1. Better Match Graphics
This may not be the most important factor in what makes a good manager game for many people, but what I'm sure we can all agree on is that the match engine in pretty much all previous Football Manager's has been appalling at best. I understand it would be foolish of me to hope for visuals akin to those on FIFA or PES, but at the same time when I am watching my team play I don't want feel like I am bearing witness to some horrible digital manifestation of Subbuteo. I would personally be more than satisfied with something up to the standard of an old PS2 title, but I'm afraid anything less is tantamount to laziness.
2. Improved Scouting System
There are certain parts of the scouting system in FM 2012 that were admittedly improved, which benefited the game hugely. However there are still a few issues which really need ironing out in this most important of features. Firstly, and most frustrating of all, is the depth (or lack of it) of results when searching for players manually. This becomes a real pain when you are just starting out and your scouts are not necessarily the best, because when you search for a specific type of player all you are given is a list of the same players near enough every time. What makes this even more grating is when you later find players who were exactly what you were looking for but didn't appear on the search results; a young, cheap Brazilian winger with 19 pace who you missed out on altogether because the game decided not to have any idea he existed, for example.