It’s a commonly known fact that if you happen to talk to any young boy, chances are one of their main choices of future career (along with spaceman and policeman) is as a football player. It’s always been every fan's dream to score the winning goal for their supported team in the cup final, or maybe the last-minute winner against their bitter rivals. Unfortunately with professional footballers being few and far between, chances of fulfilling those dreams are minimal to say the least. Hence sales of these football management titles, including Sports Interactive’s own particular brand, are at an all time high, presumably so we can prove (to ourselves at least) that given half a chance, all of us could do well in this football management business.

This year’s incarnation of the manager's eye view of the beautiful game improves upon last year’s in all the areas you could possibly expect. While the much-mocked spreadsheet appearance remains, player pictures and club badges (at least the ones Sega have licences for) brighten things up a little - it’s always nice to give that star striker that was plucked out of obscurity a face to the unpronounceable name.

One of this year’s biggest inclusions, which newcomers to the series/genre will in particular be interested in (although old hands too may pick up a few tips along the way) is the in game tutorial. A click of this option on any screen in the game and each and every choice that could possibly be made is explained in an obscene amount of detail, and even gives a few ideas as to what managerial choices could be made. There’s a huge amount of detail, and obviously a great amount of time and love has been poured into this feature in particular, and all should find it a great help.

The amount of detail managers are now encouraged to plunge themselves into is awe-inducing indeed: not only has the number of unique players and staff made another upward movement - this time approaching 270,000 - but each individual now finally has those much-craved weight and height characteristics. While use of these two identifiers is quite shallow, considering that height and weight are already shown to great effect in the game’s standard player ratings (the strength, and jumping stats in particular), it gives that extra set of parameters to add when searching for that lanky beanpole striker to flick long balls on for the on-rushing midfield to take advantage of.

But new additions aren’t merely for the players. This time managers each have their own contracts at their clubs and can negotiate accordingly. Managers who are performing particularly well may receive an offer of inflated wages and a long-term contract. Now while that may seem shallow, and an unnecessary inclusion, success on the pitch - especially when it’s getting towards the end of your contract - can give you much more leeway with the board when it comes to what’s needed to take the team to the top of the table. Become a favourite with the fans, and the chairman will surely have to give in to requests for an extra million on the transfer budget, or an extra £20,000 a week to the maximum wage bill. And what self-respecting chairman would want to go against the fans' wishes?

A real disappointment where the series has always been a bit of a letdown is in the training aspect. It’s been all too easy in the past to leave that area of management in the control of your assistant (an option that’s still able to be taken) and simply concentrate on match day itself. This time around however the training module has been built from the ground up once again and Sports Interactive have yielded its most user-friendly incarnation yet. The amount of depth is quite a sobering prospect for the uninitiated, but you’re able to merely dip your toe in as far as you feel comfortable. The six predefined training schedules will be more than useful for those unwilling to get into too much detail.

The media aspect, which obviously plays such a huge part in modern football, finally takes a far greater role in this digital realm. Stories in the media come in all sorts of different flavours, and are much more meaningful this time around. If criticising the team captain for a recent string of poor performances seems the only way to go, care must be taken as to how strongly these views are aired. Other members of the squad (and fans alike) may not to take too kindly to a heavily critical outburst of a player who’s been around much longer than this rookie manager.

Player interaction has been subject to a hefty amount of tinkering, with each individual becoming more like a unique personality rather than merely a collection of statistics. If a player feels threatened by a new signing, or has become upset at finding himself pushed out of the starting eleven, he’ll make his views known, and request confirmation of his standing in the team. If they’re then promised first-team football in the coming weeks, and it isn’t delivered, then opinion of the manager throughout the squad may drop considerably. Hence player form drops, and this manager finds himself back in the dole queue within a few weeks.

On paper, these multitudes of additions seem to have the potential of making managerial careers too unwieldy and complicated. A few late nights of play however is all that’s required to get right back into the swing of things. The addictive qualities remain fully intact, and those long nights spent tweaking your system through pre-season in order to develop what you hope will be known as a championship-winning tactic are just as long and frequent.

There are so few games out there that give birth to so many wild stories discussed between friends as this. Many times, stories are uttered of an unknown young striker from Holland who sent a club to promotion or a last-minute winner in a cup final. Since so few games can provoke these kinds of reactions then it’s no wonder that such a huge number of people can’t fail to become hopelessly addicted. Football Manager isn’t a matter of life or death. It’s much more important than that.