

A lot of this is down to the excellent AI. Choosing Tiki-taka at the start and sticking to a 4-3-3 formation every game just isn’t going to cut it. You’ll want various tactics too and the ability to adapt to the playstyles of rivals. You’ll be changing and rotating a lot more this time around too, with a big and skilled squad required for actively competing on multiple fronts. Real clubs don’t have an indicator of what percentage of fitness a player is reaching and you soon learn to build it into your game. While it’s irritating, it’s now far more realistic.

If you were the kind of person (like me) who’d instantly substitute your key winger if they dropped below 80%, or not even start someone who was in low the 90s, then this will change the way you play substantially. This has been changed to a face icon, which is far less obvious than a solid number. You might find it initially tricky to actually tell a player’s condition now though, as one of the slightly stranger changes this time around is the ditching of the percentage indicator alerting you to conditioning. Annoy a big name early on with a lack of ambition or a proclivity to buy and sell and you’ll spend months trying to bring them back around. While I found they made little difference in press conferences, they do make a lot of difference when you’re talking to players. You’ll quickly learn how your players react to you in team meetings and which approach is best. These same body language cues are scattered around other parts of the game too. I still don’t think your answers make too much different overall (although I do like the club’s press secretary judging your performance afterwards) but this remains a huge improvement. You can slam your fists on the tablet or raise your arms in bafflement. Now in Football Manager 2021, along with the questions being far more diverse, you can actively change your body language to better get your point across. Usually, I would either hand these off to my assistant or randomly click through all the questions from the press without a second thought. Press conferences in FM have always been a slog – you receive a few reply options to the questions asked but little else. Not so much realism in terms of player stats or knowledge (that’s always been FM’s strong area) but realism in terms of communication and emotion.
#FOOTBALL MANAGER 2021 VS TOUCH UPGRADE#
Realism is the biggest upgrade for this version. The tutorials are excellent and they’re far better, and much less annoying, than in previous games. It can be daunting for newer players – or even those who were big into the titles from a decade or so ago – however, it’s not impossible to get to grips with. Instead, this is an absolute time-sink where every aspect of your team is up for customisation.

If you want something more like that, I’d recommend the Touch or Mobile versions. This is no longer a simple game where you pick a team, choose a snazzy formation, spend millions on the world’s finest talent and sit back as the trophies roll in. Of course, it’s worth starting off by saying this is still the usual Football Manager experience. It is always different with Football Manager though, a game that is truly one of the most ‘bang-for-your-buck’ titles around. We might get a new FIFA installment every September, but the changes are usually minimal and the uproar from fans deafening. Yearly football franchises feel like a slog.
#FOOTBALL MANAGER 2021 VS TOUCH SERIES#
Football Manager 2021 is a complete triumph, pushing the already excellent series forward, not necessarily with huge advancements in any particular area but with tweaking, tuning and improving so many different elements.
