Recently we had the great news that Shouts are being added back into Football Manager 2026, allowing managers to have more control over their players. But in the words of Kendrick Lamar, it’s not enough. The player count is falling and something more drastic has to happen if that trend is going to change. More features need to be re-added, and deeper fixes are needed.
So I’ve had a proper look and spoken to you guys about what still needs to return. I’m convinced there’s a good game buried somewhere in there, but these changes need to happen if FM26 wants to realise its potential and not go down as an almighty flop.
Bring back one or two clicks
If there’s one clear message from everyone, it’s this: the game is still far too clicky. When I asked my audience, the replies were basically identical. What used to take one click now takes four or five. The new Portal forces panels you don’t care about, like four different fixture panels. Shortlists reset their columns every time you click a player. The back button and mouse buttons don’t behave properly. And it’s not just PC players. The mobile UI sends you back to the tactics screen when you’re just trying to change a role. Sports Interactive have already pushed a big performance and UI hotfix, but the community still wants more improvements.
Work with skin creators and heavy users. Sit down with the people who build the best custom skins and the people who play the game for 1,000 hours a year. Rebuild the navigation map around how the game is actually played so that any key action, whether it’s rotating the squad, checking fitness, changing training or scouting a comparison, is never more than two clicks from an obvious starting point. Every screen should have a clear and consistent back and home route that also works with mouse buttons.
Let us customise the Portal properly. Every panel should be removable or swappable. Let players save and share Portal layouts. A tactician view. A Director of Football view. A youth development view. Give casual players a simple preset and the rest of us an advanced one.
Make view persistence sacred. If I set my shortlist to show Contract, Wage and Scout Rating, it should stay like that until I change it. Same for squad views, scouting assignments, staff searches. Treat them as saved profiles instead of temporary filters. This one cannot be stressed enough.
Fix the basic navigation issues. The mouse back button should behave exactly like the in-game back arrow, everywhere, every time. Right now, the UI feels like it was designed top down. It needs rebuilding from the ground up, around how people actually use it.
Fix the matchday
The new matchday presentation looks lovely, and most people seem happy with it. But there’s still a long list of issues. Kit clashes are still happening. You still can’t easily see other scores, live league tables or the opposition’s condition. You can’t click a goalscorer and instantly watch that goal. Content Update 1 will focus on Shouts, the match engine and some interface bits, but nothing yet suggests a full matchday presentation overhaul.
Bring back Deadline Day
Transfers need more excitement. The whole market feels a bit flat. But let’s start with the basics. Deadline Day just doesn’t feel like Deadline Day. The drama is muted. In real life it’s one of the busiest days in the football calendar with constant speculation and chaos. In FM26 it feels like any normal day.
Bring back a proper Deadline Day experience. A distinct, optional mode with a live rumour ticker for your league, last minute loan or panic buy suggestions and clear countdown timers for open deals. Some players won’t want the theatrics, which is fine. Make it skippable just like you can skip matches you don’t want to play.
Fix training, youth development and club infrastructure
Training is an area nobody seems happy with. Many want it to go back to how it was. Others find it too fiddly and time consuming to change one simple thing. And that’s before you even get to youth training, which is difficult to find and even harder to understand. There’s a lot SI could do here.
In bringing back this feature, Football Manager 26 needs to introduce both a Simple and an Advanced training planner with their own options.
Simple development should have focus sliders for fitness, tactical, technical, set pieces and rest as well as pre-built weekly templates like big game week, two game week or preseason grind. On the other hand, advanced options should keep the current granular session system but improve it with proper drag and drop and bulk editing.
Make youth training impossible to miss. Under 21 and Under 18 training should have their own tab under Training, visible from day one, and every youngster’s profile should have a clear link saying view this player’s training schedule.
Miscellaneous and other things to bring back in FM26
While I have a lot of thoughts on how to bring back the aforementioned features, there’s a tonne missing from Football Manager 26. With that in mind, here are other features that need to come back in future games:
- Proper cup draws and competition draws
- Notes on players and matches.
- Drawings and pass maps
- Seeing all top league tables on one screen.
- A proper end of season review.
- Data Hub showing the last match you played, not something from three games ago.
- The fixtures shortcut actually going to fixtures.
- Quick shortcuts to transfer history and the medical centre.
- Saving search filters so scout searches don’t need rebuilding every time.
Have I missed anything obvious? What else needs to return to improve FM26? Let me know in the comments.
