5 Signs You've Been Playing Football Manager Way Too Long

4. You've Become a Recluse

If there's one universal truth that all FM players abide by, it's this. Press conferences suck. They totally suck. It's just the same questions again and again- tactical decisions, transfer policy, team selection, it just goes on. It's no wonder we all skip them, sending our assistant in to face the same barrage of questions, day after day, week after week. Oxlade-Chamberlain may occasionally stick his foot in his mouth, but he's got the patience of a saint. There's surely only so many times he can say that you intend to attack from the off before snapping, but he always does it with a smile on his face. But then the weeks rolled into months, the months into years. You still didn't show up. In fact, the journalists start forgetting what you look like. For all they know you're locked in your office going all Howard Hughes on the situation, ignoring the press officer's forlorn knocks on the door. Yet somehow, they've formed a relationship of 'great respect' with you. You've got to wonder, what is this based on? An empty chair? Are journalists just lonely people? Then one day you decide to look at the press conference history, and it hits you. Despite being in this job for twenty years, you've only ever been to three press conferences, and one was your own unveiling. The other two were accidental clicks of the mouse. That media handling bar? Yeah,that's at 1%.