Football Manager 2026

[Fear Of The Fox]

17 hours ago, RonnieTodger said:

I’ve sold Soumare, Faes, Ayew etc and now it looks like we’ll pass PSR with ease. I thought it’d be tougher. 

As this is my first test save I've closed the summer transfer window in the settings and kept all our players. 4-2-2-2 direct counter attacking. Played the 1st league fixture on comprehensive and full match vs Sheff Wed as I wanted to see if tactics and instructions are working properly. Won 4-2 and at least it seemed that giving away possession was reflected on the pitch and the players were hitting on the counter which is a positive for the ME. 

I'll continue playing all games in full match/comprehensive highlights. It takes a lot of time ofc but on extended it looks like you don't have any control tactically. Oh and UI is just atrocious, it's so bad beyond words. It doesn't matter if you get used to it eventually, it's an abomination. 

[dmayne7]

On 08/11/2025 at 21:25, RonnieTodger said:

I’ve sold Soumare, Faes, Ayew etc and now it looks like we’ll pass PSR with ease. I thought it’d be tougher. 

I'm not sure you can actually fail PSF. The owners seem to always cover the cost or find a sponsorship to cover it. I sold those guys plus Winks (and probably somebody else in forgetting), loaned out Hamza, Vestergaard, VK. On a test save I did a few weeks ago where I just whizzed through to get a feel of the UI, I managed to sell everyone so annoying I couldn't this time. Daka scored a hat trick and proceeded to bang them in . Got rid of him in Jan.

 

Normally very easy to win the PL from here in 4/5 years so I'm trying to do things that are less FM like. Not signing loads of players on the cheap to loan then sell for big profit/not signings on installments/not signing players for £50m just because I have the budget even if they will be worth 3 times that/minimum squad turnover/not selling players if they have played well just because their attributes or star rating is poor and you know that you're better off without them. Basically no hard and fast rules but just trying to make it a tiny bit more challenging.

 

Have got one stupid 'bug'. Fatawu came and asked for a new contract a good few months before the end of the season which I was happy to do. His demands were £350k-£400k a week . Whilst still in the championship and not promoted. Plus no interest from other clubs. Mental

[dmayne7]

On 05/11/2025 at 09:15, Aleksz said:

Very good but surprisingly not the highest potential Leicester player on the game 

He is

[Aleksz]

4 minutes ago, dmayne7 said:

He is

Yeah you're right, had seen an article suggesting Page was higher but I've since seen on the editor that it isn't the case. 

[dmayne7]

3 minutes ago, Aleksz said:

Yeah you're right, had seen an article suggesting Page was higher but I've since seen on the editor that it isn't the case. 

No high enough for my liking . To be fair, there's a few that had higher than I expected (though I certainly don't think are overrated) but still a few undercooked; Evans the main one

[moore_94]

I know we are bad with the contracts we hand out, but I may have found a slight error in Fatawu’s contract on FM 

 

Edited 12 November 2025 by moore_94

[Aleksz]

More good news. Weekly updates inbound - post summarised by WTS below if you can’t be bothered to read:

 

 

 

[shen]

On 11/11/2025 at 11:01, dmayne7 said:

I'm not sure you can actually fail PSF. The owners seem to always cover the cost or find a sponsorship to cover it. I sold those guys plus Winks (and probably somebody else in forgetting), loaned out Hamza, Vestergaard, VK. On a test save I did a few weeks ago where I just whizzed through to get a feel of the UI, I managed to sell everyone so annoying I couldn't this time. Daka scored a hat trick and proceeded to bang them in . Got rid of him in Jan.

 

Normally very easy to win the PL from here in 4/5 years so I'm trying to do things that are less FM like. Not signing loads of players on the cheap to loan then sell for big profit/not signings on installments/not signing players for £50m just because I have the budget even if they will be worth 3 times that/minimum squad turnover/not selling players if they have played well just because their attributes or star rating is poor and you know that you're better off without them. Basically no hard and fast rules but just trying to make it a tiny bit more challenging.

 

Have got one stupid 'bug'. Fatawu came and asked for a new contract a good few months before the end of the season which I was happy to do. His demands were £350k-£400k a week . Whilst still in the championship and not promoted. Plus no interest from other clubs. Mental

I had Mavididi ask me to renew his contract with another 2½ years to run saying he's a different player to when he signed it. I declined and he and the squad were completely in uproar about it!

Just had one of the most ridiculous matches in my entire FM career just now though:

 

[shen]

[Gamble92]

On 06/11/2025 at 11:39, Aleksz said:

Its nowhere near as bad as reviews would suggest, it has its flaws, its not perfect, things have been removed and there is a lot of bugs... but what new game doesn't? Like a few have pointed out on YouTube/X, the game gets released every year with a serious amount of bugs, we just get on with it and let SI sort it out. 

 

Think the fanbase is very scarred by the cancellation of FM25 and the poor communication that ensued and as a result expected an absolutely perfect game to compensate which was never going to happen after so much change and the obstacles they've come up against. 

 

Overall, is it as polished as FM24 - no, Is there bugs - yes, but its a decent game with cool new features. If you're looking at it with your football manager cap on, tell yourself its 2.5 star current ability with 5 star potential. 

It depends. The console is literally unplayable. What makes that worse is with Playstation it's impossible to get a refund. Steam do it instantly. 

 

It's genuinely a disgrace what they've put out on console. It's basically where the PC Game was at months ago with hardly any updates or any communication from the developers. 

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Who plays FM on a console, get what you deserve imo

[Fear Of The Fox]

23 hours ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

Who plays FM on a console, get what you deserve imo

Exactly. Idk how anyone can play FM without real names/competitions fix, logos, faces etc. 

[EnderbyFox]

The logic of this game really frustrates me, get promoted first season, Fatawu demands new contract - offer him new contract and he starts the negotiations at 375k a week 

 

I end the negotiations and the whole squad turns against me for not giving him a new deal, he demands to be transfer listed and the only offer I get is from Bournemouth for 30M (they’ve just been relegated) 

 

He ends up going Bournemouth on 50k a week, probably 20k less than what I would’ve given him

 

FM logic 

[Danizen]

On 14/11/2025 at 23:05, EnderbyFox said:

The logic of this game really frustrates me, get promoted first season, Fatawu demands new contract - offer him new contract and he starts the negotiations at 375k a week 

 

I end the negotiations and the whole squad turns against me for not giving him a new deal, he demands to be transfer listed and the only offer I get is from Bournemouth for 30M (they’ve just been relegated) 

 

He ends up going Bournemouth on 50k a week, probably 20k less than what I would’ve given him

 

FM logic 

I saw this. So in his transfer clauses, you pay his old club £425k for his 50th league appearance and then again for his 75th. 

 

They've made a mistake and instead of putting a clause in for his 100th appearance, they've added it to his contract clause so that after his 100th appearance, he wants £425k/week. Then obviously he approaches any contract negotiations on that basis. 

 

Pretty stupid mistake from SI.

[Aleksz]

On 16/11/2025 at 13:22, Danizen said:

I saw this. So in his transfer clauses, you pay his old club £425k for his 50th league appearance and then again for his 75th. 

 

They've made a mistake and instead of putting a clause in for his 100th appearance, they've added it to his contract clause so that after his 100th appearance, he wants £425k/week. Then obviously he approaches any contract negotiations on that basis. 

 

Pretty stupid mistake from SI.

Cheers for pointing this out, will fix in the editor. Gonna start a Leicester/Leuven multi club save this week and this kind of thing would have ruined it for me 

Edited 17 November 2025 by Aleksz

[The Doctor]

On 11/11/2025 at 10:01, dmayne7 said:

I'm not sure you can actually fail PSF. The owners seem to always cover the cost or find a sponsorship to cover it. I sold those guys plus Winks (and probably somebody else in forgetting), loaned out Hamza, Vestergaard, VK. On a test save I did a few weeks ago where I just whizzed through to get a feel of the UI, I managed to sell everyone so annoying I couldn't this time. Daka scored a hat trick and proceeded to bang them in . Got rid of him in Jan.

 

Normally very easy to win the PL from here in 4/5 years so I'm trying to do things that are less FM like. Not signing loads of players on the cheap to loan then sell for big profit/not signings on installments/not signing players for £50m just because I have the budget even if they will be worth 3 times that/minimum squad turnover/not selling players if they have played well just because their attributes or star rating is poor and you know that you're better off without them. Basically no hard and fast rules but just trying to make it a tiny bit more challenging.

 

Have got one stupid 'bug'. Fatawu came and asked for a new contract a good few months before the end of the season which I was happy to do. His demands were £350k-£400k a week . Whilst still in the championship and not promoted. Plus no interest from other clubs. Mental

wages go absolutely insane second season I've noticed. Even in the women's game, I've gone to renew rantalas contract and she's asking for 6k per week, about 10% of the entire wage budget 

[Dan]

Jesus bloody hell this'll take some getting used to.

 

Started as Leicester but got sick of the sight of our players about five minutes in so the wheel spin randomiser is back. We're off to Greece, Athens Kallithea in the 2nd tier.

[Aleksz]

They're fixing logic on contract demands in this weeks patch 

Edited 19 November 2025 by Aleksz

[The Doctor]

14 hours ago, Dan said:

Jesus bloody hell this'll take some getting used to.

 

Started as Leicester but got sick of the sight of our players about five minutes in so the wheel spin randomiser is back. We're off to Greece, Athens Kallithea in the 2nd tier.

good news is there are clubs that will buy them for some reason. managed to sell Choudhury, Ayew, Faes and Thomas already 

[Ian W LCFC]

Well boys, it was a rollercoaster of a 1st season. In February I was as low as 14th and really struggling to win games on a consistent basis. It got so bad that the board threatened me and gave me 1 month to improve or else I'd get the sack.

 

Then the lads actually remembered how to play football and we went on the most insane run at the end of the season, winning 9 out of the last 10 games!

To then still miss out on the play offs by 1 point. And the team that beat me were the one team we lost to in that crazy run  

 

I didn't do a crazy amount of business in the 1st window (bought in Robertone and Miley) and only brought in 1 player in January (Bazdar - 7 assists in 8 games!) and then Heaven towards the end of the season on loan. Ayew only went in Jan and couldnt shift BDCR due to clubs wanting me to still pay 20k of his wages every week. I also terminated Ramsey's loan as he was genuinely awful for me for some reason.

 

I've attached the team I settled on towards the end of the season that went on that crazy run. Wish I had started playing Evans earlier in the season, he only got a luck in around January time and he was incredible!

 

[Dan]

3 hours ago, The Doctor said:

good news is there are clubs that will buy them for some reason. managed to sell Choudhury, Ayew, Faes and Thomas already 

I think with Leicester I always fumble it because I go into it with way too many pre-conceived ideas that aren't reflected within the game whereas if I take over some slop like I have done I've never heard of a single one of their players so they all get a fair crack.

 

I'd be looking to sell about 15 players if I started with Leicester.

 

Looks like Thomas has got the much overdue downgrade. He was very overpowered beforehand.

 

Anyway the first Athens update: predictably poorly constructed squad. Started going through each player and six of the first eight players were left wingers  yet they only have one striker, and he's 40. Couple of pretty good players for this league though and they did get relegated from the top tier last season so I do think I should probably get these up.

 

There are elements of the new UI that I like, some of it is a bit smarter, but certain things are bugging me - players not having an 'attributes' page anymore and instead having to click on a button each time to get the players attributes graph (if people know what I'm referring to). Really annoying as I usually used that as the first thing I looked at before diving into the specific attributes. I'm sure there'll be a skin that has what I'm after though.

[Dan]

 

 

This is what I mean - I'd rather all of this was just on one page rather than having to keep flicking.

 

He is our one striker as well. Be interested to see if he's actually any use. Quality player in some ways for this level but probably won't be able to get any chances. Maybe I'm giving the 2nd tier of Greece too much credit.

[Beliall]

12 hours ago, Dan said:

I think with Leicester I always fumble it because I go into it with way too many pre-conceived ideas that aren't reflected within the game whereas if I take over some slop like I have done I've never heard of a single one of their players so they all get a fair crack.

 

I'd be looking to sell about 15 players if I started with Leicester.

 

Looks like Thomas has got the much overdue downgrade. He was very overpowered beforehand.

 

Anyway the first Athens update: predictably poorly constructed squad. Started going through each player and six of the first eight players were left wingers  yet they only have one striker, and he's 40. Couple of pretty good players for this league though and they did get relegated from the top tier last season so I do think I should probably get these up.

 

There are elements of the new UI that I like, some of it is a bit smarter, but certain things are bugging me - players not having an 'attributes' page anymore and instead having to click on a button each time to get the players attributes graph (if people know what I'm referring to). Really annoying as I usually used that as the first thing I looked at before diving into the specific attributes. I'm sure there'll be a skin that has what I'm after though.

i feel the same way mate, im not objective with leicester and i end up losing interest. always like to try and get the leicester job in a career save instead, but its harder this year since we cant follow teams and players the news doesnt just show up and i have to look for it all the time. almost at the end of my first season with Alfreton town and we're trying to make the play offs with 4 games to go. 
unreleated but i also found out that selecting your perks and tendancies in manager creation can greatly improve your job offers with no experience. i got a job at Sheff utd  women easily, and job offers in china, korea and an interview with kaiser chiefs in SA. i played it for a couple of months and decided the proper way would be to have no tendancies at all on the manager at the start. im interested to see how the manager develops like this, i got one coaching badge and it made no difference to my attributes so far, but i have developed my own tendancies which are "likes free transfers" and " known for making players play in different positions" which i was forced into because everyone keeps getting injured and we have no money  

[Uncle Monty]

Can anyone help with tactics on fm mobile? Dying here on the new one with Leicester.

[Dan]

On 20/11/2025 at 08:01, Beliall said:

i feel the same way mate, im not objective with leicester and i end up losing interest. always like to try and get the leicester job in a career save instead, but its harder this year since we cant follow teams and players the news doesnt just show up and i have to look for it all the time. almost at the end of my first season with Alfreton town and we're trying to make the play offs with 4 games to go. 
unreleated but i also found out that selecting your perks and tendancies in manager creation can greatly improve your job offers with no experience. i got a job at Sheff utd  women easily, and job offers in china, korea and an interview with kaiser chiefs in SA. i played it for a couple of months and decided the proper way would be to have no tendancies at all on the manager at the start. im interested to see how the manager develops like this, i got one coaching badge and it made no difference to my attributes so far, but i have developed my own tendancies which are "likes free transfers" and " known for making players play in different positions" which i was forced into because everyone keeps getting injured and we have no money  

I never do as well with Leicester as I do with anyone else and I can only conclude it is because I do act with some sort of preconceived bias about our current players. I always found Schmeichel absolutely useless on the game as well and getting form out of a goalkeeper is definitely harder than other positions, yet I couldn't really get rid of him. Think the one time I actually did well was when I did sell him and bought Livakovic.

 

I've noticed some of the bugs already including a corker in my first ever game on FM26. Some of the bugs off the top of my head are subbed players numbers being the same as the sub coming on (this seems minor but it's quite annoying when you don't know the players), certain situations where the 'down' button doesn't work, match details not loading etc... however.....

 

So usually when I play FM I will just delegate my friendlies to my assistant. I will generally get them to pick the team as I can't be arsed to do the rotation unless the season is fairly imminent and for some reason the rotation has missed out X player who has no match sharpness. For some reason the game always wants you to build your tactic before you get going and I got half way through doing my team before deciding I'll just let the assistant do it actually. So it got to the first friendly. We're playing a team called Aigaleo who are in our league, so a decent test of where we're at. I click on the team selection advice and just use that team, dive into the game.

 

Turns out this button is now bugged and when I've gotten half way through naming my team, they have literally only named five players in the team. We lose the game 16-0. It's funny but it's just a joke how they haven't fixed things like this in two years.

 

Played another friendly and won 2-1 against a 3rd tier side having 27 shots so a good sign for my tactic. I've basically retained the whole idea of just playing a bit aggressively because I never thought FM24 really punished you enough for this. Well I soon found out in a cup game against Iraklis who were 4-0 up against us after 25 minutes and ended up beating us 5-1. What I realised is I really was way too lax with the out of possession instructions. Didn't even bother with screening, tracking etc... and it showed. Fixed this and went and beat APOEL 3-0 (somehow), thrashed another two third tier sides and then won my first two league games 0-3 and 2-0 so we actually look decent. I'm finding a target man useful, that Paixao I showed above actually looks really effective doing this.

 

I've been a 2D classic player for years on this but I've finally switched this year, didn't like the 2D classic as the directional arrows on the players just constantly hide the ball and the ongoing 2D graphic in non-highlights is actually really useful. I really like the ME so far but I'm sure I'll find the irritants and things that are unrealistic / repetitive in time. I'm not a lover of the UI but I'm giving it a bit of a benefit of the doubt until I've played it for a while as I often don't like them early doors. It's definitely missing some things I like - missing having the director of football recommended signings etc.. but I think I'll get used to it and actually playing games rather than pissing around searching players all day is getting me hooked into it again.

 

Sorry, this became a bit of a review when it wasn't meant to be but yeah on the whole I actually quite like this. Rare that I defend Jacobson but I think he's got a point about giving it time before enjoying. I do think some of the bugs are unacceptable though - they really have no excuse this year, they've had two years! But yeah on the whole I'm enjoying it. Until Kalamata slap us obviously.