Manage Southampton on Football Manager 2026

[Matthew Le God]

9 minutes ago, Colinjb said:

Double D doesn't arrive until mid september for some reason!

That is a bug rather than a data error, because he is set to return in late July in the database.

[skintsaint]

25 minutes ago, Colinjb said:

It's like no longer having a next unread button for messages.

You mean this big purple button that you click and it brings up the next unread message?

 

[Colinjb]

28 minutes ago, skintsaint said:

You mean this big purple button that you click and it brings up the next unread message?

 

Oh f*ck me! Didn't realise you could click that!

Edited Saturday at 22:29 by Colinjb

[Streaky]

8 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

It wasn't an unreasonable request.

- You claimed the game was dumbed down.

- You were asked what about the game was dumbed down.

- You refuse to do so.

Half the features from 24 are missing. Where is youth development, touch maps, heat maps, there is little to no skinning and modding available. It's a console game and everybody knows it. 

A slap in the face for everybody who has bought the game year on year. Surely you can't defend it?.

[Danwulfe]

1 minute ago, Streaky said:

Half the features from 24 are missing. Where is youth development, touch maps, heat maps, there is little to no skinning and modding available. It's a console game and everybody knows it. 

A slap in the face for everybody who has bought the game year on year. Surely you can't defend it?.

Tried the demo, it wasn't for me at all.

Clunky horrid interface that we can't change with a new skin. Back to FM24 for me, and I hope FM27 is an improvement.

[RedArmy]

Found another great bug. 
 

Started a new season with Saints on beta 2.0 release day. 
 

Won the league on the last day of the season, no trophy lift, no celebrations and the post match team talk options were all about losing the title and not getting promoted and how they had let me down  

 

Great game 10/10

[Matthew Le God]

41 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

Found another great bug. 

Are you reporting the bugs you find?

[Tommy]

Game breaker for me just hit...In March of first season, get to a match day, the tactic is all corrupted with only three players showing on the graphic, i select a team but it wont let me go to the match because it says i have not selected a GK. 

Closed/Reloaded

Gone back a save point and get to same game to same issue. 

10/10 release. 

[skintsaint]

2 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Game breaker for me just hit...In March of first season, get to a match day, the tactic is all corrupted with only three players showing on the graphic, i select a team but it wont let me go to the match because it says i have not selected a GK. 

Closed/Reloaded

Gone back a save point and get to same game to same issue. 

10/10 release. 

Can you go on a days holiday to get past that game?

[Willo of Whiteley]

I always laugh when they release beta codes for fans a month or so before game release, yet only three people get them.

Take EA for example, you get absolute mugs that pay for early access a week before and the game is littered with bugs.

You basically pay an extra £30 to be a glorified beta tester a week before mass release.

[Matthew Le God]

3 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I always laugh when they release beta codes for fans a month or so before game release, yet only three people get them.

Take EA for example, you get absolute mugs that pay for early access a week before and the game is littered with bugs.

You basically pay an extra £30 to be a glorified beta tester a week before mass release.

There is no extra cost to get FM early.

[RedArmy]

45 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Are you reporting the bugs you find?

They took the report bugs feature away when they pretended the game was finished and ready for release. 

[Matthew Le God]

19 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Game breaker for me just hit...In March of first season, get to a match day, the tactic is all corrupted with only three players showing on the graphic, i select a team but it wont let me go to the match because it says i have not selected a GK. 

Closed/Reloaded

Gone back a save point and get to same game to same issue. 

10/10 release. 

Are you on version 26.0.4?

Have you logged the bug on the forums?

[Matthew Le God]

21 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

They took the report bugs feature away when they pretended the game was finished and ready for release. 

You can report bugs on the forums, here...

https://share.google/5LpmNJMUxottvqAeJ

If you keep them to yourself they might not be found as it is a game with so many variables.

Edited yesterday at 17:21 by Matthew Le God

[Willo of Whiteley]

2 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

There is no extra cost to get FM early.

I’ve not said that. I used EA as an example.

I’ve stopped buying a lot of the games until a month or two after release, that way a lot of bugs are generally ironed out by then.

I must admit from the early reviews I’ve read of FM26, they’re very mixed

[RedArmy]

2 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

Are you on version 26.0.4?

Have you logged the bug on the forums?

I might be sad enough to post on a saints forum, if you think I’m joining an FM one you better think again. 

[Tommy]

4 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

Are you on version 26.0.4?

Have you logged the bug on the forums?

yes i am.

Nah, feck em...i'm not their free tester, they should have found all this in QA

[Matthew Le God]

11 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Nah, feck em...i'm not their free tester, they should have found all this in QA

Cutting off your nose to spite your face!

[SambaMaverick]

Got to say I'm disappointed with the "all new" graphics. Not the most important part of the game, granted, but I'm guessing it was a big part of the delay and it still looks like the players are waddling around with shit in their drawers, no accurate animations. 

But at least they've put in the womens leagues... fuck sake

[Colinjb]

11 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

Cutting off your nose to spite your face!

No. It's Fords R + D strategy in the late 80's, letting the customer iron out the bugs for them. It's sloppy, treating the customers like fools and long term damaging to your reputation and market position.

Edited 8 hours ago by Colinjb

[S-Clarke]

I thought I'd give this more of a go over the weekend, I just can't get into it. They may have improved other elements of the game such as scouting/tactics etc, but for a start you can't find them and secondly the UI just renders anything rubbish.

Even stuff like 'going on holiday' was a chore, it took me 10 mins to figure out where they'd moved that. And it didn't work, as soon as I clicked go on holiday the entire game closed. Amazing.

The 3D match engine isn't perfect either. There was a moment where the goalie was floating at the top of the goal, and they scored. To be fair it's probably fairly realistic as Bazunu was in goal.

The UI is just awful though, skins and mods can't even fix this and I've tried. It all just looks a bit too zoomed in for me and 'paint by numbers' in visual quality, it's like they've totally misunderstood how people played this game - they expect you to be playing full screen and not doing anything else. But I used to do it in window mode, minimise, do other bits, come back etc. Doing that now though looks utter rubbish.

I'll skip this year and hope that things improve next year, but we're kind of relying on the modding community fixing this rather than SI.

[SambaMaverick]

There are so many little details, bits and bobs that are just off compared to 24. I can't believe this game was tested and deemed fit for release.

I would love to see the state of what 25 looked like before they decided to pull the plug.

He's had a great innings, but that Miles chap will have to go for this. Hope they don't flush the series down the toilet by going the wrong direction next.

[Matthew Le God]

Putting the UI and bug issues to one side.

Is everyone largely happy with the Saints data? Bound to be some subjective things you disagree with, but hopefully not many factual ones.

[SambaMaverick]

7 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Putting the UI and bug issues to one side.

Is everyone largely happy with the Saints data? Bound to be some subjective things you disagree with, but hopefully not many factual ones.

Quarshie seems to be our best centre-back from the start, at least he is on my save, which is interesting... Not sure if that will have come from your side or from his previous data etc in Germany though.

Everything else seems well balanced for now, both goalkeepers are incredibly shit and making me regret pledging to stick to our IRL squad for the first half of the season. Jay Robinson's potential looks very tasty.

Also on Dibling's sell-on (20% of fee, not profit), will that be a best guess or is that true to life?

[Matthew Le God]

22 minutes ago, SambaMaverick said:

Quarshie seems to be our best centre-back from the start, at least he is on my save, which is interesting... Not sure if that will have come from your side or from his previous data etc in Germany though.

Quarshie and all other new signings are done by the researchers of their old teams rather than me.

Harwood-Bellis, Stephens, Edwards & Wood all have a higher current ability than Quarshie. Quarshie does have a pretty good potential ability.

[RedArmy]

1 hour ago, Matthew Le God said:

Putting the UI and bug issues to one side.

Is everyone largely happy with the Saints data? Bound to be some subjective things you disagree with, but hopefully not many factual ones.

The beauty of this game is that thanks to our large turnover of players this summer and still having a big budget at the start of the game, you can pretty much put out a starting 11 for most games with no more than 2 or 3 players that you’ve been able to touch their stats on. 
 

Does make it a much more enjoyable game. 

[Matthew Le God]

2 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

The beauty of this game is that thanks to our large turnover of players this summer and still having a big budget at the start of the game, you can pretty much put out a starting 11 for most games with no more than 2 or 3 players that you’ve been able to touch their stats on. 
 

Does make it a much more enjoyable game. 

That isn't very constructive! 😂

Which subjective things do you disagree with?

[Weston Super Saint]

4 hours ago, SambaMaverick said:

Quarshie seems to be our best centre-back from the start, at least he is on my save, which is interesting... Not sure if that will have come from your side or from his previous data etc in Germany though.

Everything else seems well balanced for now, both goalkeepers are incredibly shit and making me regret pledging to stick to our IRL squad for the first half of the season. Jay Robinson's potential looks very tasty.

Also on Dibling's sell-on (20% of fee, not profit), will that be a best guess or is that true to life?

Is Downes fucking useless and cannot kick a ball let alone pass to one of our own team?

If not, it's way off!

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Is Downes fucking useless and cannot kick a ball let alone pass to one of our own team?

If not, it's way off!

Was one of my top scorers in Beta save 😀

[Matthew Le God]

Just now, Tommy said:

Was one of my top scorers in Beta save 😀

From central midfield? 🤔

[Tommy]

following posted on Reddit, the first bit about just skipping through to matches is probably my biggest gripe with the game. They’ve somehow managed to destroy all the immersion that made it such a wonderful game to play. 
 

“

Just now, the biggest Football Manager streamer in South Korea someone who usually pulls between 10,000 to 40,000 viewers every time he plays FM has officially quit FM26.

He mentioned that SI had sponsored him, so he started a 3-season playthrough out of courtesy. Honestly, he said he wanted to stop after the first season but felt obliged to continue because of the sponsorship.

Despite the deal, his review was brutally honest:

“Whether it’s checking records or looking at other clubs, I just don’t feel like doing anything. I end up just skipping straight to the matches.”

“FM is a text-based game, but now reading the text feels stressful. That’s the biggest problem.”

“The in-game graphics have improved a lot, but the match engine still feels disappointing.”

“If you just want to watch matches, you might as well play the FC series. There’s no reason to play FM anymore.”

“I have a lot more to say, but since this is a sponsored stream, I’ll stop here.”

“Lastly… don’t bother sponsoring next time just make FM27 a good game.”

And with that, he ended the stream.
It’s safe to say he won’t be launching FM26 again.”

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/s/uOEOILovgq
 

 

[Tommy]

Just now, Matthew Le God said:

From central midfield? 🤔

Scan read it as our Damien 😀

[Tommy]

Re the Saints data, I only played it for a season under beta but all seemed logical to me. If I had a gripe it’s the PA for Dibling, I think it’s maybe a touch high as I think he’ll end up being one of footballs what could have been players 

[Matthew Le God]

Just now, Tommy said:

Scan read it as our Damien 😀

Damion 😉 

He was rated by the German research team and his current ability is the lowest of all our 1st team strikers.

[Matthew Le God]

4 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Re the Saints data, I only played it for a season under beta but all seemed logical to me.

If I had a gripe it’s the PA for Dibling, I think it’s maybe a touch high as I think he’ll end up being one of footballs what could have been players 

Thank you ☺ 

Dibling has a minus PA value, so his PA will vary from savegame to savegame. With a 30 +/- PA range. So in some games he will be a lot better than in others.

Edited 1 hour ago by Matthew Le God

[skintsaint]

10 minutes ago, Tommy said:

“I have a lot more to say, but since this is a sponsored stream, I’ll stop here.”

[Tommy]

3 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Thank you ☺ 

Dibling has a minus PA value, so his PA will vary from savegame to savegame. With a 30 +/- PA range. So in some games he will be a lot better than in others.

Would be interesting if you are able to share how you go about assigning attributes and then calibrating them

[SambaMaverick]

2 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Is Downes fucking useless and cannot kick a ball let alone pass to one of our own team?

If not, it's way off!

He doesn't get in my best side, put it that way

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

Art imitating life!