Football Manager 2021: 10 Essential Fan Demands It Must Include
These tweaks would make FM an even more beautiful game.
For many fans, Sports Interactive's Football Manager series is much more than just a video game. It is an ultra-realistic simulation on what it would be like to take the hot seat at your favourite club that allows you to lead them to unprecedented heights thanks to your tactical genius and ultimately being rewarded with a stadium bearing your name.
Well, sometimes it is anyway.
Other times it is an incredibly stressful and frustrating experience as you count down the minutes praying that a highlight doesn't appear during the latter stages of a match as you desperately cling on to a much-needed result as your team is completely overwhelmed.
However, much like other football-related career modes released on a yearly basis (we're looking at you FIFA) FM has started to become slightly formulaic in more recent entries, with only updated squads and minor additions to the core gameplay.
Of course, striking a balance between adding new features and keeping things fresh while ensuring that new titles still feel like a proper Football Manager experience is an unenviable task. However, these inclusions could improve the game without alienating longtime fans of the series.
10. Inclusion Of Set Piece Coaches
Of all the things Jurgen Klopp has rightly been heralded for since his appointment as Liverpool manager in 2015, something that he hasn't got enough credit for is his signing of a coach in charge of overseeing the club's set-piece routines. Despite having several players with the skills to be lethal in a dead ball situation, Liverpool was statistically underperforming in the area, so Klopp hired specialist throw-in coach Thomas Gronnemark after reading about his work.
The appointment proved to be a masterstroke, and the following year The Reds went from being among the worst-performing teams in the league based on goals from set-pieces to the undisputed best with 29, eight better than their nearest rivals. Sports Interactive has always prided itself on having its finger on the pulse of the modern managing meta, so a new FM title needs to include the option for players to hire specialist coaches like Gronnemark to further develop their tactics.