As a manager, you have a profile in the same way as all players and staff have a profile. Your managerial attributes are displayed on the ‘Profile’ panel from the ‘My Profile’ tab. The ‘Information’ section details your personal biographical information.
Your profile is directly impacted by the decisions you make as manager, whilst it also features eight characteristics, in addition to the coaching attributes found on every non-player. Those characteristics are as follows:
Reputation
A nice and simple one; the higher the rating, the more you’re known in the footballing world. A higher reputation can and will have a huge effect on your career; attracting interest in your services from bigger teams, attracting better players to your club, players already at the club will be more inclined to work harder and more professionally for a manager of greater repute, and many, many more situations you’ll encounter as you progress.
Media Handling
This attribute is representative of your dealings with the media; how you interact with journalists, how often you attend press conferences, and whether or not you keep your players happy with your responses to public questions. Attending press conferences will certainly boost the attribute, whilst delegating them to a member of your backroom staff or storming out of them altogether will see it quickly drop.
Tactical Consistency
If you’re the sort of manager who plays with one tactic no matter what, you’ll have a high Tactical Consistency rating. If you change between tactics on a regular basis, that number will drop. Changes are mostly determined by whether the team’s formation is different from one tactic to the next, rather than subtler changes within a formation that remains the same over a number of matches.
Hands On Approach
This number is mostly reflective of three key areas of the club and whether you retain control over yourself or delegate them out to your backroom staff. It focuses on team talks, scouting and training; assuming control of these, and maintaining an active role – particularly with regards to the number of scouting reports requested and the frequency of changes made to the training schedule – will see your Hands On Approach rating improve considerably.
Managing Finances
This is mostly reflective of the club’s financial state and the relative health of the wage budget under your stewardship of the club. If both of those are trending upwards, so will the attribute; any concerns in these areas will reduce it accordingly.
Handling Team Discipline
This number is plainly reflective of the number of unhappy players at the club at any given time. A tally of unhappy players will result in a lower number, whilst keeping a squad full of players with no cause for complaint will see the number increase. The attribute remains static for the first ninety days of your tenure at any club to ensure that any situations you inherit are not judged against you.
Loyalty to Players
This number is governed primarily by the average length of time each of your players have spent at the club under your management. If the average tenure of a player exceeds four seasons, the number increases, but if you tend to move players on within two seasons, the number decreases.
Domestic Player Bias
This number reflects the balance of domestic players in your squad against the total number of foreign players. The number is considerably higher if the squad is mainly comprised of domestic players.
Promises
Throughout the course of your career you will find yourself making a number of promises to both your players and to the board regarding your intentions of handling things. The Promises screen provides an ongoing look at how things are progressing on each and every one, including those added as part of contract negotiations.
What are the consequences of a broken or failed promise?
Keeping a promise is relatively simple; do what’s been asked of you, and everyone’s happy. Breaking or failing to keep a promise, on the other hand, can eventually have severe ramifications. It won’t happen initially; you will have the chance to make amends for your mistakes at least once, if not twice. Whether it’s an unhappy player or the board questioning your long-term future as their manager, the damage can be repaired at several steps before the entire process reaches its conclusion.
If things do go that far down the line, however, then be warned. An unhappy player who has given you every chance to fulfil his requests will eventually distance himself from the club and force his way out. A poor relationship with the board can produce even worse results; fail them enough times, and they’ll look for a new manager.
Career Options: Coaching Courses, Interaction, Relationships, History
Coaching courses
Should you want to improve your managerial and coaching attributes, you can request that the board sanction you to go on a coaching course by clicking the appropriate option. During the time spent on it your overall effectiveness as a part of the training programme will be reduced. The option will disappear once you have reached the maximum attainable Continental Pro Licence.
You will always be successful in passing each course, but any members of your backroom team are not assured of the same approval if you decide to send them on one to further develop their skills. They will, however, pass more often than not, and the deciding factors in whether that happen mostly involve their Ambition and Professionalism.
Relationships
You will also develop relationships both good and bad with people in the footballing world as your career develops. Information on those can always be found here.
Positive relationships will show up in a number of places. For example, in your dealings with the media, they’ll be kinder when talking about you, and transfer market negotiations for players at your respective clubs will likely be somewhat smoother than normal. Naturally, negative relationships exist in the same circles; someone you don’t get on well with will be more likely to take aim at you in the press, and negotiations between the two of you in the transfer market will be much harder.
History
The ‘History’ section keeps a record of your key information and achievements throughout your career whilst also covering your managerial movements and activity in both conversations and in press conferences, as outlined below:
Conversations, Media and Interaction with the Game World
Being in your envious position as manager of a football club, the media will want their say. Managing the biggest clubs will see your actions come under constant scrutiny as the pressure on you builds from day one. Even managing smaller clubs is only just a little less forgiving – in short, you’re going to face the good and the bad sides of the media.
You are able to hold private discussions with any of your players from their Interaction sub-tab, but be aware that upsetting them could impact your squad, particularly if the disgruntled player decides to go public with his grievances. You can also discuss things with your entire squad should you deem it necessary, by calling a ‘Team Meeting’ from the squad screen.
Press Conferences
As manager of a football club, you are prone to attention from the media. Journalists want to gather as much information as they can, and at times won’t care how they go about obtaining it. The best source for them to piece together their stories is Press Conferences. Before and after every match you play, as well as at other select times (including the signing of a key new player), you will be invited to attend a Press Conference and answer a number of questions about everything pertaining to your stewardship of the club and your relationship with others in the football world, especially opposing managers.
Your Press Officer will introduce you to each Press Conference with a heads-up of who is attending and what the likely talking points might be. Each question will be presented to you with information on the source and journalist asking the question, with a number of responses available to you in a range of tones, allowing you to fully and properly convey your message. There is also the option to make additional comments in your reply.
Over the course of your career, you may build up relationships with journalists. Some may become more trusted, and some you might simply refuse to answer directly because of the spin placed on the resulting story. Equally, a more trusted writer might be a useful tool for you to get a point across to one of your players.
You can of course leave a Press Conference at any time, calling an end to questioning and moving on with your day. A more abrupt end to proceedings can happen should you ‘Storm out’ of the press room, although this also has consequences, and will negatively affect your Media Handling attribute.
If, at times, you do not wish to attend the Press Conference, you can send a member of your backroom staff. This can be done on a per-case basis, or it can be permanently assigned via Staff Responsibilities.
Every manager in the game has a ‘Press Conference’ section in their History tab, from which you can see what was said in any press conference and any particular reactions that stemmed from it.
From time to time, you will find yourself fielding an individual question straight into your Inbox, rather than in the Press Conference screen (In Football Manager™ Touch, this is the only form of question you will receive). This works in the exact same manner, but simply on a smaller scale.
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