Hello, my dear readers!! Finally I'm back from the honeymoon and very impatient about latest FM 2009 news! Actually one of the first things I have just done coming in to my apartments - checking out Internet for news about Football Manager 2009. Therefore I would like to make some kind of review of the new FM 2009 features announced already.

Video about new features of FM 09

First of all here is the video with Miles Jacobson (Studio Director of Sports Interactive) about new features:

Well, it was very interesting to watch this video. Seems like they many of awaited and requested here FM features are implemented...

New features in FM 2009 Screenshots

1. 3D Match Engine

This feature is the one that was the most often asked by people! Interesting that in this mode any match can be watched from multiple camera angles. There is also forwarding and rewinding that makes one to re-watch any part of the match quickly. It can be done with the special bar at the bottom of the screen near 'Advanced Controls' button.

On the screenshot you can see also 3 widgets: Team Ratings, Radar and Formation. These widgets are not static - they can be customized as you want! I noticed in the video above that they added already about 15 widgets to the game! Pay attention to the left top Team Ratings widget: ratings of players became noninteger and therefore more exact (6.4 instead of 6, 6.6 instead of 7)!

2D Match engine will still remain what is certainly good because my HP laptop has weak graphic card for 3D mode. And they promise also better logic in match engine what is always good.

2. Assistant Manager Feedback

Assistant Manager will become more useful in the game - he will be able to do pre-match and in-match feedbacks on how your team is performing, motivation level of your players! He will share also his minds your and opposition's tactics in a match.

3. Board Confidence

Board confidence screens will be more detailed. In addition 2 new confidence screens will appear : Squad Harmony and Club Stature.

4. Preferred Moves Training

There will be possibility for a player to gain new preferred moves during training. For example, a manager can train central defenders to not dive into tackles, or wingers to do stepovers before crossing the ball.. This will be done from Player Interaction screen. How much time will such training take? It's unknown for now

5. Press Conferences

We requested more interaction with media - we will get it. Manager can attend pre-match and post-match press conferences with local and national journalists. Press conference is also hold after appointment of a manager as on this screen. Answers on press conference questions should be selected carefully because they could come back to haunt you in the media at a later date.

Another small feature presented on this screen is Female Manager. Well, it's just a support of female gender in the game that reflects only in the media.

6. England Trial Day

Young talents can be scouted from England Trial Day. Actually I don't know more about this feature...

7. Transfer Rumours

The new screen here about transfer rumours. You will be able to view the latest news on what players are being speculated on, and who’s said to be interested in securing their services (the names of media sources are in the brackets on the screen).

Other announced Football Manager 2009 features

Widescreen Support. That is the one I dreamt of. Just because I play Football Manager on the wide screen laptop .

Improved Media. The game will contain more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before.

Realistic Finances. Financial modelling was reworked. It should be more realistic in FM 09 to follow transfers, staff wages, budgets, ticket prices, season tickets, competition bonuses and club sponsorships.

Updated Competitions. Database update of players, teams, clubs, leagues information. They promise 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world.

Transfer System. Completely new and re-written transfer system code, providing an even more realistic simulation of real-life football transfers.

As for me there are a lot of new Football Manager 2009 features that will make us happy. So we should just wait till the game is out. Sports Interactive announced that it will be released before Christmas. But on Game.Co.Uk where FM 09 can be pre-ordered release date is set as 14/11/2008.

Hi, all! Yesterday I had my wedding with the most wonderful girl in the life! Her name is Tatyana . And in 9 hours we have a plane to the Black Sea where we will have so desired honeymoon !

The honeymoon will last 2 weeks - that's why I'm going to make a short pause in my blog for this period. The next post of Southampton story will appear during the second week of September. Just wait a bit .

Meantime take a look at the couple of photos from our wedding:

Hi all! This post will be about start of preparation to my 6th season in Football Manager 2008. It will be the 4th season of Southampton in Premier League. During the last season we were pretending on UEFA cup place, at least during winter period. Therefore I decided to set serious goal of getting to UEFA cup for my club, just because I think that Southampton players are enough good to achieve this.

What's interesting: we got perceptibly less amount of money for transfers than before the last season. I associate this fact with stadium expansion plans of my board. In 6 months I will get +40% of stadium capacity!

Southampton overview info

The next screen shot prepared for you is the overview information about my Southampton. I want to single out some interesting parts of it. Lets go from the top to the bottom of the list!

Favoured Personnel. Yes, Marius Niculae appeared among the most prominent footballers and coaches of The Saints. He deserved that certainly!

Pitch Dimensions. Width and height of the pitch are set up with minimal values. Why? Just because of Southampton tactics where short passing style is used. So we will have some advantage during home matches due to this minimal pitch dimensions.

Training Facilities. Top! Important for having growth of player attributes during trainings.

Media prediction. This is it. They predict only the 12th position for us. As far as this prediction is based on the squad strength you can estimate that the most of Premier League clubs have higher amount of better players. Anyway UEFA cup target is set up, and I will follow it or be sacked :)

How to tempt a player in Football Manager 2008?

Yes, how? Your players can be tempted and have ruined morale very easily if you manage such club as Southampton.

The first example is Miralem Pjanic. I have already lost him:

Stupid chairman! I was linking real hopes with this undoubtedly gifted player...

The second example is our best perform of the last season - Georginio Winajldum. There is a really big run on him after he got the best Premier League assister and Best Young Player awards. Chelsea, Juventus, Manchester United, Inter, Milan want to pay $25M for Dutch talent while he costs $13.5M and I set price of $50M! :) We will see how epopee finishes. Wijnaldum is upset that he is not allowed to leave Southampton for bigger football club. His morale is down. So it seems like I have to sell my leader :(

Another problem is with other team leader - Marius Niculae. No, there are no tempting suggestions to buy him. Just because this wonderful forward is 31 years old now. And this is pity because his physical attributes became lower. Speed is rather poor now - only 12. Acceleration is even worse than Pace - 9.

As a result I should start thinking about very, very good transfers for attacking positions (allocated by Wijnaldum and Niculae now) to strengthen our team and be able of achieving UEFA cup place!

I played the second half of my 5th season very quickly. That's why I decided to report about it in a one post that will be rather large. Ok, here the matches:

From the last story post you should remember that my Southampton was pretending on UEFA cup place. Unfortunately, the dream doesn't come true because of unstable performance of my team.

Look at the results of matches sequentially. After victory over Arsenal we won away FA Cup match against Liverpool with wonderful score 1:4! Then next game - lost home match to Birmingham missing 3 goals! It was something I can't explain - my players were not able to cope with counter attacks of Birmingham. Then it was another away face-off with Liverpool. Lost 0:1. But the next game was FA Cup match against Birmingham again which resulted in the difficult victory 1:0. So you see The Saints were not able to win 2 matches against a same team in row.

Of course, I would like to single out Chelsea defeat. The football club of Roman Abramovich was thinking only about defence during this game. My midfielders and forwards enclosed The Blues on their half! It was really marvelous!

Then there were 5:0 against Preston, sudden loss to Derby in the replay match, 5:1 against Blackburn... And in the end... When we were really near the so dreamed UEFA Cup position we failed to win the last 4 games of the Premier League championship. Especially poor and unexplainable performance was shown with Watford and Wigan.

After the last Premier League fixture the table standing had the following view:

I was looking at it and thinking of how it's disappointing to get the 9th position when I could pretend to achieve something more sufficient after all that success in the middle of the season. From the other hand,  it was officially expected by Southampton board to get to the top-half. And I completed this task - the board congratulates me:

The championship progress of my team is obvious. We started to defend better, score more, gain more points:

The leading star of my club in this season is Geoginio Wijnaldum. This wonderkid was awarded as Best Young Player of Premier League again.

And he is the best assister in the championship! Only Franck Ribery has been competing in this rating with him!

Here are the best 10 players of Southampton also:

I would praise Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Benoit Leroy, Massimo Donati, Stephane Mbia and ,sure, Marius Niculae. These guys can become first squad players anywhere.

Some final nominations from me:

Surprise of the year

1. Benoit Leroy (AMLC/FC)   - cool performance during the second half of the season

2. Stephane Mbia (DC/DMC) - supplanted Southampton captain Aaron Mokoena from the first squad!

3. Massimo Donati (DMC/MRC) - I didn't expect that he had scored so much

Disappointment

1. Daniel Niculae (FC) - very low finishing from his side. I will sell him! 

2. Martin Fenin (FC) - in the old days prospective forward who is poor scorer now. Seems like I have real problem with substitution forwards.

3. Aaron Mokoena (DC/DMC) - well, he became older and couldn't cope with Mbia for the position of DMC. From the new season Mokoena will loose a captain bandage.

Stability

1. Rune Almenning Jarstein (GK) - Rescues Southampton rather often. His attributes grow slowly but constantly. 

2. Massimo Donati (DMC/MRC) - simply new leader of the team.

3. Demy De Zeueuw (DMC/MRC) -  again simply new leader of the team. Together with Donati they can overwhelm any centre of midfield of an opposition.

Mister Flamboyant

1. Georginio Wijnaldum (AM LRC/ FC) - He is a wonderkid now. Wanted by many grand clubs. His speed, dribbling and assists are great!

2. Marius Niculae (FC) - 30 years old but score a lot. Sometimes his power strikes get to the top 3 goals of the month.