Football Manager 2021 Review: 9 Ups And 3 Downs

7. Improved Scouting

Football Manager 2021
SEGA

The scouting on Football Manager has been pretty solid in recent years, yet Football Manager 2021 seems to offer up a more extensive, all-encompassing scouting experience.

By just having a modest number of scouts, it seems that FM21 provides you with more potential signings from around the globe. Rather than just being served up with the sort of "We reckon that Neymar fella is half-decent" advice from your scouts, instead there seems to be a renewed focus on your scouting system throwing up potential starts of the future who are currently available for a relative steal.

It's not all cheap, great options to the point of feeling too easy, of course, but it feels as if FM21 throws its players a bone a little more than in recent years. One of the quibbles of many a fan of the series, is that Football Manager can make it a near-impossible task to unearth the next gem. Without throwing all of the best players of the next generation at you from scratch, though, Football Manager 2021 at least throws some names your way who are destined to be great players, but who are also available at a decent price if you know where to look.

This time out, it feels far more rewarding to invest in your scouting department - and having scouts with strong stats seems more important and worthwhile than it has for a long old while.

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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.