1. Transfer Deadline Day
I've been critical of FM's version of transfer deadline day before and I'm going to continue in that vein now, because frankly, I think they could do better. I remember when I first heard that it was going to be part of the game, and I was thrilled. Transfer Deadline Day is always a cheap thrill for football fans up and down the country, where everyone stays up late to watch shouty hobgoblin Jim White trawl through the great, the good and the clearly-not-going-to-happen of the Premier League's movers and shakers, all while witnessing reporters getting manhandled by abusive crowds at the training ground. I know it was always going to be difficult nailing that anarchic feeling in what's effectively a text adventure game, but still, I think they could've done it a bit better than with the system they did implement. For my money, it's like a press conference writ large there's questions about nonsense, it goes on far too long and what you wanted to say gets drowned out amid all the other unnecessary back-and-forths. I suppose you could argue that this is exactly like what Transfer Deadline Day is like for a manager, but I think that while this is true, the system certainly needs more development away from the relatively strait-jacketed incarnation of the rumour-question-nothing rigmarole it is at the moment. Again, much like a press conference, it was a novelty the first time around, but you've sorted any potential business extremely early on in the day, it all begins to get a little tedious. And really, for a day which is supposed to be a madcap, stressful joy ending with the surreal flogging of Andy Carroll for £35 million, that's a hell of a shame.