Having now played out a full season and while I'm still working my way slowly through the next pre-season, I thought some observations about Football Manager 10 would be a good idea.
It is no surprise that there are some bugs that will need to be fixed, but it is definitely much more polished than FM09 was on its release, and by far the best edition of the Football Manager series.
The old off-side problems
During a match, off-sides decisions are probably still the worst aspect. On the whole it's a distinct improvement over the previous version, and can only remember seeing us concede one goal to an obviously bad off-side decision. I also saw us given off-side for a handful of off-side decisions which also very poor decisions, but definitely a lot less than in FM09.
Moving the ball foward through the team can still sometimes fool the AI as it would before, but is also much rarer, or maybe the style of play the team is using is not showing this up as much as in FM09. Where the off-side decisions are definitely worse, is at a corner or free-kick, when the ball hit back into the box or the flanks, it can sometimes given an off-side against completely the wrong player. I've not really looked closely to see if this has stopped us from good goal scoring opportunties, as it does affect both teams. I really do hope they sort this out with the next patch, as it's more a frustration, especially if you're pushing for a equaliser or a winner.
Backroom Advice
This is on the whole an excellent addition. There are a few oddities though I've noticed. I've had a couple of players decline to learn the suggested move given by the backroom staff, and the one gripe is that the backroom keep on telling me that the player should learn this move, even if I have dismissed it. That is only marginally annoying as long as you have a good memory for what a player has already been asked to do. The only solution I can think though is to make their refusal a note, so you can check later that they've previously refused to learn the move.
I have been told by the backroom staff that a side plays poorly against a high back line. I was a bit sceptical, but decided to follow the advice, but soon found myself 2-0 down after being caught on the break twice. I went to a deep back line, and things improved. Can't remember how the match ended, but in this case my own instinct given the pace of the opposition strikers would have been a better choice. The advice is not always good, and can only guess this came from them playing teams with fast centre backs.
Tactics Creator
This is probably the best addition for this version. The ability to create a formation and then set the roles for the players, and how fluid they are in those roles is brilliant. At times some of the football I have seen my side play has been very exciting. It just seems to feel a bit more realistic, especially sometimes when they are passing the ball about outside the box, looking for an opportunity, as I've seen many a team in real life do.
More about the AI
I have noticed the average amount of tackles per game is definitely down, but no idea if that is more realistic or not. In FM09 I remember at times being annoyed at how the opposing teams attacking players with really poor tackling, sometimes as low as 1, could occassionally be making lots of tackles and succeeding in all of them. So far I've had no reason to even check this out, so it doesn't appear to be happening anymore.
Long shots used to be another issue, whereby I'd see my players some with this attribute 14+ in a game missing by miles, and then seeing the opposition players getting most of theirs close or on target. Some of the opposition players would have very poor Long Shots attribute. My favourite time for annoyance was seeing an opposition player score a cracking goal from 40 yards, with Long Shots at 1, and was his first ever goal in something like 10 seasons. Again I've not noticed this happen in the first season of FM10, so seems like this part of the AI has improved.
Apart from a few times where I've seen a player not run for a ball you'd expect, or even run away from it, the AI stands up well. Corners seem to be more consistent, in that I'm struggling to think of a time when I've seen a player kick the ball directly for a goal kick without it at least passing over the penalty area.
Throw-ins along with the previously mentioned off-sides are probably the only areas of real concern. That said, throw-ins have improved a bit, as giving the ball straight to the opposition from a throw-in doesn't seem to happen with the regularity that it did before, and on the whole seems much better. I have noticed particular area on the pitch where if the defending side get a throw-in they seem to throw it along the touch line and out for another throw-in to the opposition. This does affect both teams at this one particular place on the pitch. If I spot this again, I will submit the game for Sega to look at.
The long throw-in where a player has the long flat throw ability appear to arrived at seems to arrive extremely fast into the box. I would be interested to know if others feel it's a bit too fast.
It has been observed by many people that there are a lot of late goals scored by the AI teams when they are behind, especially equalisers. I have conceded a lot of late goals, but this does happen a fair bit in real life. The big question to be answered is whether the occurrence in game is out of line with that. The AI does become very agressive near the end of a match if they are not winning. I'm still undecided as to whether it is too agressive or not.
Touchline Changes
The ability to change things from the touch line, either by selecting to go attacking, defensive etc, or using a touchline shout is a welcome addition. Along with the tactics screen, it is now so much easier to quickly make changes to how the team is playing. Before the only way to really make those changes quickly was to have spent time modifying a tactic for the different situations. This was time consuming and if you ever decided to go for a formation change, it really was annoying. All the previous fine controls are still there underneath, which allow you to fine tune individual players.
Custom Views
The ability to create custom views by showing the columns you want for a given view is excellent. I have a particular view I use for working out which players should be available for a friendly, based upon their current fitness, condition, and their full status. This all helps to streamline the procedure I use to make sure players are staying match fit etc. I'm sure during the course of playing I will create more custom views for different situations.
Miscellaneous Stuff
It has been noticed that the mail system is not stopping at certain key points where it would be useful. One such key point is when you receive a mail saying the backroom staff would like a meeting, but often I have to wait till after a match to undertake this meeting, which means you have to remember which even if you have a good memory, won't always happen.
Another more annoying one, which I haven't personally suffered yet, is when an AI team makes an offer to a staff member. It does not always stop at this point, and the first you know can apparently be after the member of staff has accepted the new post, not giving you can opportunity to offer the said staff member a new contract.
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