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After a five-year hiatus from the Football Manager series, I returned to FM26 with cautious optimism. Life happens, review schedules get packed, and somewhere between 2021 and now, I'd drifted away from what was once an annual ritual. Surely, I thought, Sports Interactive would have used that time to refine, improve, and elevate the series to new heights. Instead, what I found after 20+ hours - completing one full season and three transfer windows - was a confusing, feature-stripped experience that felt less like evolution and more like regression.
A UI Designed by Committee (and Not a Good One)
Let's start with the elephant in the boardroom: the redesigned user interface is an absolute disaster. Playing the pre-release build on a high-end PC (Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4080 - hardware that should laugh at this game's demands), I was constantly battling against an interface that felt designed for anyone but actual FM veterans.
The new UI lacks the simplicity and intuitiveness that made previous Football Manager games accessible. Navigation requires clicking through multiple screens to reach basic functions, turning simple tasks into a painful annoyance. Want to check something quickly? Tough luck - you're three menus deep and the interface is chugging along like a League Two side on a cold Tuesday night in Grimsby.
This wouldn't be quite so egregious if the UI was at least responsive, but it's sluggish and laggy even on my beefy setup. The fact that modders have already released fixes that make the interface significantly more fluid than the official version speaks volumes. When the community can outperform the developers within days of release, something's gone seriously wrong.
The game even has the audacity to suggest using a controller, proudly proclaiming that "FM26 is more controller-friendly than ever" No. Just no. That would be sacrilege of the highest order. This isn't FIFA; it's Football Manager. The console-first design philosophy is painfully obvious and entirely unwelcome for those of us who've spent decades managing using our mouse and keyboard.
Then there's my injury icon debacle. Picture this: the match auto-stops because one of my players is injured. Fair enough, that's how it should work. But I didn't catch which player it was in the commentary, and when I went to the tactics screen to make a substitution, there was no injury icon to be seen. Nothing. Nada.
I spent five minutes - FIVE MINUTES - substituting players one by one like some sort of demented guessing game. Tried the keeper? "You still have an injured player on the pitch." Right, try the left-back. Nope. Centre-mid? No. I went through eight different players before finally finding the injured one, all whilst the match sat paused and my blood pressure steadily climbed.
The kicker? The icon wasn't actually missing. It was there all along, just designed so poorly that it was essentially invisible unless you knew exactly where to look and squinted at the screen like you were trying to read the small print on a dodgy contract. This is the sort of fundamental UI failure that should never have made it past basic playtesting. It's not a minor annoyance; it's a game-breaking design flaw that actively prevents you from playing the match.
The Great Feature Purge of 2026
Perhaps most baffling is the sheer number of features that have simply vanished. Here's a link to an extensive list of missing elements made by the community, but let me highlight some of the most painful omissions that made me pull my hair in frustration.
You can't compare players outside your own squad with transfer targets. Read that again. In a game about recruitment and squad building, you cannot easily compare potential signings with players from other clubs. It's like trying to do your weekly shop with one eye closed and both hands tied behind your back.
Review update: In the recent patch, Sports Interactive has expanded the comparison feature, adding the option to compare any player with those on your shortlist. It's still not perfect but it's a step in the right direction.
The calendar at the top of the home screen - one of the most useful navigation tools in previous editions - is gone. Deadline day, that frantic pinnacle of transfer window drama, is completely absent. Live cup draws, which added genuine excitement and immersion? Not here. The attribute graph has been relegated to a tiny, useless window. Staff attributes are now hidden behind words rather than numbers, showing "Good", "Outstanding" and "Average" to name a few, making quick assessments impossible.
The list goes on: no ability to save line-ups, goalkeeper history doesn't show goals conceded, comparing players and staff is essentially gone, the transfers section is buried behind action buttons. It's as if Sports Interactive looked at everything fans loved about previous games and thought, "Right, let's bin most of that."
Match Day: Where Reality Goes to Die
The match engine produces some truly bizarre results. I'm not talking about the occasional upset - those happen in real football and they're part of the game's charm. I'm talking about systematic issues that break immersion completely.
Every match seems to finish with four or more goals. I had more games ending 4-3, 4-4, or 5-4 than I did 1-0, 0-0, or 1-1. That's not football; that's field hockey. My Sheffield United side, sitting comfortably in first place with the best defence in Sky Bet League One, the most goals scored, and the highest average rating, suddenly became a team with a Swiss cheese defence, just overnight.
The pièce de résistance came when bottom-of-the-table Exeter City, who'd been collecting losses like they were going out of fashion, turned into 2011 Barcelona at Bramall Lane. We went 2-0 up. They came back, made it 2-3. We went 4-3 up. They came back again, winning 5-4. One freak result? Fine, that's football. But from there, I went on a five-game losing streak, conceding three to four goals per match to relegation fodder. This for a team that had been destroying the league.
The worst thing for me is that match statistics don't help you understand what's actually happening on the pitch. The information presented is superficial at best, leaving you guessing about the real tactical battle unfolding. My assistant manager cheerfully informed me we were "controlling the match" whilst we were 1-0 down in the 88th minute. Cheers, mate. Very helpful.
Tactics and Talks: Stuck in the Past
I expected five years of development to bring significant improvements to tactical depth, AI adaptation, and in-match management. Instead, the tactical side feels disappointingly shallow - wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle, as the saying goes.
The AI doesn't seem to adapt meaningfully to your tactics. There's no sense that opposition managers are learning from previous encounters or adjusting their approach based on your strengths. Team talks remain stuck with the same generic options: "We're the favourites, let's go," "I expect a win," and similar platitudes that rarely have any discernible effect unless you go full Sir Alex Ferguson and throw a boot at someone (metaphorically speaking, of course).
I consistently found myself wanting to say something specific to my players, only to be offered a selection of responses that bore no relation to what I actually wanted to communicate. It's 2025, and we're still stuck with dialogue options that feel like they were written in 2006.
Oh, and don't get me started on the reporters who ask me the same question about a struggling one-star loanee in the Spanish Third Division for the tenth time. Sigh.
Visual Mediocrity
The visual presentation is poor for a game releasing in 2025. Stadium graphics are dated, animations are stiff and unconvincing, and the randomly generated faces are, to put it mildly, the stuff from horror films. The whole package looks a bit disappointing, honestly.
But here's the thing - most hardcore FM fans use the classic 2D view anyway. We don't need or particularly want realistic graphics. We want functionality, speed, and clarity. Sports Interactive should redirect those graphical resources towards fixing the poor UI and restoring the missing features that actually matter to how we play the game.
Those Magical Moments (When They're Allowed to Happen)
Credit where it's due: when Football Manager 2026 works, when the stars align and the bugs temporarily retreat, it can still deliver those incredible moments that remind you why you fell in love with this series in the first place.
Seeing your tactical substitution pay off with a 90th-minute winner is still glorious. Winning Manager of the Year feels like a genuine achievement. Securing promotion to the Premier League with a team that started in the lower leagues is deeply satisfying. Surprising a rival manager with a tactical masterstroke that dismantles their game plan feels brilliant. I fist-pumped and shouted "YES!" at my monitor more times than I'd care to admit.
These moments prove that somewhere beneath the broken UI, missing features, and questionable design decisions, there's still a good game trying to get out. Sports Interactive clearly has something special to build on - they just need to stop sabotaging themselves.
Final Verdict
Football Manager 2026 is a significant disappointment that feels rushed, unfinished, and confused about its own identity. The redesigned UI prioritises console players at the expense of the PC faithful, the match engine produces unrealistic results, and the sheer number of missing features is staggering.
The core appeal of managing a football club remains intact - those moments of triumph still deliver - but they're buried beneath layers of poor design decisions and incomplete implementation. This isn't the evolution the series needed after years of development; it's a step backwards that betrays the trust of long-time fans.
Sports Interactive needs to take a long, hard look at what made Football Manager great and remember that their core audience doesn't want flashy graphics or controller support. We want depth, features, and an interface that doesn't actively fight against us. Until significant patches address these fundamental issues, FM26 remains a frustrating experience that's difficult to recommend, even to die-hard fans like myself.
Sometimes the best tactic is knowing when to make a substitution. This one should have stayed on the bench.
The Good
Those magical moments of managerial glory still feel incredible- Core football management loop remains engaging when it works
The Bad
Redesigned UI is confusing, slow, and clearly console-focused- Massive list of missing features that were present in previous games
- Match engine produces unrealistic scorelines
- Shallow tactical depth and poor AI adaptation
- Feels unfinished and rushed to market
