

Chief among the new features is the "Data hub", a fathomless pit of charts, diagrams, and infographics that collates every scrap of information into one giant number library. Quite frankly, this undersells the yawning chasm of analytics that FM 2022 opens up before you. There's a long-running joke about Football Manager being 'The Spreadsheet Game'.

I vaguely recognise the face behind all the ones and zeroes, but that person I once snuggled up with on winter evenings has ascended into something vast, intimidating, and utterly obsessed with data. It's been quite some time since I last sported the greying temples and Fray-Bentos paunch of football's favourite scapegoat, and returning to Football Manager is a bit like meeting up with an old girlfriend after they've had their consciousness uploaded into an all-knowing AI. Hattrick is a quintessentially English anachronism, whose ignorance of the modern game represents my own unfamiliarity with modern Football Manager. He thinks a gegenpress is something you use to get the creases out of your trousers. Route-one, 4-4-2, and no 'larking about'. The 36-year-old former full-back, a Stockport native and lifelong fan of the Vanarama National League club, has a tactical style best described as 'my dad after three pints'. From: Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Storeīarry Hattrick has just signed a two-year contract with Stockport County FC.It may not be a radical change, but it's still one of the best management experiences around.
