
You can talk directly to an individual during team talks, too. You can also throw your hands in the air in praise, or smash a water bottle across the dressing room in disgust. If you want to motivate your team to do better, you can punch your fist whilst giving your team talk to encourage your players to do better. For example, say your pass percentage and shots on target were far from ideal, you can pick a gesture to go alongside with what you want to say. I often embraced my theatrical side when entering half time as a way to fire up my players and get the most out of them for the second half. The way you interact with your team and the media has been opened wide up thanks to the introduction of gestures. The inclusion of a Whatsapp-style chat function which allows you to let certain players know what you think of their performance, or getting the lowdown from a player’s agent before entering into negotiations will get you closer to the action, literally. This year, conversation and communication on a personal level have taken centre stage. Making big decisions about who to bring in, whether to sit out your winger in favour of a young upstart from the youth team, or how your squad might benefit from a fresh formation and approach have always been huge parts of the Football Manager series. If I were to detail everything this game has to offer, we’d be here for days, and you’d be reading this rather than playing, so to give you an idea of how Football Manager 2021 has improved since last year, let’s take a look at the new features. You can keep track of how player injuries are going and how training is impacting player fitness, receive scouting reports for players who could fit into the future of the club, and plenty of other information football fans will spend hours analysing with a fine-tooth comb. Every player has a detailed breakdown of their abilities, performance on the pitch, relationship with colleagues, pros and cons, and more. The detail involved in the backroom business is staggering. After only a few hours playing Football Manager 2021, I was hooked.

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2021 XBOX ONE REVIEW HOW TO
Along with Mike Phelan, we looked at where the squad was at its strongest, how to adapt our training regime to take advantage of the talent in our squad, and where we could possibly make improvements by diving into the transfer market.

I’d just taken over from Ole Gunnar Solskjær, and the squad was far from motivated, but they welcomed me with open arms and we began to build on the foundations left in the former manager’s wake. My pre-season with Manchester United was going pretty well.
