FM26 | How the TransferRoom (In) saved me

December 16, 2025

Some footballers are slow, some footballers can’t read the game as well as others, some players can’t keep their mouths closed, and they pick a stupid yellow or red cards. Some players have different weaknesses. And the same applies to us, Football Manager players. We all play the game in a different way. We all ignore a different part of the game. Some of us don’t care about training, some of us don’t care about set pieces, press conferences and many more. My biggest weakness is that the older I am, the bigger issue and pain in the ass are TRANSFERS.

Yes, you read it right. Something so essential for the Football Manager, like transfers, became almost a nightmare for me in the previous years. It’s not a game issue or the fault of the developers. It’s just me being lazy, but it also reflects the fact that I'm very down-to-earth.

In recent years, nine times out of ten, I've decided to promote one of the youngsters to the first team and try to improve him as much as possible, rather than looking for other players on the transfer market.

The players database, how it's named in FM26, or just the player search screen in previous versions, became almost a no-go screen for me. I relied mostly on scouts or HoYD recommendations, or I just used a screen flow with some stats screens. Especially when the save was more than three or four seasons in.

In FM26, I didn’t care about transfers too much in the opening season because 1) the first transfer window was disabled and 2) I used the “Real World” database option. The latter means I have incoming and outgoing transfers set for the first season.

But my team needed improvement in various positions after a promotion to the top tier. And I decided to use one of the new features of the game - the TransferRoom (In).

Part 1: Squad planner

My system is not unique, and I’m sure many of you plan your squads in a very similar way. No matter if there was a squad planner screen in the game, or if you just wrote the names in your notebook.

I usually want to have 1) key/first choice player, 2) backup player and 3) future prospect. In my saves, it’s very common that the second and third players are the same. Or there are two youngsters as backup players.

The squad planner in FM26 works in a very similar way to the previous versions, but there are a couple of bugs, and it can be a little bit frustrating to go through due to general UI fuckups like reverting to a different screen after removing one player, etc.

The biggest con of the squad planner right now is that I can’t add the youth players. There are only the shortlist and the first team squad options in the drop-down menu. This was fixed before I finished this post.

But I told myself that I have to be patient, and I don’t want to write everything in the notebook. So I went through and aligned players as I wanted. The positive thing was that I didn’t have any position issues, and I have enough players. The other side is if they are good enough…

Step 2: Identifying what I need

…the answer for the unfinished sentence above is simple - they are not good enough. Watching just the squad page and potential ability star rating can be misleading. “Yes, I have enough central midfielders.” That’s exactly my words and my (wrong) approach from the past.

Putting the player’s list for the next season gave me a similar headache as waiting for the new contract ahead of the end of the first season. I already tweaked the tactics, including player roles I want to use next season, and it turned out I need some major improvement.

I was not able to put together at least three goalkeepers, so I need one backup or some prospect to have enough goalkeepers for reserves and U18 sides, too.

I realised that I was being somewhat blinded by the fact that Radja Nainggolan would continue in the team and thus overlooked the fact that, due to his age and declining physical attributes, he would no longer be able to play in physically demanding and running roles. That meant I needed at least one new channel midfielder and one new central midfielder. The fact that most of our midfielders want to play as DM is also not helpful.

In an effort to get rid of unnecessary players during the first season, to reduce the budget, I released or sold for a few pennies all the players who could play as LWB, so the replacement for Jordi Palacios is a physically pumped 19-year-old young man who occasionally gets the ball tangled between his legs so much that a physiotherapist has to untangle it.

And to make matters worse, when I put together all the pros and cons, eliminating all the available players, it turned out that our main Channel Forward is a fifteen-year-old with a youth contract. This is what I put together in my head and in the end also in the notebook:

GK: Backup or youngster with a low wage
WBL: Backup with a low wage, or promote two newgens from the Youth Intake 2026 and rotate them in the Reserves and U18 team.
CD: At least one first-choice player
DM: The new first-choice player was already signed; I only need to decide about covers.
MC: The first-choice Channel Midfielder & squad player for the CM role.
ST: The first-choice Channel Forward & squad player for the DLF role.

Easy, right?

Step 3: Setting the Requirements

I know we are able to set up the “classical” Recruitment Focusses straight from the Squad Planner, but I’m not a big fan of the recruitment focus, and I decided to keep only two focusses active - outgoing. One for the U18 and one for the U21 players within Belgium.

The main difference between the old Recruitment Focus and TransferRoom(In) focus is that the classic Recruitment Focus is continuously refreshed. The focus within the TransferRoom (In) will show you 15 players, for example, and you have to set the new one if you want to see different players. I’m a much bigger fan of the TransferRoom (In) option, although I would like to have it refreshed automatically, too.

As I already know what I need and what I want to find, it was time to set up the specific requirements. I started with the keeper, and I set two requirements. The first one with Backup as a playing time with no limit of age, and the second one with Emergency Backup and the age is limited to 15-20. It’s a little bit easier with outfield players, as you can set the youngster, future prospect or a breakthrough prospect's playing time.

Selecting the right playing time in combination with the age within setting the requirement is the most important in my eyes, and I enjoy experimenting with it more than searching players manually within the player database. I like how the advert system shows me some different players every time.

You can see in the picture above that there are various age ranges. I decided, for example, in the case of the DLF role, it can be someone who is already a little bit experienced; it doesn’t have to be always a youngster/wonderkid. The same applies to the ad with the backup keeper. I have plenty of them already. If the results are not good and I don’t like the “ads”, I change the requirements.

When I progressed to the next day of the save with these requirements, I got 96 responses. I would be able to select at least two or three players on the first try.

One thing I would like to tweak within the setting of the requirement is the option to add a nationality option.

After some days of scouting and comparing, I decided to make the age limits more specific or more restrictive, so the span was too big in some cases. I changed the age for the backup to 25-35, the age of the important centre defender to 19-25 and so on.

I also removed the 'Out of Possession' position from the requirements, as the responses offered better players. Some combinations, like Channel Forward & Tracking Centre Forward, were too demanding for the current level of my club/league.

Step 4: Results

I don’t want to comment and analyse each of these nine players I signed ahead of the second season with Lokeren, but I decided to share all of them here because it shows I was able to find almost every player I wanted/needed. There are new key central defenders (Doudaev, Musliu!! & Mamengi), Sem Audoor can be a solid LWB backup player - and he already proved it during the opening months of the second season.

Slovenian midfielder Aljaž Casar is a lovely versatile player who is able to play both as DM and CM. And the fact he can also be a Ball-Playing Defender is very welcomed.

I like the fact I was able to find and sing two young strikers for both Channel Forward and DLF roles, and there’s a chance they both will improve and I will sell them. French midfielder Lilian Raillot is also a great example of my favourite transfer policy. I like he can also play both as DM and CM, but also as CD if needed.

All of these players were signed for free, and I didn’t pay a transfer fee. I only decided not to sign any new goalkeeper during this process because I was not able to find someone who would be better than the current backup or someone who would not want too high a wage.

I also decided to sign a backup channel forward instead of the new first-choice player for this role because I want Said Okoce (the newgen from the first youth intake of the save I shared in the previous post) playing as much as possible.

I’m 100% sure I will use the same (or a little bit modified method again in the future of the save).

“The biggest difference in what was done before and what we are doing now is the proactivity of searching in the market. Not only looking for players who are good enough, but also who are suitable.”
Mark Coonen, Chief Scout, PEC Zwolle

I liked this thought in this interview with PEC Zwolle Chief Scout. It sums up my thinking of how I decided to use the TransferRoom in combination with the right requirements set. It’s not only about the immediate impact, but it is also, above all, an opportunity that you should not miss and take advantage of in the right setting.

The video by @Secondyellowcard would be my recommendation for anyone who would like to watch a video about the TransferRoom (In).

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s).

What is FM Slack?

There were a lot of changes within many social media, including Twitter (now “X”), and it’s not the same as in the past. We can’t see many things due to the algorithm, weird preferences and many other reasons I don’t even want to know.

There are many Discord servers, and I’m sure they are good and useful. But I will probably always be a bigger fan of Slack. Or, better worded, the Football Manager Slack. Feel free to join us with this link.

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | Lokeren - season 2025/2026

December 7, 2025

If I would want to be a very cynical person, I would say the first season with Lokeren in Football Manager 26 was just a normal season. But when I look at the previous in-game months from a real-life perspective, most managers would need a long holiday without phone calls, emails and with a couple of beers every day.

I wrote about the “Real World” database option, the rivalry with SK Beveren, the domestic cup run or about how I was afraid the save would end sooner than I expected.

First Christmas, then sale

As I mentioned in the opening post about this save, my game set-up includes the “real world” option with real transfers, with real dates and the first transfer window disabled. That means there were a lot of players both arriving and departing during the summer and autumn of 2025.

I hoped it would keep me entertained in terms of the squad planning. It surely kept me very entertained, but mainly when I followed how the wage budget was exceeded more and more.

A simple summary:

Fourteen of 23 incoming players arrived at the club on July 1, 2025. Six players arrived during the summer, and three players arrived during September. The beauty of this real-world option is that you can have a new player for just days. That was an example of one midfielder who arrived at the beginning of July but left for a loan after a couple of days. And yes, I already had him in the squad planner :-)

There were 29 outgoing transfers during the summer, including free transfers or loans. Twenty-six players left the club on June 30 or July 1. That was easier in terms of planning the squad selection.

When all these players left, I had to check the future incoming transfers. I knew what the squad was missing and where our weaknesses were. When I found out there would be new central defenders and attacking midfielders, it was like opening late Christmas gifts. Yes, it’s not ideal not to have the squad together because of the tactics, but it doesn’t matter too much when I take a look back at how the season went.

But everything has two sides. The club’s finances are terrible. When all the transfers settled, I found out the wage budget (the original was €236K per month) was already exceeded by almost 10K.

Three weeks later, at the beginning of December 2025, I found out the board lowered the wage budget to €196K per month. I didn’t notice any message about it during the previous three weeks, even though I tried to find it. That meant we were significantly over the budget. I needed to cut out €45,865.

I decided to take advantage of a potential bug - I’m not sure if it’s intentional or a bug. There was always an option to cancel the loan when the player picked up a serious or long-term injury. But in FM26, it’s there even if it’s some minor injury.

And some of the players who arrived during the summer were players on loan. And we paid their full wage. When one of these players picked an injury for a week, the inbox message also contained the “Terminate Loan” button.

This player had €21K p/m. I will always rather play (=develop) my own youngster, even a worse player, than some loaned player. So, I terminated the loan.

When it happened again with a different player, I terminated his loan, too. I did it with all three loaned players. And it saved €38.5K p/m. The striker Daishawn Redan (loaned from U.S. Uvaellino 1912) scored 8 competitive goals in 13 appearances, and he was very good as a Channel Forward, but we paid 100% of his wage - €10,75K p/m, and it was too much.

I also decided to sell or release a couple of players in January, although at least two of them were very useful. But when you’re 4 million in debt, you can’t reject offers that earned over €300K for six players, and it will also save €20K p/m on wages.

It turned out that I put the wage budget under control (€7K p/m under the budget), despite signing two players on free at the end of January. But they got €1.1K and €1.2K per month, and they both are better than the sold players. Also, both of them have relatively high transfer value, so there’s a possibility to sell them and make some profit.

And to be absolutely clear, Tebili helped us and played a lot, Villorejo lacks physical attributes, and he was good mainly playing for reserves. My thinking is to renew his contract and try to sell him in the near future.

On one side, it was fun to have the first transfer window prepared on a plate from the real world. But it was also challenging in terms of keeping the money alright. I’m glad I will have it under my control since the second season.

Another important part of keeping the wage budget within its limits was to stop delegating the responsibility of signing staff members for my youth teams. I have Reserve, U21 and U18 squads. Only reserves and U18 play competitive matches. There are no players in the U21 team, and it’s a useless team right now, the last one in the hierarchy in my eyes. But my (already former) DoF signed staff members for this team. I know these coaches will help with the training within other teams, but releasing seven U21 staff members saved around €15K p/m.

[In the previous version(s), the staff wages were included in the general wage budget - in FM24 for sure. I can’t see it in the FM26. It shows only the players' wage budget in the Finances tab. There’s no staff wage budget mentioned if I was searching right]

We ended the season with more than 4 million euros in debt. The wage budget was increased by about €100K p/m to €297.379 p/m for the next season. But the club will have to start paying another loan, so the investment in the squad will have to be very careful. Especially as the club board has to invest another €2.3M for the undersoil heating to comply with the league requirements…

“Be competitive against SK Beveren”

The Waasland derby, also known as the Wase derby. That’s how matches between KSK Beveren and Sporting Lokeren were known in the past. Both clubs had their own existential issues, and fans of both teams - successors of the original clubs - had to find the right feeling again.

The history of these matches dates back to the 1970s as the rivalry between Lokeren and Beveren arose, also thanks to the successful times of both clubs in the domestic but also in European competitions. The last derby (the original one) match was played in February 2007. KSK Beveren had its issues, and the club has disbanded its men's team.

Between 2012 and 2020, Beveren played under the name of Waasland Beveren. Sporting Lokeren went bankrupt in 2020, and the club now exists thanks to merging with a nearby town. In real life, the season 2024/25 brought back the derby in the Belgian second tier despite clubs using different names. Lokeren won the first match 1:0 in Beveren. Beveren won the second match 1:0 in Lokeren.

In terms of my 2025/26 season with Lokeren in Football Manager 26, I was able to play this derby four times during the opening season of the save. And both the board and supporters gave me a simple aim: “Be competitive against SK Beveren”.

The clubs have a fierce rivalry in the game. The Beveren’s manager, Marink Reedijk, did a great job during the season, but he will not remember our matches with a positive smile.

“…I’ve been itching to put him back in his place for a while now and at full-time on Sunday he is going to be regretting making this personal.” - Marink Reedijk ahead of the Lokeren - Beveren in March 2026.

It was quite optimistic from someone whose team had conceded ten goals in the previous ten matches against us.

The first match was scheduled for November, and we won 2:1 away from home. We were 0:1 down early in the game, but Beveren scored an own goal a couple of minutes later, and Vervaque scored the winning goal twenty minutes before the final whistle.

We also faced Beveren in the Croky Cup semi-final (more about the domestic cup run later). The first leg in Beveren ended with a 1:1 draw, and the second leg at home was 100% the most entertaining match of the season as we won 7:4 - 3:0, 3:3, 4:3 HT - 6:3, 7:4 FT and a 8:5 win on aggregate. But the world is in the balance as the game decided the best match of the year was a 1:1 draw in the early round.

Some fans started calling these matches “Wasico” derby as a pun on Waasland and the Spanish El Clásico. The last one of the 2025/2026 season was played almost at the end of the Challenger Pro League season.

We faced Beveren at home, and a win would secure the league title for us. Our best goalscorer of the season, Mohamed Soumaré, scored two goals, and we won 3:2. That means we did quite well against Beveren during the whole season, right? Four matches, three wins and one draw.

This brings us to the fact that we won the second tier in the opening season of the save, and we won the promotion to the Belgian top tier. We were 12 points clear at the top of the table at some point in the season, but in the end, we won the league by three points ahead of Eupen. The third promoted club is KV Kortrijk, as they succeeded in the play-off.

SK Beveren ended sixth, and we will have to wait for another Waasland derby.

As I already mentioned, Mohamed Soumaré was our best goalscorer with 22 goals scored in 29 league appearances. I would like to keep him for another season, but he has already decided he doesn’t want to renew his contract.

Belgian Challenger Pro League 2025/2026 table

A domestic cup run

The Belgian domestic cup, named “Croky Cup”, was very generous to us in the opening season, as we were able to make it to the final. We beat RWDM Brussels 3:1 in the 6th round. We also beat Union SG 3:1 in the 7th Round - our first experience against some of the top-tier teams. We also hosted Club Brugge at home in the 8th round, and we beat them 3:2 after being 3:0 up already, but they almost equalised, and one of their goals was disallowed. Luckily.

We faced Dender EH, also from the top tier. We were 0:1 down after an early penalty kick, but Mohamed Soumaré scored twice, including a stoppage-time winner after a short free-kick routine, and we made it to the semi-final.

The semi-final against Beveren was already mentioned. We faced KRC Genk in the final. We were 1:0 up after a nice goal by David Tebili, but Genk scored four goals within 30 minutes and won 4:2 in the end after Soumaré scored our second before the end.

Unnecessary contract drama

As usual, at the beginning of the new save, the club gave me a one-year contract at the beginning of the season. I didn’t think or doubt that I would not receive an offer for the new one based on the results and based on exceeding expectations.

But when a reporter asked about the contract situation three months before the end of the season, I started panicking a little bit. The wage budget situation was under control again, and we were close to winning the promotion…

…nothing was happening. No offer. A month and a half before the end of the season, I gave up, went to the board and requested the new contract.

The response was something I didn’t expect. “We have considered your request for a new contract, but the club currently can’t afford to offer one.”

I adjusted budgets and tried it again, but the response was the same. The cup final was played, and players and staff left for a holiday, and I started planning the next season with a view to playing in the top tier. No matter how it will end with the contract. But partly, I almost started searching for the new club.

Maybe I was too impatient, maybe it’s connected to a bad club’s financial status, I don’t know. I don’t remember experiencing something like that. But I was offered a new contract on May 28. The offer was for 2 seasons with €13K p/m. I adjusted it to €4.1K p/m and 3 seasons. The Lokeren & FM Rensie will continue.

The bright future?

We had 7 “Elite Prospects” within the 2026 Youth Intake. It also includes Said Okoce, a 15-year-old Belgian striker or winger. I can say this player is the best newgen within my FM saves for a long time. Maybe the best.

I need to tie him down with a contract, and I have to hope he will not want some ridiculous release clause.

I already gave him the league and a cup debut at the end of the season; he also scored his first goal in his first appearance, and he became the youngest player and goalscorer of the league.

Other newgens need some “baking”, and they will get some minutes next season, but Okoce will be considered as one of the strikers, as I plan to change the tactics slightly. You can find my tactic from season one here.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s).

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | Heading to Belgium

November 7, 2025

The same as I/we didn’t know if the FM 26 would be a thing after a previous year, I also didn’t know where I should spend most of the new edition in terms of the long-term save. In the end, I decided against all the experimental thoughts I had in the previous months, and I decided for, maybe boring, but a traditional type of save with the club from the European second division with a rich history, but also recent struggles and issues.

The new game is not finished, and there are a lot of issues. A lot of things I/we used in the past are not in the game anymore, which means the style of playing the game will be different.

But I hope I will enjoy my time with the new game and developing K.S.C. Lokeren in Belgium.

Searching the (Czech) “mafia”

My kids would say it’s like talking about the prehistoric times, but back in the 70s and 90s, Lokeren football club was a vital part of the Czech football history.

If we were to look for a place in the world where football has done the best advertising for the Czech Republic, Belgian side Lokeren would rank very high. The captain of the 1962 world champions, Ladislav Novák, trained there, the Slovak European champion from Belgrade, Karol Dobiáš, played there, and Jan Koller developed into a top striker there…

The story from the 90s: Roman Vonášek (midfielder) and Václav Budka (midfielder) were both on Lokeren’s radar, and Belgian club representatives came to Prague to finalise the deal. When the talks between clubs were ongoing, they also talked about the fact that they would need a striker too.

Jan Koller was a Sparta Prague player at this time, but his position in the team (and the club itself) was not very good. He was offered to Lokeren, but it wasn’t so easy. They didn’t trust in his abilities. And he really was not as good as you may remember him from the time with BVB or in the Czech national team shirt later. He lacked the technical skills; he was clumsy; he was not ready for a big football…

…but Josef Vacenovský, a former Czechoslovakia national team player and also a Lokeren player & coach in the 20th century, had his word, and he convinced the representatives of Lokeren to sign Koller too. That means Lokeren bought three players from Sparta Prague during the same transfer window. A year later, Martin Pěnička joined Lokeren from Slavia Prague. That meant Lokeren had four Czech players at the same time in the squad.

“If I hadn’t played for Lokeren, my career probably wouldn’t have been as successful. I was lucky with the coach, the people at the club, and I made the most progress there. Before leaving the Czech Republic, I had to look for Lokeren on the map; I didn’t know anything about it.”

— Jan Koller in 2020

They called them “Czech mafia”. Goalkeeper Jan Musil also spent a short period of time with the club in 1997.

Jan Koller left the club in 1999 as he joined Anderlecht, where he won the Belgian title with them before he moved to Dortmund and became one of their legends. Budka and Pěnička left after another year. A couple of more Czech players were in the club later for a short period of time, but not in a big group like these four „mafiosi“.

Václav Budka, Roman Vonášek, Martin Pěnička & Jan Koller. Picture @www.standaard.be

The aim is not to concentrate on the Czech players within the transfer market. The idea is to just have a group of players from the same nation.

“Will you sign another player from the country “XY” to help this player “XY” to settle in the new club?”

If you follow my saves in the past, you will know that I usually play mostly with the domestic players. My saves are focused on the youth development a lot. It’s not only about having three or four players from the same nation. It can be one player in the senior squad and three youngsters. Or vice versa. It depends on the situation.

And as I said, it’s not necessary to sign Czech players just because of this story. We can create a “mafia” from a different country.

I don’t know if it will be a thing in Football Manager 26, the same as in the previous versions, but the affiliate clubs can play a part in this scenario within this save.

Also, the players already mentioned were one central defender, two central midfielders, and one striker. So, some kind of team axis. But it’s not a restriction that I have to replicate this. It will be random. It can be the defensive line, as in FM25, when I had three Slovenian defenders in the starting XI, for example.

If I check the current 25/26 Lokeren squad, there are 19 players with Belgian nationality (including Radja Nainggolan, for example) and around 10 foreign players - two Spanish defenders, four strikers from African nations. I found it an ideal combination to start with - the base of the squad will always be domestic-based + a couple of foreign players who will offer something different.

And in this case, I will try my best to find the new “mafia” and these foreign players will be from the same nation. It can be four Spanish players for two seasons, or three Austrian players for five seasons. There’s a rich history of Icelandic players in the club; Alfreð Finnbogason was probably the most well-known, I would say.

It depends, but I’m sure I will play at least five seasons of this save, so it’s manageable.

The important thing to remind myself - this is not a must! It’s not something I have to do; it’s not some restriction. If it won’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. I just want to enjoy playing the game again, and this can be some kind of side story.

Lokeren and its struggles in the 21st century

I won’t pretend I’m an expert on Belgian football or the history of the Lokeren football club. The good old Wikipedia and a couple of online articles are my useful friends. The “original” Lokeren was founded in 1923, and they won the Belgian Cup twice. Their history is rich. I would say every club that has been on the map for too long has a rich history. No matter of highs and lows, trophies or defeats.

Lokeren almost made it to the 100th anniversary. But they were relegated from the top tier in 2018. Two years later, they were declared bankrupt, and in April 2020, they merged with the nearby town of Temse (KSV Temse), and the new club K.S.C. Lokeren-Temse was founded, starting in the fourth tier.

The club from Temse was formed in 1945, so that’s also a club with a long history, and it was a logical step to connect both clubs to avoid the complete extinction of Lokeren.

The new club started in the fourth tier, and they moved up in 2022/2023. A second successive promotion followed in the next season. The key thing was that the club got the professional license, and they are now back in the second tier for the second season. The seventh place was a success.

In 2025, the club decided to use the K.S.C. Lokeren name again.

Daknamstadion - capacity 12,136, not renovated, expanded or massively improved since 1974.

As I already mentioned, I’m not an expert on Belgian football. When I check the Lokeren current squad, I know only Radja Nainggolan. The rest of the players are unknown to me. I would be able to talk about Michel Preud’homme, Raymond Braine (he played for Sparta Prague, and I read a lot about him), and how I signed Antony Vanden Borre every time in the old FM editions or about my platonic love for Walter Baseggio and Bart Goor, when they played for both Anderlecht and Belgium in the 90s.

I, of course, know current or recent Belgian players, but I don’t remember playing in an FM save in Belgium for too long a time, and this can be a good thing to get to know some new players, too.

Challenger Pro League

The second Belgian tier has been continuously expanded in terms of the number of teams since 2016. There are 17 teams for the 2025/2026 season. The league changed its format a lot during recent years.

This season, two teams will be automatically promoted to the Belgian Pro League, and the promotion play-off winner will be matched against the last-placed top-tier team, with no direct relegation due to the top tier's expansion to 18 teams from 2026–27 onwards.

I like that there’s a promotion play-off; it will be even more challenging to get the club back to the top tier.

I made kits! Although I didn’t know if I would be able to use them in the game…

Tactical direction

With the new in and out-of-possession possibilities, there will probably be some experiments. I know I will keep it simple as always, but I would like to create another quality tactic with three central defenders and attacking wing-backs who will be, or should be, the main power.

Also, there’s no pressing forward role in FM26. I will continue experimenting with the Centre Forward role and player instructions to create a pressing monster in the attacking phase.

Save set-up

The game setup is simple - a real world with real transfers with real dates and the first transfer window disabled. That means there will be arriving and departing players during the opening weeks and months of the save. It will surely keep me entertained in terms of the squad planning.

Especially as there are four squads - the first team, reserves, U21 and U18, it will be fun. Hopefully.

Thanks for reading, take care and feel free to join FM Slack.

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

Featured

Nov 4, 2025

FM26 Touchline Shouts compensation

Nov 4, 2025

There are a couple of things missing in Football Manager 26. The touchline shouts feature is one of them. I found out I miss them more than I could’ve imagined, and I decided to create some kind of compensation. It works like a therapy. I keep this page open and hit the relevant button from time to time during the match.

Nov 4, 2025