The seventh (and apparently final, before release) trailer for Football Manager 2018 is dubbed ‘football intelligence’. If you can resist the urge to point out how that’s often an oxymoron, you’ll discover that in this case it’s to do with the conduct of transfer negotiations, board interactions, and keeping your job.
If you’ve previous feature highlights videos, you can see them at the following links. There were a pair about Scouting and Dynamics. Then Sports Interactive moved on to discussing Tactics. After that it was Sports Science. Then a bit about Fantasy Draft. This weekend saw a look at the Matchday Experience, which I’ve included at the bottom of this article (under the latest one).
But back to the current trailer. It seems Football Manager 2018 will be reflecting the recent inflation in transfer fees and contract bonuses (well, at some clubs). Consequently, a bunch of new transfer and loan contract options will be available to use. Installment payments can now be made in six month blocks, rather than just annually. Loan agreements will have new clauses, like being able to loan a player until the beginning of the next transfer window.
In addition, you’ll be able to set an expiry date on a minimum fee release clause, and set separate minimum fee clauses for foreign and domestic clubs. It’ll be possible to include multiple instances of the same clause in a contract too, allowing (for example) a set wage increase after both 15 and then 30 games. Football Manager 2018 is also claiming “more intelligent” transfer decisions from AI clubs too, which is something the series certainly needs.
This edition is going to also introduce something called ‘League Performance Tracking,’ that (should) create a more contextual sense of how you’re doing in the job. Rather than just referring back to the initial ‘expected finish’ from the start of the season, the board, players, and others, should take circumstances into account. The example given is successfully pulling a club out of a relegation battle; this should earn you support from the dressing room, and give you some leeway to make requests from the board.
Here’s the new trailer (and the Matchday Experience one). Football Manager 2018 is out on 10 November.
