Hi, I just thought I’d ask what people thought about how the game progresses. I’m not going to bother with complaints about the completely useless depiction of football that the match engine provides as that has been addressed far too often.

The longest game I’ve played on this version is my current Nottingham Forrest save, where I’m in my 4th season. Up to this point the game experience hasn’t changed much, the way the individual games are played and the results in these have seemed rather consistent. The turning point seemed to be the world cup, the seemingly complete randomness in the games I played as manager of Nigeria was worrying. This might be the lack of cohesion national teams suffer from, or at least a poor attempt of presenting a lack of understanding among the players. I can’t say for certain weather it’s a turning point or just how the game copes with international football, as Nigeria is the first national team I’ve managed on FM08.

After the world cup however, the game seems completely different. Every Premier League round has at lest two 4 or 6-0 wins and games seem more random then earlier, In my first 4 games I’ve scored 4 or 5 goals in the first 20 minutes and then let the opponent take control of the match. That in itself isn’t unrealistic as teams take the foot of the pedal when up by that many goals. It’s the chances created, and the general feel of a game that seems to have changed.

Has anyone else noticed this “turning point” in the games behaviour? It feels like the match engine has lost that tiny bit of realism, which made it remotely enjoyable. That’s my feeling anyway. I hope I haven’t come across too critical, success isn’t the issue, It’s the enjoyment of the game, which seems to suffer in my opinion.

cant say as i've noticed anything like that in my longest game, and i'm into 2014! one thing i did spot, however, is my own teams variation in goals scored. every season, we've been top of the goalscoring charts, barring my first in charge. alternate seasons though, we are top of the "goals from corners" and "goals from ifk/dfk's" int he other seasons i'm lucky to make it into the top ten! its a little weird being so good one season, then so poor the next with virtually the same players.

I've not noticed any point where anything in the game seemed to change, for better or worse. I'm currently in 2018 with Gateshead and have the same problems/delights that I had when I started this game on the 8.0.1 patch.

To be honest I'm loving it. There's always things I'd like to see improved but I've encountered nothing that's severely detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

If it’s only me then it seems like it’s a sting of coincidences that has led to this sudden change. Premier League clubs seem to build incredibly strong sides with a lot of world class players in even the smallest clubs within the league.

Considering the engines apparent bias towards fast strikers, it might be that more teams have acquired fast, technically gifted forwards (this theory seems to fit with the massive build-up I mentioned). This could lead to a sudden change in results and performances, even more so if a lot of teams fail to replace ageing defenders who are losing their pace. Just a theory though. I’ll look into it when I get time to play the game.