[retired_2162001]

Hi guys! This is yet another 'things that could be better' thread. (Wouldn't it be nice to have an official thread for this... ) There are lots of things that I really like about FM 2008, and in general I think it is great value for money and simply the best football manager game around, including previous versions of FM. This might make me a fanboy according to some on this forum, but I don't really care. Of course there are also things that irk me, or, if you want to view this more positively, things that I think could do with improvement. Feel free to slate my ideas and/or add your own!

First of all: commenting on returning players. I love this feature! But there should be some intelligence in there! Today a gentleman from the press asked me on my comments on the return of a player... who had been gone for over a year! Plus, he also played me on three other occasions when I 1) had little respect for the man, otherwise I wouldn't have let him go, 2) made no comment, 3) thought he was a good player. You would have thought they would have tired of asking!
Maybe a nice extension of this feature would be asking me about playing against one of their players on my shortlist. That would actually create something of a dilemma. Do I praise him, endearing him to me, but improving his morale, or do I slate him, lowering his morale but reducing the chances of a future transfer?
Talking about shortlists, and secondly, could it be possible not to get transfer speculation (and questions) about every single player on my shortlist? Some of them are only on there to keep tabs on them in a very abstract way. Perhaps it should be possible to indicate that you are following a player, but not for immediate transfer reasons.
Now the whole transfer system is quite complicated and I more or less like it the way it is now, but a few minor things seem a bit odd. Such as the uncanny ability of the top teams to scout talented players. They are just too awesome at detecting players PA. It has gotten to the point where I feel a player is not talented unless there is a lot of interest from bigger teams. In real life a lot of excellent players are only discovered later in life. In the mean time they improve at lower ranked teams.
And while we are on the subject of transfers, the fan feedback on players is a great feature! Very realistic too, as a fan there is nothing I really enjoy more than musing about the signings of my favourite team. But could it be possible to say, as a manager, what kind of acquisition a player is? For instance, like many on these forums, I tend to buy a lot of talented (or not) youngsters. If they are quite young, I tend to give them some 30 minutes in won games and starts in lesser games. This tends to result in quite average or low ratings, which leads the fans to conclude he was a poor buy! If I could tell them in advance that he is really one for the future, I think they would be less negative. Something similar holds for players I buy as subs and/or stopgaps. Here too it would be nice to say that to the fans. Albeit, perhaps, to the detriment of the players' morale.
Sadly, the fans are not the only people who can be somewhat clueless about the players. The assistant manager is one of them too! His rating of my team is always that we will struggle to meet the expectations. Well, with the kind of team he produces, that might be true as well! But it seems very silly to get a comment like: we have no chance of challenging for the league, when the team is virtually unchanged after a league title a the bookie favourite to win. It's nice to have a critical assistant manager, but this is a bit much. I no longer really pay attention to his opinions there. But I do look at how the team is blending together. I'm sure this is very important! Now I know there are things you can do to improve this, e.g. buying players with matching personalities. But it would be nice if it were also possible to do team building training, or perhaps trips or something. Much like teams in real life go paintballing together, or go karting, or whatever. And perhaps more negatively, it would also be nice to hold 'clear the air' talks when two players dislike each other or dislike me.
I love the new feature where you can chose your ambition level (to some degree)! It is a very nice touch to be able to chose between pressure and money! Wouldn't it be nice if we could have something similar with regards to training & youth facilities and possibly also stadium expansion? So you could go to the board and argue your case for each of these, rather than just saying you want it and being able to do a useless ultimatum if they don't agree. Perhaps this could be tied to your transfer/wage budget or to expectations for future seasons.

Just some ideas. It is a bit of a long read, but I do feel better getting it off my chest!

[retired_mssa007]

My eyes go everywhere when trying to read that. Terrible layout!

I didn't read it all, but I do agree with the first point. Once an opposing player has returned to play you once, then obviously that should be it unless they are major major rivals. ie. Sol Campbell from Tottenham to Arsenal would be an exception

[angelina16]

I had a quick readthough and almost managed to read all of that but didnt find anything much to agree with but I did like the last bit about setting up personal goals or for training and youth facilities, stadium expansions.
I think this makes a lot of sense in many ways when yr setting predictions for the coming years.
You promise to achieve such and such and in return they promise to give in to your demands in some way.