Football Manager 2025 is set to deliver a significant step change for the world’s greatest video game series. The pending switch to the Unity game engine, the addition of women’s football, and securing the Premier League licence offer plenty to get excited about.
I have no doubt that FM25 has the potential to be the best football management game ever developed. However, those major changes do raise concerns about whether the “small things” that affect gameplay and, ultimately, our enjoyment of the game will get the attention required. After all, it’s all well and good to acquire a league license but many people – this writer included – have zero interest in managing in the Premier League. So if the gameplay and quality of life issues still plague the game, it’s likely to be a frustrating experience.
I don’t want this to get too negative – I’m not trying to blast Sports Interactive and I still love playing FM24 – but here are a few ideas for features and quality-of-life elements I’d like to see addressed to enhance the gaming experience in FM25. I also opened the floor to the FM Library Discord channel I’m part of – which you can join here – and weaved some of their suggestions in.
Transfer Changes
I’m expecting more big changes to how the FM transfer system works on FM25, largely to make it more realistic but hopefully more enjoyable. A few ideas include:
AI Transfer Interactions: The transfer system on FM still needs a lot of work. One of my biggest frustrations is when I reject a bid from a team, only for them to come back again and again with the exact same offer. Another frustration is teams coming in with derisory non-negotiable bids, which I instantly reject. In fact, I’m pretty sure the modern football manager has very little involvement in the finer dealings, so it’s arguable that us being involved in transfers at all is unrealistic. Of course, taking that away from the game would kill it but I think the transfer system generally needs tweaking.
The below transfer bid from Bayern, which I received yesterday, summarises my general frustration with AI transfers. They came in with a ridiculous bid well below one of my best player’s transfer value, which was already far too low. So I obviously rejected it and he got annoyed about it – despite signing a massive new contract about six months ago. (We’ll talk more about loyalty later)
Player Values: Linked to transfer issues like in the image below, I’ve recently noticed that my players’ values are significantly lower than my rivals’ players who are of a similar or worse standard even though my club has a higher reputation. I don’t know why that is, but it’s clearly linked to AI managers consistently lowballing us.
Loan Interactions: Loan dealings just feel broken in FM24. AI teams won’t accept loan bids without massive monthly fees AND 100% wage contribution. However, they’re all too happy to make bids with no monthly fees, 0% wage contribution and with players being squad players. How does this system make any sense? I’m pretty sure Man UFC and Liverpool wouldn’t expect a team in League 1 to pay £300k per month plus £25,000 per month for one of their backup or reserve players who’ll never play for them.
Sticking with loans, it seems there’s still a bug with teams refusing to send players back on loan to your club even when they’ve had a good season with you and remain nowhere near their first team.
Player Scouting: Building on the transfer system tweaks, it would be great to have more in-depth and realistic chats with the Director of Football, the Chief Scout and the scouting team to understand what they’re doing, where they’re searching, players they’re excited by, games they’ve been to, and any challenges they’re facing. The current approach of recruitment focuses seems good on paper, but it doesn’t always deliver what you’re looking for. I’m constantly having scouts recommend players that don’t meet the parameters I’ve set them – such as recommending players older than 21 when I’ve asked them to find players aged 15 to 21. Additionally, it would be great to be able to save the scouting assignments you’ve created, so you don’t have to rebuild them when you move to a new club.
Management Changes
Set Piece Evolution: I like the changes SI made to set pieces for FM24, but there’s still room for improvement. Firstly, there’s been issues this year where opposition players don’t get marked or your players appear completely out of position. Overall, I’d like a little more individuality in how you create set pieces, with the chance to create completely unique plays rather than the rigid current options.
Also, there’s no option to not shoot with a free kick “in shooting range,” even if you don’t have players who are good at taking direct free kicks. So I’d really like to see us given a bit more control over what players do from set pieces.
International Management: I’m sure we can all agree that international management remains sub-par at best in Football Manager. The experience generally feels very hands-off. For example, international managers still aren’t able to train their players, which is a particular problem during major tournaments like the World Cup and the Euros. And there’s no squad dynamics within international squads, which seems like a really important feature in real-life international squads. I recently did a little experiment managing England at Euro 2024 and it was a really boring experience.
Player / Manager Improvements
One area that definitely requires improvement is how in-game managers interact with their players. A few ideas include:
Lack Of Depth Complaints: I don’t know why this feature crept into FM24, but it’s one of the most frustrating. Firstly, it seems a little unrealistic that an entire squad would get irate at me for having one starting goalkeeper and a decent-ish or hot prospect goalkeeper as his only backup. Secondly, what right do they have to question their manager and demand him to make new signings? Also, there’s no option to say you’re retraining someone to play there, which is more than often the case. Furthermore, I’d like some recognition from players when it turns out that I was right all along.
Player / Manager Interactions: The issue of player interactions was also pointed out by Lewish from the Discord chat, who wants the whole player interaction system to be revamped. He rightly points out that “it’s a chore and you’re constantly walking a thin line between dressing room revolt, unless you’re overachieving.”
Non-Negotiable Minimum Fee Clauses: You discover a great prospect and go to negotiate a contract, only to discover their agent locks in a non-negotiable minimum release fee that is either too low or will be way below their market value when you sign them. Typically, you’re able to negotiate it out of contracts after a while, but occasionally agents will refuse to remove it or allow you to make it higher, especially in lower reputation leagues. I know SI are all about enhancing agent involvement to reflect real-life deals, but this feature needs tweaking.
Playing Time Issues: One of the biggest frustrations with FM24 is players getting upset about a lack of playing time, when they’ve played lot in other competitions outside of the domestic league. I think the game needs to start factoring cup and European starts and potentially time off the bench into players’ actual playing time – especially considering we now have five substitutes per match. Also, when a player is a squad player, they shouldn’t be complaining about not starting enough games!
Player Loyalty: We’ve all seen players listing us as their favourite personnel in their profiles, but it currently doesn’t seem to mean anything. For example, a player can have you as their favourite manager, the club as their favourite team, and backroom staff and teammates listed in their favourite personnel. Yet as soon as another club comes in for them, they show no semblance of loyalty. So I think loyalty is something that needs to be improved and revamped.
Manager Contracts: No, I’m not talking about the ability to spend the money you earn in Football Manager, I don’t think SI will ever want to introduce that – although I do think it would be useful to spend your earned money on funding coaching courses. I’m talking about the expiration of manager contracts, or lack of. When your contract at a club expires, you’re forced to remain at the club on a rolling basis until you either sign a new deal or are forced to resign, which is very realistic and actually is an adverse feature for managers on Journeyman adventures. Managers should be able to either allow their contracts to expire and leave or announce their intention to depart a club at the end of their contract.
On a similar note, over in our FML Discord chat, Brad suggested that managers should have release clauses that clubs can activate if they want to hire us – which I also love. This kind of happens underneath the skin in-game, with clubs putting a compensation percentage in your contract, but it would be more realistic to bring release fees to the fore.
Press Conferences: One area of the game that definitely needs improvement is press conferences. I’ll hand the baton back to Brad from the FML Discord, who wants to see the introduction of AI software that can react to a user’s responses in real time and have actual conversations with them. As a writer who contributes articles to an AI provider, I fully agree with this suggestion, as it would save us all from the same generic responses in every press conference. And let’s be honest, it would be a lot cheaper than acquiring the Premier League licence.
Manager Job Interviews: On a similar note, job interviews are still pretty basic in the game. I know exactly which buttons I need to press to please a prospective club chairman and get a job I’m probably not qualified to get. So I think the interactions during interviews needs to become a lot smarter and more challenging.
Former Club Friendlies: Sticking with managers, in the FML Discord chat, Aardappelschil suggested the ability to set up friendlies with clubs you previously managed. And this got me thinking that it would generally be interesting to retain more of an affinity with previous clubs – other than simply adding them to your social feed.
Club Infrastructure Improvements
I think we should expect some evolution of how we manage a club in general, including the infrastructure that supports the manager, players and non-playing staff. A few pointers I’d like addressed include:
Facility Changes: This one is a bit more random, but hear me out. We know that Sports Interactive are all about “realism” when it comes to transfers and dealing with agents. So I’d like to see a little more realism when it comes to club infrastructure. Rating every club’s facilities, level of coaching and youth recruitment out of 20 seems a little simplistic, so I’d like to see this enhanced. I don’t have any major answers as to how, I’d simply like it to go a little deeper and give you more insight into how the club’s infrastructure works and evolves. Another issue here is a clear bug whereby if your club has 20 training facilities, you can’t ask the board to improve the youth training facilities.
Youth Academy Production: I think most people knew about Wayne Rooney long before he ever made his debut for Everton. So I’d like to see managers given a little more insight and prior knowledge of potential stars coming through the youth ranks. Say, for example, a striker has been banging the goals in for years through the youth ranks – a la when we heard about Michael Owen scoring 100 goals per season in youth football – it would be great for the youth coaches to give us a heads up and maybe have more planning for future intakes. And maybe the media could start discussing hot prospects coming through clubs’ youth ranks as potential superstars in the making?
Controlling Youth Teams: Another suggestion here from the FML Discord chat, as Aird suggests being able to take over a youth team and work your way up. He points out that some B teams are available – such as in Germany, for example – but he wants to have the option to begin your career with a youth side or B teams in other countries and build your reputation towards becoming a senior manager.
FM Look And Feel Updates
Of course, we all want FM to look and feel as good and immersive as possible. While the community probably has that covered with mods and updates made available after the game release, I still think there’s more the developers could do with the game.
Game Presentation: Given the resources that SI has and the FM community that now exists, I don’t think there’s any excuse for a base skin that looks so poor. An army of skin creators have created stunning layouts for several iterations of the game, so why can’t SI use this as inspiration? Also, newgen faces simply have to be better and at the very least look like real people – again, AI could be the answer here. But maybe the move to Unity will help with this.
Outfits and Kits Overhaul: Linked to this is another suggestion from the FML chat courtesy of our graphics man Wighty. He wants the engine overhaul to give players the ability to design custom outfits for their managers, including “being able to see my manager rock an Adidas tracksuit if I’m managing Scotland” and create custom keeper kits.
Records System: This suggestion comes courtesy of Brad_TP in the FML Discord. He wants an overhaul of the in-game records system, which still includes all-time records like Dixie Dean’s goalscoring exploits and Aston Villa’s team goals record. For me, this could be a case of distinguishing between all-time top-tier records and modern-day or, with the new licence agreed, Premier League records.
That’s become a longer-than-expected list of ideas for new features and improvements that I feel would boost our enjoyment of FM25. I imagine that’s not even scratched the surface, so feel free to comment below any additional features that you’d like to see addressed or added into FM25!
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