Football Manager 2023 Recruitment Breakdown

November 14, 2022 JonnyGamesFM Comments 1 Comment

Recruitment has been revamped in this new version of Football Manager, and I am obviously intrigued. Gone are the days of disorganized scouting assignments and keeping track of your plans in separate documents, or are they? I will explore the new areas of the game and see what benefits we can find in FM23!

Recruitment focuses are the revamped version of Scouting assignments. Gone are the percentage bars of scouting knowledge, and presented to you are more descriptive titles. I think that’s ok. I didn’t really pay attention to the exact level of knowledge minutia my scouts had all the time. As long as it was in the green I felt it was sufficient enough for me. I can assess the player based on his individual attributes, and if he would fit into my vision for the team. This view is definitely more organized than it was previously. I think I’ll find myself customizing scouting priorities a lot more than before.

One thing I did hope this changes is the noise in the inbox. I, compulsively, go through every darn scouting report in my inbox because I’m neurotic and it must be complete. I would often review every report I saw, that was decent enough for me, until 100% knowledge. So I hope I can play a few more seasons this term without having to do that. 🙂 Overall it’s a nice UI refresh and more focused Recruitment area of the new game.

Table of Contents

Assignments

Scouting assignments are now found in the Scouting Coverage section. Essentially it combines the Scouting Assignment and Knowledge sections into one. This is a much nicer layout and will likely encourage me more to deep dive into customizing my scouting assignments. Looks like there was quite a few UI redesigns in these areas.

Agent Recruitment Improvements

Agent discussions are being brought to the forefront in FM23. In the past I didn’t really use them regularly. I would engage them on occasion, but it was a bit buried in the UI for me. So I didn’t search it out all the time. Now it looks like all the contract negotiations between the player and club will be encouraged to be conducted with the agent. You can still go directly to the player but it’s advised against I think, so that the process will hopefully be smoother.

Also, the agent can help resolve any contract disputes during negotiations. Making it so you don’t have to wait a month until opening talks again with the player. One thing that I’ll need to keep in mind though is that, I can’t simply enter negotiations with a player just to see their demands. I’ll have to take the agent route to get a feel of what it’s going to take to sign them before entering real negotiations. Agents are becoming a true liason between the manager and the player.

Recruitment Meetings

Recruitment meetings are focused around your squad planner and recruitment focuses. You are reminded of your plans immediately and then presented with recommended candidates from your recruiting assignments. It is more focused I find. You still get candidates that are great players but don’t necessarily fit into your budget or the timing isn’t right for some of them. It does help my vision of the project though. I can envision my side going into the future and I’m identifying areas of weakness well ahead of time instead of reacting later in the process when player need to be replaced. Overall definitely an improvement!

Additional Thoughts

There’s still lots of detail in the scouting section where you can allocate and de-allocate scouting budget from your transfer budget. Easily modify, delete or create recruitment assignments and organize your scouting team’s focuses. Some people may want to get in there, clear the entire thing out and start from scratch. It’s pretty simple to set up new recruitment focuses are there are lots of details to play with.

I hope everyone gets a chance to dig in and explore the recruiting possibilities in FM23, and whether your club is big or small, you should be able to find ways to make your scouting department work in your advantage.

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