The time is almost upon us when football becomes king again. We've already seen the releases of FIFA 14 and PES 2014, to the usual and inevitable fanfare, but now the real business is about to kick off with the release of SI Games' latest addition to the engaging, immersive Football Manager franchise. Girlfriends will be cast aside, work forgotten and homework ignored entirely on the quest to take Hartlepool to the Champions' League final, or to turn Leeds United back into a Premier league force. Last year's addition of casual and challenge modes was a major step forward for the game, and this year's hundreds of new features will hopefully see more development of the best parts of last year's release. There were some problems with the game, such as the under-cooked star rating system (more of which soon,) which was more confusing than it needed to be, and far less helpful, and as with every game that attempts to offer a rigid rating of real world talent, there were some very obvious missteps in some of the individual player ratings. Naturally, objectivity and accuracy in rating thousands of players at every level of the international game is a difficult prospect, but some of the errors were so glaring that they were almost comical. And it is those mistakes that SI Games really need to make sure they fix before the new addition to the series comes out this month.
Honourable Mentions
Aaron Ramsey & Olivier Giroud On the strength of last season, the Arsenal duo probably deserve mixed ratings: Giroud scored an impressive 16 goals in his first season after a fairly sizable step-up from Montpellier, and Ramsey was a more familiar face with doctors and physios than he would have been with Gunners fans. And had the pair not started this season in the kind of blistering form that has propelled Arsenal from being another also-ran in the chase for the top four into a genuine early challenger for the title, they would have made this list. But both have been in phenomenal form for their teams, making a mockery of fans' and pundits' espectations of the team on the back of supposedly meagre investment over the summer. So, who does make the list after being badly rated last year?