Another cycle has come and gone, but the release of Football Manager 2022 has unleashed many a fans excitement for the new game release. If you’re a newbie to the Football Manager scene, first things first: Welcome! Dive in and start your new save for your managerial career… but you might not know what to do next!

Let’s take things easy and start with the basics. This article will guide you through Day One in your new save on Football Manager 2022, from the Club Vision to assessing your squad.

As your game loads, click “Next” through the various screens showcasing your chosen club. The game offers you the chance to do inductions across the different features of Football Manager, from scouting to tactics. If you wish, click Send Today to send tutorials to your Inbox, which are useful for learning the various features of the game.

Club Vision

The first page you see in your save is the Inbox, where all your news items are shown daily. One of the first news items shown is the Club Vision needing to be finalised with the Board of Directors.

As in reality, the club draft a 5 year plan, dependent on their finances and league they compete in. Always check what is Required by the Board, as meeting these objectives are likely to keep you in the job!

For this article, I am using Borussia Dortmund as an example. The Board are requiring a top four finish to qualify for the Champions League and the semi finals of the DFB-Pokal (German Cup) as a minimum. Crucially, they also require me to work within the wage budget, which is common across all clubs in game. I recommend keeping your wages within the limits the Board have set, because spending over this budget could get you sacked!

If this is your first managerial job, it is recommended to accept the objectives the Board have set you. As you progress through future seasons, you may be able to negotiate objectives, depending on your success at the club.

New Save, New Squad

Before you set your tactics up, you need to assess your inherited squad and their strengths and weaknesses. To do this, click on Squad on the left sided menu to view your complete first team. You may find some hidden talents or some overpaid and aging players who may need to be sold on.

A good place to start is to click on the drop down by Players and select Reports to reveal your players star ratings. Sort the ratings by Ability at the top to see who your best players are and get an idea of who to base your tactic around. Clicking on individual players allows you to see their attributes and their preferred playing roles in each position.

Using the screenshot above, Erling Haaland is the best player at the club with 5 stars out of 5 (shows how good your player is compared to the rest of your squad). You may check his tactical roles and attributes to decide if he (and other players) are good enough for your squad or not. As for this example: its Erling Haaland. He should be good enough for you!

Even if you know how you want your team to play, I recommend taking time looking over your players and identifying positions where you may wish to strengthen the team or to see who you want to sell on. You can also view this by going to Team Report and Squad Depth, giving a breakdown of your players and how many you have in each position.

Tactics

Now we get to the most interesting part of setting your team up: the tactics! Your tactics will define how your team plays and how they stop (or not) the opposition from scoring against you. A Tactical Induction shows up in the Inbox on day one to set your first tactic up, which is useful for beginners who are new to tactics.

Before you select the tactic, the game gives recommendations with a thumbs up beside the tactical style and formation. This indicates which tactic is likely to suit your current squad. It is your decision which tactics you choose, although it is worth going with one of the guided options.

Once selected, your new tactic is shown, where the tactical instructions and individual instructions can be tweaked over time. If you are not sure what to tweak, it is worth watching your first match to see what works or what instructions need changing.

Staff Responsibilities

Behind every great playing squad, you have a great set of coaching; scouting and data analyst staff. Clicking on Staff will allow you to view your coaches; recruitment (scouts) and medical staff already at the club. It may be the case (especially lower down the leagues) that you may not have many staff available, so ensure whoever you bring in is useful.

A key thing to do here is sort out the responsibilities you want to give your staff. Go onto Responsibilities > Overview and you will see all the tasks you are responsible for as a manager. As a beginner, this may overwhelm you, so click Set All and Delegate all responsibilities to your staff. This allows your staff to take over the running of your training; tactics; matches and so on until you become more comfortable with the game.

As you settle into the game, it is worth coming back to this screen to see what responsibilities you feel comfortable taking control of.

As a side note, it may be worth leaving friendlies to your Assistant Manager, as this helps you get through pre-season quicker.

All New Data Hub

Although not available on day one, this section provides analysis of your squad strengths and weaknesses throughout the season. The screenshot below shows the Overview page of the Data Hub, with a tutorial available for guidance through this new feature.

Essentially, once this hub has been activated after playing a few games (where else will the data come from?), you can view how well your team performs against the rest of the league. At times, you may have burning questions like:

• Do you concede a lot of goals from corners?
• Are your players struggling towards the end of a match?
• What is your xG compared to the rest of the league?

All of these answers and much more can be found in this tab. This is an overview of the data hub, which is useful in improving your team as the season progresses and identify weaknesses before they begin affecting your team’s performance.

If you would like to dive deeper into the data hub and the different features on offer, check out this article by TheFMTeacher for more information. Master the data hub, master your team.

Overall

Day One as manager in your new save provides a lot of information, but I hope this article has given you an idea of where to focus. Delegating responsibilities to your staff is vital, allowing you time to learn the game features at your pace. Over time, take control of more responsibilities, once you are familiar with your squad; staff and tactics.

There are many articles on our site to help you learn how these features work, such as this article. Check them out and thank you for reading. I wish you a happy time managing your first club in Football Manager 2022.

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Follow me @Craig_FM1 for more FM22 content or find us on Twitter @DictateTheGame for more Football Manager news and content.

Check out these articles below for more on FM22:

• FM22: 5 Things to do Before Pressing ‘Continue’
• Football Manager Primer: Playing on The Edge with WideCentreback
• Don’t Let Your Dreams Be Memes