Football Manager 2020: 10 Essential Fan Demands It Must Include

As FM looks to constantly one-up itself, here are 10 must-see changes that need to happen.

Football Manager 2020
Sports Interactive

It’s absolutely crazy to think that the Football Manager franchise has been around, at least in some form or fashion, as far back as 1992.

Back then known as Championship Manager and initially made up of completely made-up footballers, the game has gone on to achieve continued greatness and jaw-dropping sales with each passing entry in the franchise. Of course, a key part of FM’s unfaltering popularity is the fact that developer Sports Interactive has constantly looked at ways to tweak each and every addition to the series.

By this point, the powers-that-be have managed to make the most all-encompassing football management game that we’ve ever seen. Yet that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few edits and additions that FM still needs to make in order to become even greater.

With Football Manager 2020 currently expected to arrive at some point this November, now seems like the perfect time to weigh up what changes need to be implemented in this next offering. So let’s take a break from the football gossip pages, Women’s World Cup, and Copa America, and see what could hopefully be on the way in FM 2020.

10. A More Hands-On Training Approach

Football Manager 2020
Barrington Coombs/EMPICS Sport

Since the franchise first began, the training side of Football Manager has been a little bit of an underplayed, undervalued slice of the overall FM pie.

If we’re being perfectly honest, do any of us really know what we’re doing with our training schedules? Sure, we may select a few variables for our training sessions, but then it’s a case of handing things over to our coaching staff to deal with while we plot how to put a stop to Brentford’s flawless passing game.

Whether it’s in a 3D environment or not, it would good to be able to actually see those training sessions play out. It’s one thing to take your assistant manager’s word that Jesse Lingard trained poorly after overdoing it on VK Orange the night before, but it’s an entirely different thing to get to see these poor performances play out before your own eyes.

Added to this, being able to fully keep a watch over training routines could allow managers to see just how well players are reacting to each tailormade schedule, to each encouragement to use their left foot, to each instruction to try more 30-yard screamers, and to each instruction to “go in ‘ard”.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.