Even before the release of Football Manager 2024, there was a lot of discourse about the new match engine and how it would enable positional play. It has allowed for formations within a tactic to now vary greatly from when a team is in possession to when it is out of possession (or OOP for short). Football Manager blogger ‘icon’ FM Grasshopper was one of, if not the first, out of the blocks on this. He explained his take on a 4-1-4-1 tactic OOP, which evolved into a 3-2-4-1 when in possession with CF Monterrey. I highly encourage you to go and read it if you haven’t already, along with his Sup ..read more

I wrote a blog piece on this site for Football Manager 2023 called ‘The Art of Squad Building‘, in which I looked at a number of factors I utilise to initially improve, and then maintain, squad depth and quality. These included the importance of having a balanced squad, with little inequality between wages; player personality types; how to go about ensuring that the next rung of players were ready to go by identifying talent early, and putting these players onto a development pathway (which I then subsequently went into more detail about in a further blog post on ‘The Art of Youth Development ..read more

In previous iterations of Football Manager, I’ve used data analysis to assess player performance at the end of a season by extracting data from the game due to a lack of analysis within the game. Since then, data analysis has become a key feature, with the additions of recruitment and performance analysts. This has been welcome progress, and hopefully there’s further to go in this area, as there are still a few aspects that I think need further attention, which I address in this blog post. In the piece, I’ve used the FBref.com as a guide, along with two (admittedly old) blog posts from StatsBo ..read more

Following the release of my previous in “The Art of” series, “The Art of Squad Building“, I had a number of people ask me questions regarding youth recruitment and development, so this post is going to expand further into the approaches which lay the foundations of youth recruitment and development that I look to utilise. It will guide you through: Internal youth recruitment How I drill down on which scouts to appoint The establishment of scouting assignments What attributes I look when signing youth players When to and when not to loan players out The importance of choosing the ‘right’ loan ..read more

This blog acts as a follow-up, sister piece to my previous entry – The Art of the Signing. In that blog, I went through the various considerations that I undertake when deciding upon bringing someone into my squad. It hinted heavily about the importance of having a strong sense of harmony in a squad, and the benefits that this can bring a side. It is this facet of sports, though focusing within the realms of Football Manager, that this post will investigate. There is little doubt that having a settled squad, with good relationships between the management and the playing staff goes hand-in-hand ..read more

This post originates from a signing I have already made for my Bayer 04 Leverkusen side. I was appointed as manager of Die Schwarzroten after I was resoundingly sacked by the board at Genoa for starting a striker in a Coppa Italia game against Inter, whom I’d previously promised not to play due to poor form. No, I’m not joking. Signing a football player is, I imagine, very different to recruitment in most industries. Player identification may share similarities with that of top-end corporate jobs, i.e. head-hunting, but it’s far from the ordinary occupation which still relies on applicati ..read more

After a tremendous season in Europe last year with lifting the Europa League, albeit with one to forget in Ligue 1, I was keen to continue the 4-2-3-1 formation. As a team, we are full of more skilled, technical players with pace and stamina to play a pressing style of football that we simply didn’t possess when we first achieved promotion. With this in mind, the squad needed some alterations to it. Player Trading & Amortisation These were largely funded by the sale of relative youngster Erik Willems to Bayern Munich. After buying Willems for a paltry £11,750, his remaining book value was ..read more

The 2024-25 season was a very successful one, relatively speaking. After achieving European football through league finish last season, we managed the same feat again with the latest campaign, improving our finish from 6th to 4th – as a result going through to the Europa League in 2025-26. With only PSG attaining more possession than us, we again dominated the ball against our opponents, though we did score notably fewer goals than our fellow European qualifying teams. Yet we pretty matched out expected goal difference – evidence that our formation does a good job in looking after the ball, bu ..read more

Ad Maiora Semper Ciao, and welcome back to the second half of the first season at Genoa CFC. In this piece, you’ll read about the winter transfers, see how we finished off the second half of Serie B, and the financial impact of being in Serie B alongside my transfer business. Winter transfers After the defeat to Frosinone, Albert Guðmundsson had the temerity to come to me and challenge me on how I spoke to the team during my team talks. I didn’t appreciate his tone, so he went straight on the transfer list, offered for sale, and put into the Under-18s for good measure. A number of teams came i ..read more

Nuovi inizi Ciao, and welcome back to my first review of my time as Genoa CFC Mister. Below, you’ll read of the nuovi inizi (new beginnings) and how I’ve already begun to assert my way on the club both on and off the field. Staff and Transfer Dealings Assessing a new club is never easy. Taking the time to consider your options tactically given the make up of the squad, how that tactic will inform the training schedule, considering the positions and ages of players you want your scouts to be looking for, not to mention the locations you wish to send your scouts to are all lengthy and considered ..read more