villa and seemed to be suffering a hangover from the cup success, quickly veteran Henrik Larsson sunk our side and Barry scoring a from the spot just before the break, put us 3-0 down, the side looked a little down and out. But on the 72nd minute the crowd were still singing our names, Vagner Love replied by getting on the end of a brilliant Arouca through ball. Then substitute Stancu finished a lovely one-two with Love to put us back in the game, a few minutes later he stole the point scoring from the corner in a brilliant game showing our muscle.

Form continued as normal after that, at home I was more or less certain a win everytime I went out as long as it wasn’t the big four, while I struggled to win away. My first away win only coming in Decemeber as relegation favourites went down 3-1 Love getting on the scoresheet twice while Kalouda grabbed himself a goal. But on the 1st of Janurary 2008 St Helens got an early christmas present coming up against strong rivals Liverpool. Love drawing first blood in the derby disposing Agger and running the ball to the net. But El Nino quickly made sure that Liverpool went in front at half time grabbing himself two goals. But at Knowsley Road I have learnt anything can happen, and in the 69th minute Pennant brought down Mathieu in the box to give him a chance from the spot to equalise, which he did. But ending off a truely magical night was Andrey Arshavin repeated what Vagner had done earlier on but this time to Carragher to give the Saint their most important win to date.

The games against Chelsea and United that followed didn’t end in the same way. Over the Janurary in need of players, although the squad was doing well their was still room for many more, Augusto was doing a great job down the left, but it wasn’t his natural position. So while Liverpool were at Anfield I spoke to Rafa about borrowing Sabestian Leto till the end of the season. But with no money left over from the start of the season I couldn’t bring in too many fresh faces.

After beating Liverpool it was eight games until I won again, the busy Christmas period had hit my young players hard and mental strength and physical stamina seem to be showing cracks. Losing 4-1 to Reading was the most humiliating defeat to date and Roman wasn’t happy, the success in the early season had raised aspirations of a European finish. We finally got back on track beating Bolton 3-0 and then going to Goodison Park in another Merseyside derby Love and Ropatan proppelling the side up the table again and morale sky high to end the season.

Come May the side put in a late push to finish in Europe as the side have now gelled and looking to enjoy playing on the pitch alongside each other. 3-0 at home to Fulham was followed by an away game to Middlesbrough who were brush aside easily 4-0. Arshavin finished a season of hatricks with his hatrick of the hatricks. As we beat Blackburn 4-1. This helped us go into the final game of the season against Birmingham with a chance of playing in the UEFA cup next season. All we had to do was win and hope Bolton would stick it to the Geordies at the Reebok. But the suspense of the final game was a little anti-climaxic as both games ended 0-0 ending those dreams.

Overall a fantastic season though as we finished 8th in the league above what anyone else expected. But it is always the tough second season now that we have to prepare for and not get to wrapped up in the success of the first. But this game has really fantastic one, I think because the side feels like my own, the whole squad of my creation means that I am looking for all my signings to prove themselves and the struggle to put this side together and I feel closer with the side I have put together, with the frustrations of a small Premiership club has just meant I wanted it more. To make any challenge next season an improvment to away form will be greatly needed.

Premiership Table

If you want a closer look at the fixtures all have been posted in my GK Current Thread

The Squad:

GK:
Wayne Hennessey
Lee Camp
Adriano Basso

DR:
Anthony Gerrard
Dan Gosling* (I know he is at Everton now but he did spend half the season at Plymouth)

DL:
Paul Robinson
Joe Ledley*
Joe Mattock*

DC:
Mark Hudson
Danny Shittu
Jay DeMerit
Ryan Shawcross

MR:
Jonathan Greening
Robert Koran
Michael Kightly

ML:
Wes Hoolahan
Brian Howard

MC:
Zhi Zheng
Zoltan Gera
David Norris

Strikers
Dean Windass
Jermaine Beckford
James Beattie
Kevin Phillips
Michael Mifsud
Clinton Morrisons

*Not in the 442 list but put in to fill out numbers.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Next up for our readers is your very own chance to join in with our very own challenge of creating a squad from scratch. The database that I have been using for my St Helens game is now available to download. St Helens who start with no players in the team but with £80 million to spend in bringing in new players and staff will cause you frustration as you struggle to compete for players signatures. Replacing Derby County you will take up their reputation status.

DOWNLOAD HERE

OR

FROM MEDIAFIRE

And that’s not it! Courtesy of some of the guys at http://www.goal-kick.net you can make sure that your new St Helens side will fit in just nicely with a logo and some sexy kits.

FIND THEM HERE Credits: H for the Logo, Sean Og for the kits. Many thanks to them.

St Helens Logo Full Credit to H

But one man is here to change all that, Roman Abramovich the Russian with a short attention span recently left Chelsea leaving them with a massive debt, getting bored by the football they were constantly playing as the team started become scared of losing. Instead Roman has gone out in search of a new challenge, one that will see him with full control of a club having the opportunity to start a club from scratch and propelling them to greatness. This side that he has bought up will be St Helens Football Club, why the Billionaire choose this large town in Merseyside is anyone’s guess.

The first purchase that Roman made was to buy up Knowsley Road, a ground in a poor state considering it has one of the best rugby teams at home there. Bit of random trivia about Knowsley Road: Former Liverpool star Danny Murphy was the first footballer to ever score a goal at the ground. Buying up the ground gave St Helens RLFC to move on to a new better home while Roman knocked the stadium down rebuilding it into a state of the art 40,000 seater stadium ready for his new side.

Now we have a club and a ground for these guys to play, it is now time to get them in a league. Abramovich hasn’t got time to spend watching his new side rise through the leagues, instead he wants instant top level football. Using his Russian Mafia connections who were enforced to put pressure on the Premier League bosses, he was able to debunk Derby County back to the Championship allowing room for his newly formed side.

Now I have been given the job to put together a club from nothing, no players, no coaches, scouts or physios nothing. Roman has been cautious though in his venture and only laid down £80,000,000 to bring in a whole host of players. In the short term it will be about putting together a young squad that will be able to play together for years to come but ensure survival in the Premiership. Once the players are in and we have something to play football with on the pitch it will be about bringing in a team of coaches to take the club forward and forming links with other clubs across the world to ensure the long term safety of the newest club in England.

Finding the players for the club was a tough task, with such a lower reputation the majority of my targets all refused to talk about contracts. So it was a lot of frustrated bids going in to find out that the players really don’t want to arrive in our town. But with the transfer window is now over I am glad to say that I have been able to put a small squad of players together ready for the new Premiership season.

Goalkeepers

Asmir Begovic (20) - Nationality: Canadian - Transferred from: Portsmouth (£1.8 million)
Preston Edwards (17) - English - Millwall (£800k)
Sebastian Saja (28) - Argentinian - San Lorenzo (£7.25 million)

Defenders

Gonzalo Pineda (24) - Mexian - Chivas (£2.5 million)
Jay DeMerit (27) - American - Watford (£4.4 million)
Simon Kjaer (18) - Danish - FC Midtjylland (£1.2 million)
Jeremy Mathieu (23) - French - Toulouse FC (£7.5 million)
Darijo Srna (25) - Croatian - Shakhtar (£7.5 million)
Joe Mattock (17) - English - Leicester (£2.4 million)

Midfielders

Sebastian Larsson (22) - Swedish - Birmingham (£3.3 million)
Adrian Ropotan (21) - Romanian - Dinamo Bucharest (£750k)
Giles Barnes (19) - English - Derby County (£7 million)
Lubos Kalouda (20) - Czech Republican - Brno (£4 million)
Renato Augusto (19) - Brazilian - Flamengo (£9.5 million)
Arouca (21) - Brazilian - Fluminense (£7.75 million)
Diego Buonanotte (19) - Argentinan - River (£1.2 million)
Nikas Barkoth (15) - Swedish - IFK Goteborg (£350k compenstation)
Marko Marin (18) - German - Gladbach (£800k)

Forwards

Andrey Arshavin (26) - Russian - Zenit Petersburg (£9 million)
Bogdan Stancu (20) - Romanian - Unirea Urziceni (£2.5 million)
Vagner Love (23) - Brazilian - CSKA Moscow (£9 million)
Andrea Russotto (19) - Italian - Treviso (£2.2 million)
Billy Sharp (21) - English - Sheffield United (Loan)

Spending in total reached £93 million after messing around with the wage budget.

Average age of the squad is 21 and the wage bill comes to £306, 251 per week.

It looks a decent squad and one that should be able to see out a Premiership season, what is most needed though is more depth in the defence the only area of the field that really troubles me at the moment, it has plenty of youth and many of the players should see a long career at St Helens FC, in my first year it will be all about gelling these players together that won’t happen overnight, usually around 12 games before they are used to playing on the pitch together, so I am not expecting instant results with ever player new to each other. Alot of these players as well are young and inexperienced and not all ready for the big time, hopefully raw talent will show through ensuring Premiership saftey, the great thing of having such a low reputations means we also have low expectations.

The first few games of the season were played with Preston Edwards as the search for a decent goalkeeper to start of the season proved futile until I managed to capture Saja. Wigan were the first to arrive at Knowlsey Road and in a close game Vagnar Love proved the difference grabbing the winner in a 2-1 win. Arshavin becoming the first player to score at Knowsley Road’s new stadium. But in the freaky way that FM works, next up was Liverpool, Chelsea and United all grabbed large victories before the final game of the month which came at home to Sunderland in the League Cup. A game dominated by St Helens and most notably hatrick hero Andrey Arshavin who is quickly becoming a hero. Sebastian Larsson finished the game with a goal as St Helens reached the 3rd round 4-1.

So we reach the final, an unlikely pairing await us. Spain the favourite for the competition and now the favourites on the night take on England, what an alternative to Euro 2008 not only are we in the competition for us all to support but have at last got to the final of the Euro 2012. Benitez once again faces his countrymen in the final and England have another chance to upset a German.

The Line Up

England look to field a familiar side with the same formation that has got them here, the only difference is that their is no Danny Rose, instead Michael Johnson will start in the middle of the field with Steven Gerrard in front of him. Xabi Alonso returns for Spain and Iniesta returns to the right hand side as Alfaro misses out with an injury.

The game kicked off and it was England who started the brightest, Jenas hitting a long ball into the path of Wayne Rooney who used his strength and speed to get past Pablo and in on goal a brilliant chip by Rooney but Casillas done enough to put the ball behind. Again Jenas puts Rooney through with a counter attack catching Spain off guard, Rooney though probably hit the ball too early driving it and hit it over the bar. Michael Johnson then hit the ball inches wide of the net as England continue to pile on the pressure, and looking good. It was all England in the first half but they have yet to put the ball in the back of the net, Rafa will have to keep motivation up in the second half and hope they continue the same way.

The second half though was more about Spain, David Villa got the first goal of the game, but it was celebrated by the England fans when it was ruled offside and gave England another chance to get the first goal. Casillas continued his good form Gerrard this time playing Rooney in again, but he was denied once again as he put a bending effort toward the keeper. It wasn’t till the 66th minute though till the first goal hit the back of the net, but against the run of play it was Spain who hit first. Aquino came off the bench for Villa to score his first Spanish goal of his career and what a time to do so. It was scrappy as a shot came in from Reyes, Robinson couldn’t gather cleanly as Cole got in his way, Aquino gathered and put it into the back of the net. 10 minutes later Aquino became a hero and doubled Spain’s league, the young striker taking the ball from Onuoha out wide and then jinx in towards goal and hit a great shot across the goal and in the corner to end the game for England, Spain winning their third consecutive title and continue their domination of international football.

England 2-0 Spain

Awards

Golden Boot:

1st. Konstantinos Mitroglou Greece (3 goals in 2 games)
2nd. Lukas Piszczek Poland (3 goals in 4 games)
3rd. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar Holland (3 goals in 4 games)

Best Players;

1st. Fernando Torres Spain (7.50 in 6 games)
2nd. Hatem Ben Arfa France (8.00 in 2 games)
3rd. Bakary Sagna France (8.33 in 3 games)

Dream Team