Football Manager 24 has been officially available for the last two weeks, giving us the perfect opportunity to take stock and assess how it has been going so far.
Have you been struggling or succeeding with signings? Do you want to know the difference between a 4-2-3-1 and a Christmas tree formation? Are wonderkids baffling you, or do you need a raft of bargains for your squad?
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Well, conveniently The Athletic has spent the last couple of weeks providing a wide range of articles explaining what you need to do to make the best out of your new saved game.
Here, we recap those articles and show you where to go if you want to find out everything you need to know about FM24.
The best teams to manage
A new version of Football Manager means countless hours are about to be spent playing the game. But who are the best teams to manage?
From easy saves to challenges that will require far more investment, we’ve gone through the database to work out the most exciting tasks to tackle in FM24.
Determining which club to take charge of is made easier when you know their finances in advance, so for every team listed here, we have provided each team’s starting transfer budget, wage budget, a handy tip to get you started, and assigned every team a difficulty rating from one to five.
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Football Manager 2024: The 20 best teams to manage
The best bargains
Scouring the transfer market to find the best bargains in Football Manager 2024 is a time-consuming activity.
Not everyone wants to spend ages compiling hundreds of scouting reports to source cheap new additions.
To help you save some time, we have listed 20 players who will cost no more than £15million ($18.5m) — and who are worth adding to your squad.
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Football Manager 2024 bargains: 20 best players under £15m
The best wonderkids
Discovering wonderkids in Football Manager is what keeps people coming back year after year.
But separating the contenders in FM24 is not straightforward. Sometimes a scout report will say a player has high potential but they do not often end up fulfilling those hopes placed on them.
To simplify your search, we have profiled two of the best young players (each aged 21 or younger) in each position, provided their attributes profile at the start of a new save and taken a look at what their stats might look like after five seasons.
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Football Manager 2024 wonderkids: 20 best young players to sign in FM24
The best coaches
If you do not have a skilled backroom team in Football Manager 24, your players may not develop the way you would like them to.
Quality coaches are not the be-all and end-all. If Lionel Messi had been surrounded by sub-par coaches when he made a breakthrough in 2004, chances are he would have still turned out to be pretty good. But most players need a bit of guidance to thrive.
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Football Manager 2024: Best coaches for every role in FM24
The best free agents
Whether you are looking for a starter, depth for your bench or a player to sign now and sell later, there are decent reasons to invest in a free agent in Football Manager 2024.
A lot of free agents will be most suited to teams in lower leagues, but there are a few recruits suitable to the Premier League in there too.
To help you find the right signings, The Athletic outlined the best free agents in FM24.
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Football Manager 2024: The 20 best free agents to sign in FM24
The best formations
Your tactics shape everything in Football Manager. Getting them right is of paramount importance.
But what are the best formations to use in FM24? In truth, there is no right or wrong answer. Astute managers will make any formation work, but if you are unsure, we can help.
It is important to note that all the tactics we have listed in the article below can easily be modified. If you do not like the player roles suggested, feel free to tweak things. These are just the formations that proved successful for us self-confessed FM nerds who have been playing the game since it was called Championship Manager.
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Football Manager 2024: The best formations to choose
The best signings under £1m
A lot of teams on Football Manager 2024 have to rely on extremely cheap signings.
So allow us to help you discover the best players who will cost less than £1million in FM24.
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Football Manager 2024: The 20 best signings for under £1m
The best scouts and recruitment staff
You have two options when looking for new players in FM24: spend hours looking yourself or hire a strong scouting team.
In FM24, you get an email each season letting you know the top 10 academies but, to get ahead of the curve, it is worth employing people to be aware of those academy players before the rest of the world is.
Here, The Athletic has found the best scouts and recruitment staff to sign in FM24. Each of them begins every new save without a club.
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Football Manager 2024: Best scouts and recruitment staff to sign in FM24
The best medical staff
A good physio in FM24 cannot reverse a player’s injury, but they can be the difference between a player being out for four months or three months.
An often overlooked part of any backroom team in Football Manager, having highly qualified medical staff can give your team the edge.
Here, we run through the best medical personnel in FM24 that begin each game save without a club.
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Football Manager 2024: Best medical staff to improve your team
Improve your team in five easy steps
Football Manager is fun, but if you do not know what you are doing, it is like being asked to carry out a complicated task at work and having no clue where to start.
At its core, Football Manager is basically an exercise in spreadsheet management. But somehow, crunching numbers and knowing which buttons to click is really enjoyable.
For veteran players, this advice may not be news to you, but these tips are aimed at newer players who want to get better at Football Manager and are not quite sure where to start.
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Struggling with Football Manager 2024? Here are five easy ways to improve
The best challenges
Are you already bored?
You may have already won promotion, the league or the Champions League with your favourite team, so a new test of your managerial credentials is exactly what’s needed.
If you have exhausted the more conventional saves on this or previous FM titles, here are your possible options to keep things fresh…
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Bored of your Football Manager 2024 save already? Here are the best challenges
(Top photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)