You only need an excuse. The fundamental appeal of Football Manager is the same as it was in the Collyer brothers' debut in 1992, and if at any time in your life that appeal has spoken to you, it will do so forevermore. Really, it's just a matter of how seductively each iteration whispers its new features list at you.
"There's a brand new match engine, you know," says Football Manager 2018, playing absent-mindedly with its hair. "Sports science and data analysis plays much more of a role now too," it continues, making a circle with one hand and moving an index finger in and out with the other. You know in your heart of hearts that it'll be a lot like the last time you spent 215 hours arranging spreadsheets and obsessing over promising teenage trequartistas. But still you cave.
Perhaps the best test of a Football Manager game's mettle, then, is whether you actually miss its new features if you go back and play the last one. To its credit, Football Manager 2018 achieves that comfortably. By contrast, FM 2017's scouting seems a bit shallow, its UI dated, and its fantasy draft mode - the most enjoyable addition in recent years - feels barebones. Having spent enough time with the new game, I'd be loathe to return to the last one now. Maybe it sounds like faint praise, but for an annualised franchise to achieve that is no small thing.
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