Wishlist: What you would like to see in future versions of the game. All 'list' ideas in here.

[Ranjith]

FMers shouldn't have an advantage from searching club to club rather than using the regular search function when playing a network game.

Its really frustrating when playing against others who gain advantage by doing this. Some people have time to do this while others don't so its not a level playing field.

It would be nice to fix this.

[isuckatfm]

For 'View defending corners etc' show the jumping attribute in the same way decisions appears when you view 'creative freedom' settings.

[Giantplaything]

There is some really good ideas in this thread. Good work.

Just hope that some of these eventually get included.

Heres a couple of ideas I like from above and my own:

1) More interaction with backroom staff - how players are doing, holes in the team, tactical changes or even just the mood of the players in training (are they happy, focused, tired, fed up etc).

2) Change in the transfer process to better match real life - been mentioned a lot so i wont.

3) Changing pitch sizes - possibility of adding an option to make your pitch the same as a curtain club or even the average size for the league (premiership pitches are slightly bigger than lower leagues. Taking a team up from BSS I want them to be equal to other grounds)

4) Interaction with general manager/Director of football/a*s man - on eastside hockey manager you could see your general manager about the strength of your team in each line and future prospects. I thought this was quite comprehensive and a good aid.

5) Interaction with playing staff - other than during matches you only get to talk to players through the media or with warnings. Maybe you think the player could push a little harder in training or maybe his bad attitude towards another player (like when players training together goes bad) is unproffesional. I'd like to think I could have some impact on a players mentality other than just through a first teamer helping them when they're young.

6) Pre season friendlies - should not just be handled through A*s man but with help from others e.g chairman. They are just too much of a money maker for smaller clubs for the chairman not to be involved.

7) Sale value Vs. Player value - (This ones a biggun!) everyones probably aware about a players value might not be what you could actually get the player for in a transfer and that theres a hidden value you can find out through your scout. This is all fine for the AI clubs who can automatically change this value from week to week but I just cant be bothered with constantly changing this. What I would like to see is a hidden value set by your chairman (not just an amount an interferring chairman would accept a bid for) so that you stop getting offers that are just a waste of time (I feel an example coming on): Player X plays for an AI team. Scout report says he's valued at £5m but the club think hes a good player and wont sell for less than £8m. I like this feature in the game but the fact is if the same player plays for your team and is same value. The only thing you will see in your inbox is offers for arround (or more likely below) £5m. I would like to see in the player info what the chairman actually values the player at and it go some way to the actual offers you recieve for the player. (depending on how interferring the chairman is) if the offer is too low he "leaves an unpleasant message on clubs/agents answerphone" or about the value and the boss saying you should think about accepting it as a good deal. Hopefully this stops the "stool sample of an offer" ever reaching the need to regect it.

p.s. sorry for the fairly big post and cant wait for FM 09

[surf]

I'd like to be able to subscribe to news of a national team, a club, a player or a league. I usually manage in England but since I'm Icelandic it would be handy to be able to receive news from the Icelandic national team, the league or my favorite club automatically. Perhaps you could have the option receiving important news only, medium or all stories.

Also, if you're a top manager, with say a national reputation, I'd like if you were asked once in a while, or not so often at all, about the performance of your favorite club or your national team, perhaps if the team is in a slump or just before an important match in a tournament. Maybe it's not the most important thing to add but I think it'd add a nice personal touch to the game.

[Swindon69]

On the information screen where it shows if the ground is being expanded I'd like it to show if the training grounds are being upgraded.

[Sorro]

I've got a suggestion for the future FM games, regarding the scouting.

The game doesn't have difficulty levels, and you can not directly choose which tasks should be in the game or not. However you can choose kind of indirectly, by letting your assistant handle the training, taking care of the team talks or even picking your team. I'd like to see the same thing in the scouting area of the game. One person (one of the scouts) should be hired as a head scout, and if you don't want to spend time dealing with the details of the scouting work you could simply draw the bigger picture, and leave the details to him.

Some options I'd like to see:

* Hire scouts? Yes/No

Choose whether or not the head scout can hire and fire scouts working under him. If you give him the option to do so you must set a maximum number of scouts and/or a total wage limit for him to work with.

* Scout next opposition? Yes/No

Simply a choice of whether one of the scouts should scout your next opponent.

* Talents vs established players for the starting XI

Maybe some kind of sliding bar, like in the team tactics, to say what type of players you'd like the scouts to search for.

* Locals vs players from all over the world

Again with the sliding bar. Do you want only domestic players, or do you want to look for exotic players from every little corner of the world. Or more likely: something in between.

The options should be very overhead and not detailed, that's kind of the point with the head scout, and then the head scout should work based on his skills and personality within the lines you draw for him.

What do you guys think?

[LutonNil]

More interaction with the Ass Man like getting a message saying a reserve is ready for first team football or when a player is training well.

Also if you need to get rid of a right back because you have 5 in the reserves you could ask his opinion about which one to sell, getting a message like "Player X is good but he is now 24 and not broken into the first team yet - we should let him go now before he gets unsettled"

Also I would like to see more manager stats like an average of games played, goals scored/conceded and number of players used in the first team per season

Also a list of managers a club has had over the course of the game - could be used in conjunction with a media message saying "Manager X will attempt to follow in the footsteps of Sir Alex Ferguson by taking over the reins at Man Utd - fans are hoping he will not be another Wilf McGuinness"

[Jonfun1980]

I would like to be able to put club and nations on a shortlist so you get all the news about them. So you can get info like they need a new manager etc into your inbox.

[profii]

I would like more transfer speculation from other clubs - you get the news articles going 'manager x (ie you) are looking at signing player y' when he is on your short list

and also you can see clubs that are interested on the players transfer page but this is cumbersome to see who perhaps your rivals are interested in signing

i would like something similar to the BBC gossip column that says these clubs are linked to these players (even if there was a degree of lying as in real life perhaps)

[LutonNil]

I also want to tell my Ass Man to rotate the players in the reserves to give them all match fitness for when I need them

[fashiondesign_guru]

Your right it has been mentioned before & I will give the same answer as before.

It's Football Manager not Assistant Manager. I'm afriad this still has to be the most idiotic request on this thread, please people stop asking to be able to have active staff roles.

Actually I think the lightning bolts to indicate a heavy tackle idea might have been the most idiotic one yet.

why? and what makes you an authority to decide which idea is idiotic and which not? he's a consumer of the game and writes what he'd like to see. i'd like to see similar things as well. if you don't like the feature requested then don't add support and that's enough but it doesn't give you a right to bark at people..

as for the idea, i think roles of assistant manager and being promoted in the club management/board after seasons of success as manager are great ideas. An assistant manager could eventually be promoted to be a manager and/or get contract offers from somewhere else while he's an assistant manager, like Quiroz of ManU once coaching Real and now Portugal.

Just wait, I will add my wishes now.

[fashiondesign_guru]

there's no drama in this game. the game should be more REAL and have HUMAN TOUCH.

the board being all powerful almighty and always having the upper hand is so boring and unrealistic.

i start as an unknown manager so in the beginning i'm not in a position to demand a lot of things. at the end of the season, i win league, the cup and the champions league for a club who's never been able to see past the group stage of that tournament in their history and all i get is a praise. then i ask for more money, the board responds saying they're sick of me asking for money. that's not real. i should be more valuable than gold for them after winning so much for them.

the board shouldn't always have the upper hand. the board should always be under pressure as well. i win 50-60+ games back to back, all tournaments, fans hail me as a hero. i demand! the board fires me. life goes on as if nothing happened. fans agree with that, noone asks me anything or supports me. that's not real. the fans should protest the board and put them under pressure to support me and keep me in the club or they should threaten to abondon season tickets next season to protest... for example..

i should get offers! i never get offers. i should get offers even when i'm under contract just like chelsea courting ancelotti this past summer. the game should calculate my success level and personality type and should bring me more offers from rivals and bigger clubs worldwide offering more money and better terms as i succeed further, which should put the board under more pressure to whether improve my contract + budget and authority to be able to keep me at the club or decide to let me go. there should be more interaction and detailed negotiations regarding this with me having the upper hand if i'm succesful. the press should get involved. critics should get involved. my successor should be under constant pressure as well and players should be uneasy after i leave.

this really makes sense if i take a mid/low table turkish team and win turkish league, cup and champions league 2 seasons in a row winning all their matches. in reality, there would be a lot of clubs that would offer fortunes to snatch a manager that succesful. but in the game, i quit or get fired, and suddenly fans back the board and think they'd rather use that $ for a better manager, which is bull.

i should be able to change my level of happiness and my mood and it should be indicated there in my profile as well as in the news, which should affect the teams morale, the fans and cause rivals make offers to me, which should cause some trouble for the board.

also, there should be more in-depth interaction with the board regarding transfers, staff etc. after a season unbeaten in all competitions and triple success, i try to bring in a coach i want and a new asst manager. the club blocks the coach signing over and over and over until i fire 1-2 of my coaches. then i can't afford the assistant manager's salary because the board won't allow me to pay him that much. that's bull! i should be able to explain them how important he is, and i should be able to find funds for it while balancing my budget, perhaps by taking from something else. instead i quit to see what happens and noone asked me why or tried to stop me or protested, and i kept going on and on for months without getting any solid offers from solid clubs but one from some low table 2nd division team. that's really boring.

also for example, i want to sign that assistant manager and he wants 16K per week. board only allows me 10K. i should be able to negotiate something with that guy by offering wage raise every 12 months and/or x amount of signing fee. i mention that because i offered him 10K per month plus 500K signing fee and he still refused a 3 year contract where the signing fee makes his wage way more than what he wants anyway.

same with players. i should have more options when i negotiate clubs for players, like player exchanges, player + cash (both of which are always refused, even when i tried players like ronaldinho + deco in exchange for some unheard unskillful shitty player.

i should also be able to offer other benefits to players and clubs when i try to sign them. for example, a club from serie B should kill for my offer of $1 million cash and, say, 40% of next sale for their talented player instead of another serie B or very low level serie A club's offer for $3 million when that other club has no business in international competitions and i'm the holders of EC and team to watch worldwide. obviously in reality i'd have the upper hand since chances are that player will gain more market value in my team in time and will be sold for a lot more money than that petty cash and its former club will end up more cash than they dream. and if the have more talent like that coming up i will make a habit of repeating the same business with them.

again a first team key player status at a club like me should be considered important for a player who never gets first team football in AC Milan if i'm playing succesfully in EC as well. instead he snubs my team and my league with no room for such negotiation. and then i keep reading his cries over never playing for months and months and months and months after that. schmuck.

and my players should get offers! none of my players get offers. even when they win goldenboot. if succesful, they should be pursued by clubs even when they're under contract and that should also put me under pressure to be able to keep them. even when i list them for sale i can't ever sell my players. clubs will ask me howmuch i want and then withdraw any inquiry as soon as i mention something very reasonable. they should always try to negotiate with me.

i should be able to arrange a future transfer with payments starting at a future date. i should be able to agree with a club to sign their x player next summer with payments starting next summer or for whenever i negotiate.

the players should have personal problems, like girlfriend problems and i should be able to deal with them as well.

otherwise it gets very boring after at most 2 seasons as everything keeps repeating and there's no drama and depth.

[Zwarte Dood]

It would be nice to be able to set up some kind of a fictional player history for yourself as a manager. Then your reputation would be based upon this at the start of your manager career. You should be able to set up to 5 former teams, your position and depending on these teams your achievements (how many times you've won the league, cup, ...)would be taken into account as well. Your former teams, managers, fellow players could then add you to their favourite personnel and they could also appear in your favourites. Your former position could also be used for building relations with players in the same position in the team you're planning to manage. You could also start from an unknown player selecting teams from lower leagues...

Maybe more parts of the game may be influenced as well by this...Media items, disliked personnel and teams,...

To give an example:

Date of Birth: 6 october 1970

Former position: GK

1980 - 1988: FCV Dender

1988 - 1995: Club Brugge

1995 - 2005: Lazio

Favourite personnel: Leekens, Broos, Zoff, Erickson, Staelens, F. Van Der Elst, Okon, Di Canio, Ravanelli, Nesta, ...

One could say that this takes out the realism of the game, but then you could also say that being a manager yourself on that level is unrealistic as well

Maybe all of this has already been said, but I thought I had a wonderful idea and just wanted to share it with the world ;-)

[AndyKane67]

Changing expectations - For example, I am Celtic, and the board want Champions League last 16 football. However, my group consists of Barcelona, Ajax and Everton. I personally think UEFA Cup football would be more realistic, but it would not please the board if I achieved this lower aim. So why not have the board come to you at critical times - i.e. after the draw for the Champions League qualifiers or group stage and ask what you can achieve.

[arsenal4life]

i would like more player interaction such as encouraging players to take up citizenship, On editor to make leagues and countries, making the AI clubs more active, this is not for me but my younger brother plays the game a lot but he is not that good so what about different differcult setting so like easy, medium and hard

[worthy11]

more consitantsy in transfer's & loans

if you dont understand ill explain...

in my newcastle game i offered 18m for david bentley, it was rejected and i was told they dont want to sell him because he's a key player, fair enough, but then 2 week later he signs for man city for 12m, which is a third less of what i offered, so why was that accepted and not mine ?

in regards to loans:

i have often offered a loan deal for a player in the same league as me only to be reject because the club does not want to loan to a divisional rival, but days later i find the player is loaned to another club in the same league!!

eg: i offered a season long loan deal for jamie o'hara of spurs and it was turned down for the same division reason, but bolton and birmingham offered and their offered was both accepted, it seems strange i would be rejected because im in the same division yet the player goes to a club in the same league!!

[rougess]

Users should have the same stats as a manager's profile, that develop over time. This means that we could be involved in the training section, as i'm sure manager's are irl. If we could have the above history, list our position etc, we would be better at say, defence coaching. If we play several youngsters, or are their favourite personel, then the "working with youngsters" stat would improve. If we beat Chelsea with West Brom (deservedly, rather than by a penalty or bad decision) then tactical knowledge increases.

The manager's history could be made up like a club's, as well as highest purchase, longest time at club, etc. A highest victory, highest attendance, most league apps (eg who has played the most games for you), most league goals, league titles won, etc

Manager interaction should improve not only in what you can say (MON and Rafa about the Barry saga), but in terms of opinion. A larger scale is required, eg, bro's for life, friends, feels the two of you

could become friends, respects you, no opinion, friendly rivals, slightly jealous, fairly poor opinion, bitter rivals, etc

Deeply unsettled players should be able to buy out their last year of a contract, it's the new bosman

Club's should have a manager style "hall of fame". Similar to a visible reputation table

Youngsters at big clubs should be more willing to leave for first team football, eg when Bentley left Arsenal

What does everyone think? I know these are small changes but would add depth & realism.

Apologies if people have already suggested these, 3000 posts is too much to read!

[Hamenaglar]

Training individual attributes. For example I want my player to improve long shots, but not finishing or composure.

[Decalogy]

The possibilities for an international managers must be better!!!

*Take a look at how much friendlies itnernational teams are playing before the tournament and how much they do have in FM!

*There should be a pre-game questioning about match expectations for manager as well.

I very liked SAINTRIC_21 idea about resignation! I also would like to have it.

The next thing I do believe needs improvements is training. For me, it's such a boring at this moment as boring it may be. I can play without changing it for a years, and everything will be ok.. sick of that!

The main thing I would love to have in FM is to make managers more personal. I will give you an idea, but for further we ALL should think about carefully to make it as good, as it can be. SO....

It is known that each manager has his charachter and of course it affect to the team, board room, staff, training, media, fans, other managers and players... But in FM managers are unpersonal... I mean, there could be aggressive managers who offense media, are very strict to the players, demandfull and so on... there also could be a peaceful managers, very unagressive from the outside, there can be managers with very great humor, there can be serious managers, there can also be modest manager... Then FM would be very much colorful!!!

I understand that it is very hard to plan, but it would pay off. This managers charachteristic needs improvement on training (for example, I very liked the feature in Total Club manager that during a training there are some options... for example there is a text: "J. Terry tried long ball and the ball hitted your head", and you have optional moves, what to do: shot the ball on him, make a dummy smile, give him training 30 minutes more and so on...), media, relationships with the board staff, team talks, individual talks and so on...

Please give me to know, what do you think about it...

[pouncer]

A converter to convert games from 07 to 08,etc...

What a brilliant idea ! Would be so difficult to make happen though.

[addicted86]

i would like to see player interaction and training more inter-linked. for example, if a player is unhappy with his training schedule, he should tell you why, so then you could come up with an acceptable solution. player interaction should be much more personal and not conducted through the media.

also, if a player is unhappy about not being in the team, you could tell him, for example, that his passing wasnt good enough to be a first choice midfielder. this would have the effect of more player-specific training programs, and also developing a more in-depth player/manager relationship.

also, you should be able to tell a fringe player at the start of the season (e.g. the reserve goalkeeper) that although he is not first choice he will play in the Carling Cup or some other equivalent competition. this would more easily define his squad role and enable him to

a) request a loan or a transfer immeadiately if he wants regular football

b) trust your judgment and hope he can develop, with a view to a loan deal later in the season

c) make him even more determined (aided by his manager's advice and specific training) to improve and break in to the first team

on a related note, i hate it when you have a player it is impossible to offload. this tends to present itself in two forms:

1) a quality young player is on the fringe of the first team squad, and i want to loan him out; why are no clubs interested in him? (even when i offer to clubs and click the "available for loan option" i still have this problem)

2) an older/less skilful player is rotting in the reserves and i cant even give him away for free. it really annoys me some of the reasons the AI gives when clubs are interested and wont make a bid, like "unable to meet wage demands", "player unlikely to be interested".... er, if you make the effort to sign him he might want to come, why not at least try?

[addicted86]

sorry for the double post. someone earlier mentioned a more in-depth team talk and the ability to interact with your players and the assistant manager during a match. great idea.

also, rather than the click fest that is the media interaction, which asks the same questions over and over, revamp it:

my idea: two press conferences per match, one pre match, one post match. talk about anything you like, as it could be combined with the current player interaction system via a drop down menu (with a few minor alterations)

so in theory, these press conferences could be use to discuss the opposition, your team/player form, potential transfer targets, injuries etc. Just like a real press conference, which you could dictate. this would provide a much more interesting feature

this could be extented slightly; say the AI asks one question per press conference.

example: AI asks: "why do you think player A has been so poor recently?" rather than just pressing "no comment" all the time, maybe this could be replaced with a "deflect question" option, in which you could state, for example, that you were pleased with the way your midfield played, or that morale was high at the club, or some random comment which could conceivably be an unlimited amount of options.

[LutonNil]

I'd like to be able to give instructions to subs before they go on the pitch

Also I've probably said it before but I want realistic transfer values for my first team players - I'm in League 2 and my 23 year old striker who scored 44 goals last season is worth 26k and all my reserve strikers who aren't good enough for a regular place are worth 250-275k ?????

[onyxx]

Realtime contract talks would be usefull so the manager can negotiate directly with the player and his agent.

[lavafire]

there's no drama in this game. the game should be more REAL and have HUMAN TOUCH.

the board being all powerful almighty and always having the upper hand is so boring and unrealistic.

i start as an unknown manager so in the beginning i'm not in a position to demand a lot of things. at the end of the season, i win league, the cup and the champions league for a club who's never been able to see past the group stage of that tournament in their history and all i get is a praise. then i ask for more money, the board responds saying they're sick of me asking for money. that's not real. i should be more valuable than gold for them after winning so much for them.

the board shouldn't always have the upper hand. the board should always be under pressure as well. i win 50-60+ games back to back, all tournaments, fans hail me as a hero. i demand! the board fires me. life goes on as if nothing happened. fans agree with that, noone asks me anything or supports me. that's not real. the fans should protest the board and put them under pressure to support me and keep me in the club or they should threaten to abondon season tickets next season to protest... for example..

i should get offers! i never get offers. i should get offers even when i'm under contract just like chelsea courting ancelotti this past summer. the game should calculate my success level and personality type and should bring me more offers from rivals and bigger clubs worldwide offering more money and better terms as i succeed further, which should put the board under more pressure to whether improve my contract + budget and authority to be able to keep me at the club or decide to let me go. there should be more interaction and detailed negotiations regarding this with me having the upper hand if i'm succesful. the press should get involved. critics should get involved. my successor should be under constant pressure as well and players should be uneasy after i leave.

this really makes sense if i take a mid/low table turkish team and win turkish league, cup and champions league 2 seasons in a row winning all their matches. in reality, there would be a lot of clubs that would offer fortunes to snatch a manager that succesful. but in the game, i quit or get fired, and suddenly fans back the board and think they'd rather use that $ for a better manager, which is bull.

i should be able to change my level of happiness and my mood and it should be indicated there in my profile as well as in the news, which should affect the teams morale, the fans and cause rivals make offers to me, which should cause some trouble for the board.

also, there should be more in-depth interaction with the board regarding transfers, staff etc. after a season unbeaten in all competitions and triple success, i try to bring in a coach i want and a new asst manager. the club blocks the coach signing over and over and over until i fire 1-2 of my coaches. then i can't afford the assistant manager's salary because the board won't allow me to pay him that much. that's bull! i should be able to explain them how important he is, and i should be able to find funds for it while balancing my budget, perhaps by taking from something else. instead i quit to see what happens and noone asked me why or tried to stop me or protested, and i kept going on and on for months without getting any solid offers from solid clubs but one from some low table 2nd division team. that's really boring.

also for example, i want to sign that assistant manager and he wants 16K per week. board only allows me 10K. i should be able to negotiate something with that guy by offering wage raise every 12 months and/or x amount of signing fee. i mention that because i offered him 10K per month plus 500K signing fee and he still refused a 3 year contract where the signing fee makes his wage way more than what he wants anyway.

same with players. i should have more options when i negotiate clubs for players, like player exchanges, player + cash (both of which are always refused, even when i tried players like ronaldinho + deco in exchange for some unheard unskillful shitty player.

i should also be able to offer other benefits to players and clubs when i try to sign them. for example, a club from serie B should kill for my offer of $1 million cash and, say, 40% of next sale for their talented player instead of another serie B or very low level serie A club's offer for $3 million when that other club has no business in international competitions and i'm the holders of EC and team to watch worldwide. obviously in reality i'd have the upper hand since chances are that player will gain more market value in my team in time and will be sold for a lot more money than that petty cash and its former club will end up more cash than they dream. and if the have more talent like that coming up i will make a habit of repeating the same business with them.

again a first team key player status at a club like me should be considered important for a player who never gets first team football in AC Milan if i'm playing succesfully in EC as well. instead he snubs my team and my league with no room for such negotiation. and then i keep reading his cries over never playing for months and months and months and months after that. schmuck.

and my players should get offers! none of my players get offers. even when they win goldenboot. if succesful, they should be pursued by clubs even when they're under contract and that should also put me under pressure to be able to keep them. even when i list them for sale i can't ever sell my players. clubs will ask me howmuch i want and then withdraw any inquiry as soon as i mention something very reasonable. they should always try to negotiate with me.

i should be able to arrange a future transfer with payments starting at a future date. i should be able to agree with a club to sign their x player next summer with payments starting next summer or for whenever i negotiate.

the players should have personal problems, like girlfriend problems and i should be able to deal with them as well.

otherwise it gets very boring after at most 2 seasons as everything keeps repeating and there's no drama and depth.

I totally agree with this. Maybe SI could make it more interesting by expanding and working on the media functions. Players will flame rival clubs and players , and we managers could also join in the flaming and such. This will also help to take away some of the montonous repeative pressing of spacebar and watching unrelated news. We should also be able to interact more with the assistant manager, and maybe add in in-match antics. We could maybe do a Jose Mourinho and rile the opposing fans after the team scores.

[SouthgatesRedWhiteArmy]

The abililty to persuade players who aren't exactly interested in joining your club to come along. Have this before Contract talks for those who arent interested.... Incentives could be offered such as house, car, abililty to move the players family over (Although this could be just used for players under 20, if there from abroad.)

Things like that, because if a team has the money then they can go after anyone they want, its just all about how the manager sells the club and its ambitions to the player that interests the player. Giving the incentives as stated above can only sweeten the deal.

[scrawney]

I'd like to see an option to add leagues in as you play, I'm always seeing news about teams from Italy or Germany and I can't see them in action because I have the league switched off. All it'd take would be making up a few league tables and cup results and would open up new job oppurtunities while adding playabilty without having to start afresh.

[cwxstorm]

In a nutshell, more different media circumstances and far far less repetition. If ive told the media i am not interested in a player they should accept this and so on.

[LutonNil]

Why don't my older players take their coaching badges anymore - I'd like to offer my captain who has played over 700 games for me a coaching role

[jod123]

Why don't my older players take their coaching badges anymore - I'd like to offer my captain who has played over 700 games for me a coaching role

They do. I got Ryan Giggs as coach of Man United when he retired in one save. I think you need to regularly say that they would make a good coach. I did this to Van der Sar and Scholes who previously said that they were definitely not going to stay in the game once they retire and then they both changed to considering staying in the game. The more you say they will be a good coach the more likely they will become one.

[soupaman]

I really like the idea of not just working your way through the leagues but working your way throuh the club levels as well (ie. Under 18's to reserves to seniors).

To do this certain criteria would need to be implemented for human managers: Coaching stats and playing histories.

Your playing history would essentially be what you assign yourself, eg. Barnsley 1982-86, 48 appearances, 3 goals, Wrexham 87-91, 22 apps, 6 goals

These would determine your starting rep, if you list no clubs it would be unknown, if you list Man Utd and Chelsea over 10 years averaging 25+ apps it may be world class. This would increase the realism and give you not only a background but a network of preferable clubs.

You could then apply/assign yourself for roles that you like the look of, working your way through the ranks. By coachingthe under 18's or reserves you would be responsible for developing players in certain positions, ensuring they are match fit and basically satisfying and updating the head manager on their progress. Maybe once a month you could nominate some players you feel are deserving of a run at the next level or might benefit from a loan. This would also build relationships between you and these players you regularly give key roles or push for senior selection to, meaning that when you do achieve a senior management position they would be keen to join you. You may also be allowed to hire a small part-time assistant network, or even suggest that signing a certain experienced CB as a strictly reserves player would be beneficial for the young players development.

This would add another dimension to the game and whils hard to implement would give the player much more variety in the game style he could use.

[9]

Not that it would make any real difference to the game but when i'm managing abroad sometimes for a smaller club i'm quite intrigued if i don't know already where they are situated geographically.

Not sure where it could be placed but i would like a VERY UNDETAILED map of the particular country with i dot just showing where the particular club is situated and you could see where that is in comparison to other clubs

[S2008]

Editable Prize money and TV revenue for extra flexibilty with the Data Editor

[Professor Muzkak]

To start with I would like to sorry about posting a not really new thread but due to a large numbers of threads with same topic and huge number of bulk messages in them, I couldn't find a better place to show my thoughts about the new up-and-coming version of my most preferred game ever.

First, I would really really love to have a "shout" option for in-match. I know that there is a lot of arguments over it but i'll stand for the ones for it. I still remember everytime playing in a big match and having an important player playing badly or not following my instructions and I just want to shout to him something like: "Get your head to the game" or "Quit playing around and follow my instruction". Sometime it would be to late to wait for haft-time team talk or full-time.

Talking about team talk, I would like it to be much more in-depth. And when I say 'much more' I mean 'much more'. I think SI don't really focus on them but it is truly a very important aspect of the game for me and many others. With all the very limit option with stay the same in mostly every situation it is hard to use for a long period of time like a couple of years. I've tried playing for 15 years consecutively and these team talk options really get to annoy me. In some important match which the team gets to play for the first time of their history or maybe a biggest game in the year or even a derby game should impose some situational options such as: "We have come this far, let's show them who we are" or "Just one more match, let's do it" for smaller teams, and "We are suppose to be champs, now let's do it the champs way", "Last year we won it, this year there should be no different" etc. etc. for bigger teams.

A confident system between the players and the manager. I know FM08 have some of this feature already such as the players like or dislike the manager and will not trust the manager if he/she is relatively unknown or unexperienced. But it is usually for longtime period. What about something short time period. I've tried Fifa Manager and saw that they have a feature such as player talk to improve their confident and trust. It is actually very nice. If SI can include this feature along with their player interactions, it would be a great improvement.

Sorry for the long thread but these are only a few of my wish about the new FM09... I would like to add many more as well but can't think them out all at the moment. Maybe will do later after playing a few more hour. Plz feel free to comment or add more of your ideas into this thread..

[Neji]

Well, I would say that these ideas are way too late for FM09! The in match shouting is something thats been mentioned before but I'm not convinced it would make that much of a difference, even IRL. It would be nice to beable to give them a little boost in match and would be nice if it could also have negative affects. Say you tell the player to work harder, he may get annoyed and it would affect his performance.

Team talks are a well known area of the game, and most everyone wants more and more options. I'm expecting some sort of an overhaul in FM09.

I think that the current system for confidence between managers and players is good enough already. It's not obvious, and thats the way it should be. I would like to be able to take to players though, like a meeting with them or such.

[Gentleman]

Lots of repetitive request and suggestions, but what's to expect from a thread this long, which has been started back in 2005? I've only read through them since the release of the last FM (08) and even then it's a lost cause to even remember what everyone suggested already.

I don't have many hopes of these suggestions being put in FM09, but at least it's a decent list of preferred possibilities. Perhaps SI notices them and thinks: 'Hey, that's a good idea. Perhaps we can ever implement that in a future version', that would make me happy enough, even though it may take a while.

And hey ... at least I'm in time for FM2010 with this post ;-)

Now, since I'm on it anyway, a couple of suggestions from me:

1. Chairman statistics.

We used to have statistics for a chairman back in CM.

You could see how much you can test his patience, how fast he would sack you for not getting to your achievements fast enough. Or how easy he would give you pocket money to spend on new players, or what his level of ambition is. Is he hoping I do well in the Blue Square South, or is he trying to motivate me to take the team to a higher level? Is he able to support me with money when I tell him I really need that player in order to progress to a higher league, or will he rather intervene and accept offers for good players since he's a debt-ridden chairman because he already invested all of his money in the club and we're still not up to a healthy balance?

Where did that go? And how do we get it back?

If you argue that the board is now responsible for that, please give me statistics for the board then. It's still as measurable as a chairman, isn't it?

Of course, this is also related to all the people complaining how, despite being rich, the chairman still intervenes with their transfers. So in order to pull this off, the behaviour of the chairman/board also has to be related to the financial position.

2. Suggestions for a club to affiliate with.

You should be able to suggest your own ideas of what a good parent/feeder club would be. This should then be included in the list of feeder/parent clubs they offer you (that is, if they can actually agree with the other club). Of course, the board can always reject your suggestions (i.e. the board thinks the other club is your fierce rival, or may damage the image of the club - like ADO Den Haag), but at least it gives you some influence on which club to approach.

And well, it also helps when you can actually get a club your players actually want to go to. So far I have 5 different feeder clubs but none of my players want to go there due to them being on such a low level. Then, what's the use of having them good prospects in my U-18 and Reserves, if I can't get myself a feeder club to send them to in order to let them get some first team experiences?

3. Subs warming up.

Initially not my idea, but only after reading about it, I realized it has some nice features.

Let subs start off with e.g. 80%, then warming up increases the stamina to 100%. No warming up means the player has to build up from 80% to 100% on the field itself, usually meaning he moves a little awkward, or slow until he is fully warmed up - although he should also never reach 100%, since he's actually tiring himself out to get himself forcefully warmed up by chasing after fully warmed up players - that must tire someone out. He is then also more prone to injury, perhaps a factor 1.25 or something, for not warming up properly.

The same thing happens whenever someone gets injured and all of a sudden someone has to substitute him.

4. Managing a national team - lack of players.

I get asked for e.g. the national team of Estonia, of which I didn't load all players at the beginning. So when I accepted the offer, I had to deal with the fact that I had a choice of 2 decent left defenders, aside from the 3 really crappy people who haven't even picked up by a club yet.

There should be an option to load all players from that nation or to load a league - on the spot.

The only option now is to load a whole bunch of countries/leagues from the start in case you might ever get asked for their national team, which causes the game to run a lot slower after a couple of seasons.

Not to mention that, if I want to 'load all players from a nation', I have to click them one by one from a dropdown box. Now, surely you have people who actually specialize in trying to make a proper GUI, so why hasn't it been taken into account that, if you want to load 20 nations, you have to click the same dropdown box 20 times and do 20 times the scrolling if you have bad luck and go for South-Africa, Paraguay and so on.

5. The Manager.

Why do we get to see all the stats for other managers, except those for yourself? Instead, we get to see how 'loyal' you are, yet whenever I decline the role of becoming the manager of another club, I don't get any points there. It would also be nice to see what a manager's ambition is; does he want to stay there for a couple of years and build on the team (e.g. Hiddink for Russia), does he have a dream to manage a particular club other than his favorites or does he want to become a national coach?

There's plenty to improve, like how easy you adapt to other languages. I noticed how I learned to speak fluent Estonian after a year, guess that means my adaptability might be a tad high, especially when I only have played 10 games with the national team, as opposed to players who have played for my regular team for a whole year, yet still have trouble with the language.

Also, what to do with your money? I like the idea of buying/creating a club with that, but how many real managers do that? Perhaps you can buy a house in a different country, in order to learn the language there, or go on a vacation to a country you're interested in managing. Or perhaps follow a crash course for actually being allowed to manage a nation or international club (if I recall correctly, Martin Jol didn't have the necessary papers to become the manager of a particular Dutch club; there might be more of such issues). Or simply follow a language course if you want to try to manage a particular nation - surely the people there would be pleased if they hear you're trying to learn the language in order to become a manager there. Might even be a nifty news-post ;-)

6. Recommendations & Training update from Youth Coach/Ass. Man.

Honestly, I don't give a crap whoever became man of the match in my Under-19s. What I do give a crap about is my Assistant Manager/Youth Coach to watch these games and point out to me who has significantly improved over time, so much that he might qualify for a spot in the first string.

Since I don't manage that team, I generally don't know much about them unless my Ass. Man. / Youth Coach tells me whoever he thinks is good enough to play for my first string. I mean, there's a reason I put someone in charge for that team - so that I don't have to spend my time watching and following them.

Hell, it would already be an improvement if the Ass. Man. / Youth Coach tells me that a particular player has suddenly progressed more than expected in the past xx months, which makes him a hot prospect instead of a decent youngster by now.

I hear you say: 'But the Ass. Man. tells you every month who has trained well!'

True that. But why, whenever I check out the player, I don't see any improvements on his sheet? Moreover, usually I see red arrows rather than green ones, after hearing my Ass. Man. telling me he trained well. Then, the attribute graph, also doesn't show any progress. So I'll still have to wait a few weeks to a month before those training improvements are actually visible.

But that's not all! No, sir, because when above is pretty useless, you haven't heard about the people who 'didn't play well. 9 out of 10 the players mentioned there are either injured, or have just gotten back from an injury. Like hell they'd trained better than average in the past month.

7. Training facilities improvement.

Perhaps a little more variety in the means of training facilities would be nice. What exactly did they improve? The dressing room got a new color? They finally have a fitness room rather than the 2-person closet they had to share? Did they fix the net of the goal, so the players don't have to climb the stands in order to get the ball after the keeper let it through? Or did they buy you shoes with more grip with which you seem to turn better when playing on your own grass?

It would be nice if you could pick a few options as to what you wish to improve.

An extra spot for a youth coach when you improve your youth facilities would be an idea as well.

And when talking about Training Facilities, it would be nice if I can actually see somewhere when the last time was when I last bugged them for it, or that they're already looking into it. Now I have to make notes of them and make a specific category for it, so I won't bug them too much when I haven't player for a few days and think I haven't asked them yet. It got me fired quite a few times because I simply asked them one time too many to upgrade my facilities while they already turned me down a week ago.

Of course the note-system works well for that, but come on ... I don't have to make notes to keep track of that, do I? Not when the 'Board Room' has so much empty space that it wouldn't hurt to have another entry along the lines of 'After being asked so recently about the possibility to upgrade the Youth Facilities, the board are unwilling to discuss the matter at this time.'

I mean, the entire 'Board Room' generally takes up only half a screen, it wouldn't hurt to add that particular information there.

8. Reputation

Why, oh, why, does it seem to me that reputations of players are actually decreasing when they age? It's not like a Maradona stops having a worldwide reputation if he reaches 40. People still know him, no matter whether he still plays football or stopped playing and became a coach.

Another example, Ruud Gullit - wonderful player when he was still playing and lots of people all over the world still know him from the good ol' days. Then he became a coach and failed miserably in everything he did. Does that justify him for having a local reputation?

If anything, it might be worthwhile seperating 'Player reputation' and 'Non-player reputation', whereas the latter can decrease based on what he does as a coach/manager.

There's a lot about reputation in general which should be improved too. Simply think of the fact that, like with a lower league club in England with a low reputation, you cannot hire more coaches than when you started with, despite your club having been promoted 4 times already. Imagine how that sucks if you're still having to deal with the fact that you're allowed to have 1 single coach to train your players.

Also, how the hell do scouts or coaches get a better reputation? Certainly not because the club progressed to higher leagues. And also not because their scouted players have developed from 1-star BSP players into 6 star-league 1 players. And also not because they found me a player to sign on a free transfer who propelled me into a higher league all by himself. So ... exactly, how?

And while I'm at it ... it would be nice to see which players you have actually signed after having found them because the scout point him out to you. That should give you an idea of how well a scout performs for you, or in a particular area. Based on that, one might be able to determine how good a scout really is and upgrade his reputation. Of course, it all depends on how well he understands how the players fit in your team - no use recommending a 28 year old Thierry Henry to a team in the League 2, because they wouldn't even dream of being able to buy him, but recommending a player good enough of playing in League 2 as a decent player, when you're in League 1 is also not really doing wonders to up your reputation.

Oh, wait, I'm still not done. It would be nice to implement a sort of memory of how often you have actually surpassed the club's expectations. If you have promoted Hayes & Yeading from the BSP all the way up to the Championship in a 'mere' 10 years, it would be more realistic to give the manager a statue rather than sack him if he relegates back to League 1. After all, you do have a reputation in the club as a miracle-manager by then.

If I were a chairman, I'd meet up with the manager and ask him what went wrong and what I, as a chairman, could do to help him back to the Championship. I'd offer him the option between more transfer money, higher wages, a new stadium or better training facilities, or something like that.

Or give the man that statue, of course.

9. Training specification.

It is nice to see how in the Training Attributes all kind of attributes are grouped in terms of categories. For instance: Stamina, Strength and Work Rate are grouped under 'Strength'. Why not make it possible to apply percentages/weight to these 3 as well? That way you can try to improve your stamina (cardio-training) rather than train your strength (muscle-training).

The same could go for Ball Control. You don't need someone who has an 18 for Technique to train that again, but when he has a 2 for Heading, you can't make a difference. That's frustrating, since you see the Dribbling going up to 19, but the Heading to 3, after a year.

Surely my world-class coaches can help that guy to put his head to the ball a bit better without letting him dribble more?

10. "He's the 6th best defender in your squad."

Great! Now I know he's definitely not the best defender. But wait ... who are the other 5 then? The only way I get to know this now is to check all players who are able to play that position and see if they also have a ranking (which isn't often, seeing how most of them are usually fairly evenly matched with my best defender). If you tell me he's the 6th best, at least tell me which players are better then. Perhaps a list of the 2 people who are better and the 2 people who are slightly worse than him would be helpful already.

Also, he takes into account everyone who's ever played on that position on an odd day. If a player plays at his best as a LM and is also able to play LWB and LB, but also - on an odd day if nobody's around - as a competent RB, then I don't want him to be included in that! Surely he's a better player overall, but if he excels as a LM, he usually doesn't as a RB, so no use trying to tell me that he's better than the full-back who's a bit less quality, but nevertheless does excel in that position

That's almost as telling me that striker Ruud van Nistelrooij is my best defender because he substituted for an injured defender once in a friendly. I don't doubt he's my best player on the field and he's definitely my best striker, but no way he's my best defender - no matter how lousy my competition or my club is.

Perhaps a good idea would be to be able to select a sort of 'priority list' in the position screen, so you can point out what you consider his first and foremost position, followed by the position(s) you would like him to take on when he won't be getting the first position, in the form of a priority list.

11. Talking to my players.

I know it happens a lot in the old Cycling world, where you communicated with your cyclists by commenting to the media and they then reacting to that, rather than communicating directly with each other. But this is football. If you're spending so much time on the same training field and shouting at all of them, or individually, I'm sure that a manager can actually tell a player something.

So ... why can I train a player, sit next to him on the bench during games, but can I only tell him that he plays like crap or played a marvelous game when I see a microphone for a TV-station or radio-station?

I know I'm introverted, but I'm definitely not that shy that I have to speak to a tv-reporter in order to criticize a player I train on a daily base.

But complimenting/critisizing isn't the only thing you'd generally do to your players and SI already knows that because we already have the option 'Rest a player for a few weeks' in the player options (which tends to be 'in order to get him fit for later games' in the press). But an extension to these would be to tell him why you reject a transfer offer from a big club, or why you're putting him on the transfer list, or even why you're not playing him. Currently we have the options 'I'm the boss!' or 'You're a squad player, someone else is doing a better job' and 'You're a backup player, be patient', which is nice.

Then again, where is the option 'You're not ready for first team football yet' or even a 'You missed training TWICE in the previous week, why the hell would I let you on the team?'

In short, there are a few missing options there.

But coming back to the transfers, I've seen a media-comment from me (despite me not clicking anything like that, I only clicked 'reject offer') that I've rejected a transfer offer because I believed that the player should wait a few years and gain more experience before going to a bigger club.

That's the spirit, people! This is what I look for, with the only exception - let me actually select that option, rather than give me the options 'Reject' and 'Accept' and hoping that the press makes something of it. It's not so hard to change that string to something one would actually say to the press.

12. Unrealistic potential.

I really want to see a FM where ADO Den Haag doesn't have the potential ability to play Champions League or attract star players in only a few years, because that's just sheer ridiculous. They have a high, though bad reputation, so that should be taken into account.

After only a few years they play better than the notorious 'top 3', while IRL they should be having trouble getting promoted or not demoted.

Of course, things can take a thing for the worse, look at AZ which went from title challenger to relegation candidate IRL, or Ajax having major troubles in scoring, but those are exceptions. And usually don't last longer than one or a few seasons before they get back up and start performing again (in the case of both mentioned clubs, that would be about now). But hearing about Manchester United relegating, how realistic can that be?

13. Mentor / Pupil.

I think it's great to see this relationship, but I feel that I would actually want to see any feedback on how things are going. An experienced player who gets to tutor a younger player should actually tell me what he noticed about the kid. For instance:

- He excels in speed, but doesn't seem to be able to bring the ball along when running. But after teaching him for the past 2 months, he managed to learn the kid to move the ball to his right foot before attempting a dribble.

Result: dribbling moved up with 3 points.

Result 2: Learned a new move: 'Move the ball to right foot before attempting a dribble'.

Or perhaps something along the line of:

- The temperamental youngster seems to have calmed down a lot and view things more professional. I also tried to learn him to stay back at all times and not dive into tackles, but he seems too eager to play and still goes forward whenever possible and is still diving into tackles.

Result: Personality change from Temperamental to Fairly Professional.

Result 2: He still has the moves 'Dives into tackles' and 'Goes forward whenever possible'.

This sounds a lot more realistic, because honestly, this is how a Mentor should be monitoring a pupil.

And while I'm at it, why is my 30 year old experienced midfielder not allowed to tutor my 20 year old hot prospect who is currently playing for the first team? It's not like he already knows everything after playing for my first team, no matter how talented he may be.

14. Offside.

Offside is a good thing. Really. Except when the linesman starts flagging for an offside of someone standing at the corner flag, when you're shooting on target, in front of the goal - and the goal gets dismissed for offside.

Also, if I am not mistaken, whenever someone from the opposite team touches the ball before it arrives to your teammate, the offside-rule doesn't count anymore. I'm no expert, but but seeing how older FMs had trouble with the offside rule as well, please review the rules for offside again.

15. Proper explanations.

People before me have already pointed it out several times, especially one - but honestly, why is it so hard to write down what things do? Previously mentioned examples like 'How does width work, is it the willingness of players to pass through wide areas or is it just the way players stand on the pitch? I know it's the latter because I've watched hundreds or thousands of matches but is it obvious to new players?', but most and foremost the fact that the manager gets a salary.

I believe 90-95% of the people on this forum don't know that the amount of salary has a lineair relation to how patient the board is before sacking you, otherwise people wouldn't be thinking up the most ridiculous ideas on how to use that artificial money. Hell, even I think it's better to use it for anything else but the patience of the board.

As stated in #1, re-introduce the numbers for the chairman (or board), that would help a lot already. If you then still want to associate the manager's salary with the patience of the board, it could actually be made visible as to how far down you are. Because honestly, the 'confidence' doesn't always reflect reality.

My 'long term expectations' in the Dutch league are to 'Finish just behind the top teams', which generally means a 4th or 5th place + playing in Europe. But due to the poorly executed 'Playoffs for EL', I get a response like: 'You only qualified for the UEFA cup through participation' - which then means they're disappointed in me.

Despite finishing 2nd.

16. Knowledge of countries.

I'm constantly surprised what kind of knowledge people have, especially me as a manager. Not only is the default knowledge pretty odd, but it also happens that further development is flaky. For instance, I was manager of the national team of Estonia for 1.5 years. I speak the language fluently by now, which should indicate that I had some bonding with the team, especially since I also decided to manage the U-21 and U-19 teams. Well, good for me, since I got fairly good results with all teams.

Then I resigned and signed up for national manager of Ghana. I didn't look that closely, but after 2 months it seems that all the knowledge I built up in the 1.5 years I was manager of Estonia, seem to have disappeared. I think that's fairly strange, since I should still have 1.5 years of knowledge of something - stats of players, scouting for new talent to put into the U-19, or to move them up to the U-21 or even to the senior team.

Why am I suddenly suffering from amnesia, while still speaking the language?

17. Might have problems with injuries.

When I check the Coach Report of a player, I see them commenting at 'weaknesses' about how the player is someone who might have problems with injuries. Why would a coach/ass. man. comment on that as a 'weakness'? That would be something a physio should be saying.

But to contemplate a bit on that, wouldn't a physio rather be saying something along the lines of:

- Player X is prone to injury, you cannot do anything about that (e.g. Robben)

- Player Y is a gifted player, but due to that he seems to receive stronger tackles, which leaves him more often injured than playing. You should try to focus a bit more on strength training (e.g. Afellay)

- Player Z has problems with his physical. He cannot play the full 90 minutes anymore, or he'll start getting serious injuries (e.g. Kluivert)

18. Team talk

Perhaps I don't need to state this anymore, but this part of the game hasn't been improved since old times. In fact, things have turned so that people actually start being cautious because team talk just happens to be dangerous.

You're up 1-0 against a club 3 leagues lower than your club and you get to half-time. Of course, a 1-0 is a good result, since you're winning. Unfortunately, a 1-0 against a club 3 leagues down isn't exactly a feat you can praise your players for. So, generally, you tend to say 'Disappointed' (especially since 'Encourage' is more often than not unavailable). This results in your players getting downhearted because they believe they were winning - which results in your team being totally overrun by a club which shouldn't even be trying to get out of their own half.

Problem 1: Of course you are winning. But as said before numerous times, the game doesn't take into account against which game you are winning. Reputation doesn't matter, which means that a 2-0 win against a team 3 leagues down is a better result than a 1-1 draw against a team 3 leagues higher than you with a reputation you can only dream about.

If at half time my Sheffield Wednesday team is on a 0-1 loss against Liverpool and I tell my team I am pleased with the fact that they're holding up, my players are supposed to be going onto the field with smiles which should hurt, if they weren't that happy. Not to mention that they will be trying to keep up the way they're currently playing.

If at half time my Sheffield Wednesday team is on a 1-0 win against Hayes & Yeading in the BSP and I tell them I'm disappointed they're only winning with a 1-0 margin, they should be getting all fired up. And definitely not sulk and let themselves get overrun by a bunch of cowboys who've never even seen a ball up close.

Problem 2: Your players respond to the team talk, but as said in the game/manual/whatever, you shouldn't be saying the same thing over and over. Although I agree with that (if a coach tells me over and over that we should be doing better, I would get tired of it as well) it doesn't mean that after half a season they don't respond to anything I say anymore, unless I pick the most extreme ones.

At least their 'memory' of how often I have said something should be reset at the beginning of the year, because otherwise they never respond to my team talks anymore.

...

Okay. That was that.

Now it's only waiting for me to see how many of the above suggestions have already been integrated in FM09, which would be an indication of SI acknowledging the above problems.

Oh. By the way. Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to make a different thread instead of continuing with a 4 year old thread which contains ideas for improving an obsolete version? Or perhaps a first post which lists the most mentioned issues or something, so people don't keep mentioning them simply because they don't want to dig through the exisitng 30 (!!) pages with 100 posts each?

[Ter]

Gentleman - The Wishlist thread was started so that we didn't have several "My ideas for FMxx" threads as at one point there were 12 of them on the front page alone. Huge lists don't promote organised discussion and it's very hard to keep track of what is going on in them. We do look over the wishlist thread when it's coming to the time to discuss ideas for our next game though as well as the other idea topics that we've taken an interest in.

It's much better and I personally prefer a single topic about a particular idea where that idea or area alone can be discussed and other users can give their opinions and add to the discussion.

[dankrzyz]

A few recent comments that really jump out to me as interesting and/or great additions:

When bidding for a player, having some indication of the criteria for a player to get a work permit.

Perhaps also a percentage chance displayed if it is touch and go if requirements are not quite met.

Your assistants give you an estimate on if that player might be interested in joining the team and how much he might ask for in wages. This could be another one of those bits of information. Just a guide.

Number of coaches/scouts, etc - it seems silly that the board actually sets a limit on this - surely we should have our wage budget, and choose to spend it accordingly?

Good point that can provide some flexibility and tough decision-making for a manager.

i start as an unknown manager so in the beginning i'm not in a position to demand a lot of things. at the end of the season, i win league, the cup and the champions league for a club who's never been able to see past the group stage of that tournament in their history and all i get is a praise. then i ask for more money, the board responds saying they're sick of me asking for money. that's not real. i should be more valuable than gold for them after winning so much for them.

the board shouldn't always have the upper hand. the board should always be under pressure as well. i win 50-60+ games back to back, all tournaments, fans hail me as a hero. i demand! the board fires me. life goes on as if nothing happened. fans agree with that, noone asks me anything or supports me. that's not real. the fans should protest the board and put them under pressure to support me and keep me in the club or they should threaten to abondon season tickets next season to protest...

Very good point. There's nearly no good-will to be built with a club though past successes, only quick sackings if a manager doesn't meet just one preconceived expectation. I like the idea of public support versus Board support and the dynamics and tension that can create.

We used to have statistics for a chairman back in CM. You could see how much you can test his patience, how fast he would sack you for not getting to your achievements fast enough. Or how easy he would give you pocket money to spend on new players, or what his level of ambition is.

If every other entity in the game has some ratings and 'personality', why can't the Board/Chairman?

Perhaps a little more variety in the means of training facilities would be nice. What exactly did they improve? It would be nice if you could pick a few options as to what you wish to improve.

The Board could take suggestions on what facilities to upgrade. Give the manager a choice of suggestions.

Rather than let your assistant find you 8 poor teams to play, or spend ages finding big teams and when they're available, you should be able to ask your assistant to find you teams of [slightly higher/similiar/slightly lower] [reputation/ability] to you who are available on certain dates, i.e you set a period (from early July to mid August or something) and he finds you X matches against similiar teams, so your friendlies will be slightly more competitive and help you to adjust tactics to suit the quality of teams you're likely to be up against.

Setting friendlies can be so time-consuming, offering games to opponents who have no intent on ever accepting, guessing about open dates or conflicts, et cetera. If I pick a date first, it could only show teams that are available on that date. If I pick a team first, it could show me the dates that team is available. How about that lovely little 'filter out unrealistic targets' check-box option, too?

Joining a new club - if they have sacked a manager due to underperformance and are languishing below pre-season predictions, and you take the job, they should create new expectations for you based on their current standing...ie get us out of the relegation zone and in to a safe position.

Manager expectations - lower league clubs should always consider how far you have taken them up to now before sacking you when relegated from the Prem League with say Southport. Making it challenging is one thing, but overall achievement ( ie Wenger at Arsenal ) at a club should be taken in to consideration.

Being knocked out of cups - linked with manager expectations, if you are a lower league club and are knocked out the league cup in round 2 by Man Utd, the board should take in to account the opposition that defeated you before getting to peeved about not getting to round 3 as per expectations.

All good points giving your performances some context and judging you according to that. Again the complaint is the Board considers little about a team's situation or history when determining when/if to sack a manager.

[Gentleman]

Gentleman - The Wishlist thread was started so that we didn't have several "My ideas for FMxx" threads as at one point there were 12 of them on the front page alone. Huge lists don't promote organised discussion and it's very hard to keep track of what is going on in them. We do look over the wishlist thread when it's coming to the time to discuss ideas for our next game though as well as the other idea topics that we've taken an interest in.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I certainly do understand about how you try to avoid tons of threads about the same subject. I was merely trying to say that it would be easier to have one per version of FM, so the thread doesn't grow to a silly 30 pages with a huge amount of ancient posts. As you can see by the numerous replies, hardly anyone even bothers to read back to see if it has been mentioned before, which is of course not really helpful for any discussions between people who read the forum.

Unless, of course, you don't want them to. Which seems to be the case, looking at the other half of your reply ;-)

It's much better and I personally prefer a single topic about a particular idea where that idea or area alone can be discussed and other users can give their opinions and add to the discussion.

I completely agree with that idea, but due to a lack of overview of which issues are already being discussed (a search doesn't always come up with the most appropriate topics), I thought that would be an idea.

Hence the thought to have a list of all proposed suggestions (or at least the decent ones, or the ones SI agree on being decent) in one (moderated/sticky) post with links to their own threads, so people can either comment on them, or discuss them in the proper threads.

Of course this means more moderating on the forum and a lot of transparency about what SI indeed consider a good suggestion - and looking at SI, I should've realized that you're not taking this approach, knowing how SI like to surprise us with features rather than announcing them ;-)

An overview would create a lot more discussion though, as people can easily browse to the proper thread SI assigned as the place to discuss that issue. But that's not my call, hence the suggestion in my previous post :-) I just thought I'd point it out, although I didn't expect to get a response - or even this fast.

Nevertheless, thank you for explaining, Ter. Glad to see someone from SI posting in this thread after a long time as well :-)

[Tommy vercetti]

I think that these would be really good to put in game:1)In one thread i found interesting when one guy said that it would be good to fix when assistant tells you that xx player is good or bad that he didnt even seen him playing as i said before in my post-players should be judged by their performances.

2)I dont see often that clubs loan players for example-club who would like to sign player whose reputation isnt very high and is unknown or player from its affiliate should loan player on short term-1-6 months to see him how he plays(something like trial),but also clubs should loan players with higher reputation like when barcelona needed backup for victor valdes and loaned manuel pinto-from celta for a fee,i want to say that in my manager game this wouldnt be possible because pinto would be key player and they wouldnt want to give him to me for a fee higher than his value.Also one great example is when Alex ferguson loaned Larsson to Man utd.

Smaller clubs like Slavia Prague also loaned players from Inter milan.

3)Then I dont see point of even having lower reputation leagues like N.Ireland because when i want to take some club from its league(Linfield for example)which is far best club in country and try to buy some player outside the league i cant buy anyone same thing with other leagues even higher reputation.They bought player from Swindon,Notthingam,Wrexham,Everton although they were all having N.Ireland nationality but I cant even persuade those players please fix that(big thanks if you already have).

4)Make pitch look more realistic with better graphic look of grass.

5)In game in Romanian league i havent seen that clubs are buying Moldovian,serbian,or portugal players which they naturaly do.

6)I would like that prices of players are showed like for example-5.000.000,00(and valute of that country $ for instance)because it looks better to me than 50K.Like in transfermarkt.

Also it would be excellent if when i would buy some player in same country that price would be in valute of that country.

I hope that there is time to put these in new game.

Thanks for your time

[dankrzyz]

I completely agree with that idea, but due to a lack of overview of which issues are already being discussed (a search doesn't always come up with the most appropriate topics), I thought that would be an idea.

OOTP Developments (the leader in baseball sims the same way FM is in football/soccer) organized the idea threads to their last annual update as follows: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/suggestions-next-version-ootp/

Skip over the first 10 user-created threads and the rest of the page you will see the topic-by-topic suggestion threads. The topics are basic, like "finances", "scouting", "new features", "game interface", "league set-up options", et cetera. These are stickied and moderated to keep people on topic and on task.

Just an idea.

[Spagbol]

3) With respect to transfers - frankly it should be easier to offload players. After a relegation I quite often want to offload some of my highest earners, and will offer them out to clubs. Even if you offer them on a free, quite often you'll get 50 responses saying: 'We didn't consider this deal value for money'. It just seems a bit bizarre.

Totally agree, I've seen in the news so many times in the last couple of weeks "I've told X he should look for a new club for himself, as he has no future here." I'd like to see similar in the game if you set a player to 'no longer needed'. His status should indicate 'doesn't want to leave club' or 'currently looking for a new club' and you should get news items saying

"Player X's agent has contacted you knowing the following teams would be interested in player X:"

And then you'd get a list of what teams were interested and what they'd be willing to offer. THEN you could hit the 'offer to clubs' button at the bottom of the news item, set your asking price and know you're going to get positive responses.

[Spagbol]

I'm quite keen on being able to be an assistant manager idea now.

I wasn't previously, but if it's done in a very similar way to how you could be the U-21 manager of a country I'd enjoy it. Obviously you wouldn't get to buy players, but you'd manager the reserves instead of the first team. I know it may sound boring to some, but you don't have to accept jobs as assistant managers.

[norbak]

Things I would like to change in future games:

1)

When playing a FM08 save game, you almost never see some new Rooney, Aguero, Cristiano etc. being created when every season is over. I'm playing with Everton in 2017 and if you take a look at the player search list vs. the list when you start a completely new game you see a big age difference. It's a shame. There aren't created enough big talents or wonderkids if you compare to the 2007/2008 season players. This also means that the big teams starts playing and buying rubish players and the average age on each team is very high.

2007 player search list: http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2007zf4.jpg

2017 player search list: http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2017mc7.jpg

2)

Foreigns clubs aren't as active on the transfer market as the clubs in your own league or country. This means that after 10 seasons has past they have a lot of grey players (and often crazy ones!) and you can still get your ass kicked! Again, this could be solved by creating more regens after each season and maybe some more young talents who could become a future ronaldo.

I'm not saying that we need to create an army of wonderkids, but it just doesn't seem realistic that there aren't created ANY crazy 16-18 year old talents out there.

I just like to play my games a long time so I believe I'm being a bit punished because of the player-creation-system isn't working as I think it should (Sorry SI, I still love you guys! )

Sorry for my crappy english and gramma

[Dexza66]

it would be cool if you could be the chairman or start a consortium to buy a club and then become chairman/manager. Maybe you could have different levels of starting cash and then as the game goes on you earn more money. So say you start off with 20million buy a coca cola league 1 or 2 side then they become successful so the club makes more and more money so then you can either buy a new bigger club or upgrade your own.

The whole aspect of business really needs to be adjusted like stadiums should be different and you should have a say in how they look their features and things like corporate seats and all those sorts of things. Also training facilities shouldn't just be a number from 1-20 because there is a lot more variation you should be able to purchase different aspects of training facilities like hi-tech gym equipment, hyperbaric chambers, clubs personal swimming pools etc. You should also have control over where you train if you do not own your own facilities like small clubs might have to go to very small gyms to train.

More so with the business things like shirt sales and the general way in which a club makes revenue needs to have more involvement from the player. The money in the game is a very important thing when buying players but you can't even control ticket prices and things like this so if your club starts going broke the ability to recover is very hands off. Sponsorship should be chosen by the club not just given and it shouldn't be limited to just one sponsor almost as many sponsors as clubs can get without annoying other sponsors.

Something different might be the potential for leagues to change over time. Like the number of teams or tiers in a nation the layout of cups or the introduction of new cups or competitions. Maybe over time the equality between european leagues and asian leagues and american leagues etc. gets closer so a new world champions league is developed to find the ultimate club.

And the potential thing.... you can't really limit a persons potential because even though not every player in the world is going to become ronaldo you can't decide at 16 a player has the potential to be. in reality almost anyone has the potential to play professional soccer at some level but often life circumstances, commitment and other factors limit just how could some actually becomes. If you to the training ethic and mentality of someone like ronaldo and gave it to any young person then set then up in a big soccer club they would be able to become a very very good soccer player. Saying this person is only ever going to be good enough to play for a blue-square premier team before hes play a proffesional match is a joke. A players ultimate potential should never be limited only certain physilogical attributes like strength and speed should be limited because genetics limit these attributes. instead a player should have a current ability then suspected potential but say a player only expected to play in coca cola league 1 becomes really determined for whatever reason he then can train and focus harder and become a premier league player, even a worldclass player.

thats all i can think of for now.

[norbak]

it would be cool if you could be the chairman or start a consortium to buy a club and then become chairman/manager.

This idea has been mentioned a lot of times but I don't see it having a future. The concept of theidea would destroy the manager-aspect of the game.

It's called Football Manager - not Football Chairman I would stop playing the game if that would be implemented. Doesn't belong to our beloved Football Manager

[isuckatfm]

Quick flicks for the fixtures screen.

So instead of the back and forth I click on one fixture, click the quick flick to go to +1 or -1 while retaining whatever view I selected (Overview, match stats, home player stats etc.).

[x42bn6]

I'd like managers to be a bit more ambitious or proactive. I managed to sign Pato on a free and I was the only person competing for his signature (besides Milan who bizarrely didn't try very hard to keep him) - hardly realistic in the real world. If Pato had 1 month left on his contract, the whole world would be after him.

[Korzon3k]

I want to see in FM 2009 more details about your favourite clubs. Let's see: You play Manchester United and your favourite club is HSV than if HSV will play the match and after the end of the match you have detailed informations about played match.

Sorry for my english, I am from Poland

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

In light of the ruling regarding Messi today, FM09 should allow us to withdraw any player from an Olympic Games call-up.