There's an unwritten agreement between you, the player, and Sports Interactive that sits at the heart of every Football Manager. The manager agrees to invest completely in the game world, both in terms of time and emotional energy. No save-quitting, no adding dummy managers, no downloadable "cheat" tactics. SI, meanwhile, agrees to create the most robust and realistic match engine possible, ensuring that this investment never feels wasted. When the agreement works, it's a beautiful relationship - creating gaming experiences of unrivalled richness and depth. When one party welches on the deal, however, this arrangement can turn sour very quickly.
FM16, by and large, was a success. Across three long career saves I invested as much, if not more time in this iteration as any of its predecessors since my student days. Hundreds of hours with dozens of memorable highlights, from snatching an Algerian wonderkid from under the noses of Valencia playing as League One Chelmsford City, to winning promotion to the Football League as Weston-super-Mare thanks to a last-minute 30-yard volley.
There were, however, enough wrinkles in the match engine to occasionally tarnish the experience. Across dozens of seasons my right-back, invariably, was the best player on the team, delivering assist after assist - usually crosses tapped in at the far post by my left winger. It'd be fine if I had set up the team to play this way, or if I kept stumbling across the Vanarama South's answer to Cafu. But I hadn't.
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