I suspect there will be a demo available on Friday 7th although will post details as soon as I know more.

Adaptive Layout - Club Screen (click to enlarge)

The award-winning Football Manager series has now sold in excess of 7 million copies worldwide and has topped the UK and many European PC charts for the last seven years, with over 108 weeks at no.1 in the UK to date.

“We’re delighted to finally be able to start talking about Football Manager 2012” said Miles Jacobson, Studio Director at Sports Interactive. “It’s another year of evolution, with some revolution thrown in for good measure so we’re pretty sure our dedicated communities, and hopefully lots of new people too, get to play and enjoy the game when it’s released later in the year.”

Team Report - Tactics Analysis (click to enlarge)

Counting over 800 new features, not including changes to the rules of the games 50+ leagues, Football Manager 2012 promises to be the most realistic, immersive and playable football management simulation ever for any fan who has ever dreamed of making the big decisions, both on and off the field.

Key new & improved features for Football Manager 2012:

Transfers & Contracts – significant changes to the transfer and contract systems, including loyalty bonuses, better implementation of amateur and youth contracts, an improved transfer centre and the ability to lock areas of the contract negotiation when you aren’t prepared to budge. This helps you to manage your budgets and gives you flexibility in what you offer money hungry players, or agents, as incentives.

Team Report - Position Strength (click to enlarge)

Scouting improvements – using several real life scouting reports, a new in-game report has been devised which includes squad analysis, tactics information and information about goals scored and conceded alongside lots of other scouting improvements, giving you all the information you need to prepare before kick-off and throughout the season.

3D Match Improvements – new animations, a whole new crowd system, improved weather system, more stadiums, plus two brand new cameras – “Behind Goal” and “Director Cam” as well as all other camera angles being reversible – meaning you can watch and analyse every aspect of every game.

Manage Anywhere, Anytime – the ability to add or take away playable nations in your saved game as often as you want. Manage in that country at the start of the next season- meaning you don’t have to stay in the nations which are chosen by you to be playable at the start of your career.

Player Conversation - Tone (click to enlarge)

Tone – a whole new level has been added to team talks and conversations, with the new tone system, which allows you to specify the way you want to say things – be as cool as a cucumber by saying things calmly or throw tea cups around by saying things with passion. There are 6 different tones to choose from with specific comments per tone.

Intelligent Interface – a new adaptive layout system, which means the higher your screen resolution, the more info is easily at your fingertips. The new interface also contains new filters, customisable columns, a new tactics screen, and lots of new overview screens.

Brand New Tutorial – standing separate from the main game, a mode to help new players find their way around the game easily, whilst also offering tips to experienced managers on how to get the most out of the game, as well as a new in-game “how to” system.

Transfer Centre (click to enlarge)

On top of these key innovations, there are lots of areas of the game that have had huge improvements, such as the media system, press conferences, the youth system, newgens, the social networking options, friendlies, international management and many more which will be detailed in a series of video blogs over the coming months, alongside more information about Football Manager 2012.

Intelligent Interface Sneak Peak

As always there is more information and discussion over at the SI Forums so head over there and discuss.

This year will be the 4th year of thefootymanager.com and I for one rolled back the years last season and had a blinding season finishing in the top 5 of the 50 man league.

To enter the league simply:

1. head over to http://fantasy.premierleague.com/
2. sign in/register 
3. pick your team (you can make as many changes as you like before August 12th so plenty of time to tinker)
4. Click the ‘Leagues’ tab
5. Click ‘Join a league’
6. Select ‘private league’
7. Enter the league code 948431-229373
8. BOOM – You are in

So what are you waiting for?  You think you are good at FM2011, lets see how good you are picking the real players… Visit http://fantasy.premierleague.com/  and enter the code 948431-229373

It’s on!

For more information about this patch and where to download it visit the official Football Manager website.

For those not familiar with Warchild; their sole premise is that no child should be affected by war. Unfortunately, this is still not the case, but the work they are doing is providing incredibly valuable to those that still are. You can find out more about War Child by visiting their website: http://www.warchild.org.uk/

A few months ago, Miles Jacobson, the Studio Director here at SI, was asked to go on a trip with War Child so that he could see some of the work that these donations have helped fund. He leaves for this trip in the next few days and will be regularly recording his journey via a blog (when electricity and a net connection allow) which can be found at http://sportsinteractive.wordpress.com/.

If you have a spare few moments over the next couple of weeks, please do check it out (the first post going into more detail about Warchild, where he’s going and what he’s going to be doing is already up) and learn a bit more about this amazing charity which you help support every time you buy a copy of Football Manager.

The new release is a universal app, meaning one purchase allows the player to install the app on iPod, iPhone or iPad. On the iPad the game takes advantage of the bigger screen layout and is the fastest version of Football Manager Handheld released. The game includes the most up to date transfers and data, making your gaming experience as realistic as possible.

The main features of Football Manager Handheld 2011 iPad:

• 11 country leagues with 34 playable divisions
• The ability to have 4 countries leagues available at any one time, meaning the manager can accept job offers in other countries.
• An easy to use tactics system, as well as positional tactical roles.
• Player training, including the ability to retrain players in different positions.
• A realistic transfer system.
• Full financial modelling.
• 2D match engine.
• iTunes integration allowing you to listen to music from your iTunes music library.
• Social networking integration via Twitter.
• Car/Stadium Finder that provides direction from where a user parked their car, or got off the train or bus, to real football grounds in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

The route we ended up taking (after a number of revisions) was roughly:

1. San Francisco – 5 nights
2. Yosemite National Park –  2 nights
3. Monterey - 1 night
4. Morro Bay – 1 night
5. Santa Barbara – 2 nights
6. Ventura – 1 night
7. Huntington Beach – 1 night
8. San Diego – 5 nights

San Francisco

We absolutely loved San Francisco and ideally would have liked at least another day or so there because our first day or two was hindered slightly by some jet-lag. We stayed at the Harbor Court hotel which was fantastic in every way, great room, lovely views of the San Francisco waterfront and some lovely touches like complimentary milk and cookies each evening in the hotel reception and tea and coffee each morning. Anytime we stay in the USA we try and stay with Kimpton Hotels, they always look after us.

Arrived alive in San Francisco and the lovely people @Kimpton hooked us up with a upgrade, love our room view. http://twitpic.com/2trl35

October 2, 2010 12:41 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Chatmandu

Niall Walsh

Some of the highlights while we were in SF were watching the (soon to be) baseball world champion Giants at the stunning AT&T Park, what a place to watch baseball that is. A nice evening was spent in Rogues bar sampling a selection of their own beers and we had a fantastic bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito where we grabbed some lunch, a quick beer at Smitty’s Bar and got the boat back into the city. The bike ride itself was fairly easy and very bike friendly. We started at Fisherman’s Wharf after picking up some bikes from Blazing Saddles for not very much money and then headed along the bay and over the pretty spectacular Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito. Ideally we would have cycled back but we had tickets to goto Alcatraz later that afternoon so had to head back to Fisherman’s Wharf by boat.

While I was glad we visited Alcatraz & it’s nice to say I’ve been there it was jammed with tourists. We kind of felt like herded cattle around the place. The audio tour was really interesting but because of the volume of people in there we felt we didn’t really get that much time to take things in.

Yosemite

The drive over to Yosemite National Park from San Francisco took around 5 hours or so to drive, the first 4 were fairly straight forward although the last few miles are a little tedious because of speed restrictions and road quality. All in all though a pretty easy drive.

The park itself is beautiful although at ground level it’s fairly busy because of the number of tourists who drive from photogenic spot to photogenic spot. Once you get off the beaten track and do one of the treks (Half Dome, Yosemite Falls etc) it becomes allot less busy and much more enjoyable. The views are spectacular and if you are a snapper you’ll find yourself taking pictures left right and centre.

We stayed within the park at Housekeeping Camp in a half canvas/half brick contraption. It was what can only be described as “basic” but did what it said on the tin. The fire pit outside was handy to cook on and get warm at in the evenings. While it was really warm during the day (even in early October) once the sunset it got cool pretty quickly.  There was a little shop on site which you could get the basics like bread, milk and beer but irritatingly it shuts at 6pm which means we had to find another shop elsewhere. A decent sized box of firewood can be bought on site for about $10 and that was enough to keep us toasty for the two evenings we were there.

I’d definitely recommend staying within one of the official park accamadations which are more expensive but the ones outside the park while listed as only a few miles away, the nearest non official one is probably at least a 45 minutes drive away. If you are do a big hike like we did I was thankful I didn’t have the best part of 2 hours total driving added to the day.

Monterey

Really enjoyed our time Yosemite but I’d be lying if I didn’t say we were very excited to get back over to the coast. The prospect of a real bed and hot shower was something to behold.

It probably took a good 5 hours to get over to Monterey although that included stopping off for a fantastic breakfast on route at Sugar Pine Cafe and getting a little lost along the way. If I was embarking on a trip like this again a GPS would really help things, various printouts from Google Maps really isn’t the way to go about it.

We stayed at Mariposa Inn & Suites which was really nice, well priced, recently renovated rooms and about a 15 minute walk into the town centre and Marina.

Our time in Monterey was probably mainly spent at the harbour checking out the many seals found there (we’d see hundreds more during the rest of the trip but this was the first bunch so were shamefully excited), eating, drinking and watching the Giants first playoff game in the local sports bar. We had a great Chinese meal at Full Moon, the food was ace, the staff were great and it was full of locals which is always a good sign.

Walked around Monterey wharf & the place was littered with seals.I forgot my camera.Spot the seal via iPhone cam? http://twitpic.com/2vp60o

October 8, 2010 3:48 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Chatmandu

Niall Walsh

Route One through the Big Sur

The drive from Monterey to Morro Bay took us along the Big Sur which was absolutely spectacular. I think it is only around 30 miles long but with a lunch stop it took us around 4-5 hours to complete. You just feel need to jump out of the car every 400 hundred metres and start taking pictures, the scenery is endless and beautiful (the image at the top of the page was snapped on one stop.)

It does get fairly busy, as you would expect, but we found ‘most’ of the drivers to be fairly courteous and there are plenty of places to pull over if somebody decides to drive up your backside.

Some stops you have to take along the drive include:

• Point Lobos State Reserve – We spent hours here wondering about just taking in the views
• Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park – Be sure to check out the waterfall here at the beautiful secluded beach
• Treat yourself to a spot of lunch at Nepenthe Restaurant which is about halfway along the Big Sur. probably more than you’d usually pay for a sandwich but the portions are big and the location more than makes up for it.

Morro Bay

Our main reason to stay in Morro Bay was simply to breakup the journey from Monterey to Santa Barbara so we weren’t in a huge rush to get there because we were enjoying the Big Sur drive so much. It was probably about 6pm by the time we got to our motel which was the Fireside Inn and it wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it. The room we got was big but looked like it had been cleaned just enough to pass as habitable. To be fair it only cost around £40 for the night so it was cheap and handy enough to walk down to the harbor and get some food & beer, it was only a place to get some sleep.

Morro Bay itself was a cute little town (population of about 10,000 people), we spent a little time taking some sunset photographs of Morro Rock. There isn’t loads going on there but more than enough places to stop for some food and drinks to fill an evening.

I would highly recommend Top Dog coffee bar, we grabbed a breakfast bagel and coffee from there the day we left and the coffee was superb.

Santa Barbara

After a few days on the road we decided we’d have a two night stop in Santa Barbara although to be fair the drive was far from taxing but it was nice to have 48 hours without being in the car.

We found that to stay anywhere that was reasonably nice would cost a fair bit more than a few of the other towns we’d stayed at and we ended up going for the Agave Inn.  It was reasonably priced (can’t remember what we paid), really nice rooms but the trade off what it was a was good 40 minute walk into the centre of town. Not a huge issue for us because we like walking and thankfully while we were there the weather was fantastic although walking back late at night had to be done in nearly total darkness because it would seem Santa Barbara has no street lighting what so ever.

While we were there lucky for us it was the annual Santa Barbara Seafood Festival which was tons of fun. Live music, loads of fantastic fresh seafood (crab, lobster, huge mussels etc) cooked up in front of you, great atmosphere and of course beer a plenty. Great way to spend and afternoon in the sun.

After the festival spent some time pottering around a few of the independent galleries you find in Santa Barbara and then spent the evening watching some College Football and some more baseball at O’Malleys bar which was decent enough.

The Sunday was fairly low and lazy although we did go wine tasting at the Oreana Winery tasting room which was good fun and then enjoyed a few glasses outside while listening to the live music the had put on. Nice way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon although the wine may have caused me a slightly earlier night than I had planned.

Ventura

The main reason for our nights stay in Ventura was to catchup with some family of mine there so we didn’t do lots to be fair other than catchup with family and grabbed a meal. What I would say it was a really cute town with what looked to be fantastic surfing. One thing that we did really enjoy there was a good 40 minutes exploring the fantastic ‘We Olive.‘ The shop was really cool and describes itself as “We Olive is more than just a store with olive oil it is an ‘Olive Oil Experience’” and it really is. We found ourselves drinking olive oil like wine and came away with a fine selection of marinades, balsamic vinegars etc that made great gifts for the gang back home. I think it is a franchise and there are a fair few of them dotted around California but it’s a great little concept.

Oh and I wouldn’t go out of my way to reccamend the Best Western Inn of Ventura:

I know why we got a good deal on this motel, 3am trains giving it Woooo woooooo, like something out of My Cousin Vinnie :( Next stop LA!

October 12, 2010 4:15 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Chatmandu

Niall Walsh

Huntington Beach

This was place I defiantly wouldn’t overly recommend to stay but again it was more of a place to stop to get some sleep after a day exploring LA. Not really sure I could spend more than a day in LA mind you driving around it was a nightmare although it was kind of cool seeing the Hollywood sign but all in all LA is a place I won’t be rushing back to visit.

The main street in Huntington Beach seemed to be a big selection of chain drive through fast food ‘restaurants’ and we spent our evening visiting the local cinema to watch The Town.

San Diego

After a fair few days on the road which was good fun exploring places we’d probably not get to visit without the use of a car we were looking forward to hitting San Diego to kick back and relax for 5 nights before flying back to the UK from LAX.

After spending the nights since San Francisco in generally 3 star level accommodation we decided we’d have a little bit of luxury to end of the holiday and booked a suite in the beautiful Hotel Solamar in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. The Solamar is once again a Kimpton Hoteland I’d highly recommend it. There is a great rooftop pool, private cabanas and a bar.  Great place to spend an afternoon in the sun. As with all Kimpton hotels we’ve been to the staff were fantastic, the rooms were lovely and as always there were the complimentary wine hour each evening from 5pm to 6pm to keep us entertained.

We were hoping the Padres were going to sneak into the MLB playoffs so we could catch a game but it wasn’t to be. Seeing as PETCO Park was around the corner we took a walk over to check it out and were very impressed that when a game isn’t on the stadium becomes part of a community park, the bleachers are open and the local kids can essentially hang about kind of in the stadium. Very cool concept and if I was a kid growing up around there I’d find it very inspiring.

Went for a wonder after brunch & came across the fact the Padres stadium is a little community park too. V cool. http://twitvid.com/74B5L

October 16, 2010 8:24 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Chatmandu

Niall Walsh

If you are staying in and around the Gaslamp Quarter I’d definitely recommend grabbing breakfast in The Mission SoMa it was about a ten minutes walk from the Solamar and the food and coffee was great. It gets very busy at the weekend though with up to 20/30 people waiting in the street outside to get a table so if you are hitting it at the weekend get there early.

Generally we found San Diego a really fun city to spend a few days in. The restaurants and bars we ate a and drank in were in were all pretty cool although I can’t really remember any of them to fair. One place we did have a fun night in was Whiskey Girl great offers and a fun atmosphere.

That’ll do for my California ramblings I think, if it’s a trip you are considering do it if you can, it was a great holiday.

Pictures of the whole trip can be found over in the Flickr set - http://www.flickr.com/photos/chatmandu/sets/72157625098607056/

Part one of the trip.

After only seeing a few concepts I’m really interested in seeing some more so hopefully Francesco can find some more free time to bring this concept into reality.  Head over to Pulp Sunday check them out, it’s fantastic stuff.

October can’t come quick enough. - www.batmanarkhamcity.com

The game has just come out and while I’ve invested hours upon hours over the last few months playing the FM2012 BETA you don’t really get the full picture of how things will pan out until weeks & months of playing the final game

There are other sites out there with bigger lists BUT every player on this list has the potential to be at the very minimum to have 3.5 star potential. There is no 2/3 star potencial players here, every player is a future class act.

[message_box]You can download the list at the bottom of the post and import it into your game .[/message_box]

Goalkeepers

• Thibaut Courtois – At. Madrid – 19
• Oliver Baumann – Freiburg – 21
• Kevin Trapp – Kaiserslautern – 21
• Marc-Andre ter Stegen
• David De Gea – Man Utd – 20

Defenders

• Chris Smalling D(RC) – Man Utd – 21
• John Flanagan D(R) – Liverpool – 18
• Mario Fernandes D(R) – Gernio – 21
• Frederik Sorensen D(RC) – Juventus – 19
• Kyle Walker D(RC) – Tottenham Hotspur – 21
• Jack Robinson D(L) – Liverpool – 18
• Mamadou Sakho – D(C) – PSG – 21
• Sebastian Coates D(C) – Liverpool – 21
• Leonel Galeano D(C) – Independiente – 20
• Joel Matip D(C), DM – Schalke – 20
• Kyriakos Papadopoulos D(C) DM – Schalke – 19
• Casemiro D(C), DM – Sao Paulo – 19
• Emre Can – D(C), DM, M(C) – FC Bayern – 17
• Phil Jones – D(C), DM, M(C) – Man Utd – 19
• Fabio – D/WB(R/L) – Man Utd – 21

Midfielders

• Joel Matip – D(C), DM – Schalke – 20
• Kyriakos Papadopoulos – D(C) DM – Schalke – 19
• Casemiro – D(C), DM – Sao Paulo – 19
• Konstantin Rausch – D/WB/M/AM(L) – Hannover – 21
• James McCarthy – DM, M(RC) – Wigan – 20
• Jack Rodwell – DM, M(C) – Everton – 20
• Christian Clemens – M(R), AM (RL) – Koln – 20
• Markus Mendler – M(RC), AM(RLC) – Numberg – 18
• Alexander Merkel – M(RC), AM(C) – Genoa – 19
• David Alaba – M(LC) – FC Bayern – 19
• Lucas Moura – M(L), AM(RLC) – Sao Paulo – 19
• Ruben Pardo – M(C) – Real Sociedad B – 18
• Josh McEachran – M(C) – Chelsea – 18
• Ross Barkley – M(C) – Everton – 17

Attacking Midfielders & Forwards

• Oscar – M(C), AM(RC) – Internacional – 20
• Eden Hazard – M(C), AM(LC) – Lille
• Toni Kroos – M(C), AM(LC) – FC Bayern – 21
• Robert Mak – M/AM(RL) – Nurnberg – 20
• Gabriel Torje – M/AM(R) – Udinese – 21
• Joel Valencia – M/AM(RC) – Zaragoza – 16
• Moritz Leitner – M/AM(RLC) – Dortmund – 18
• Felipe Anderson – M/AM (C) – FC Sochaux – 18
• Roberto Firmino – M/AM (C) – Hoffenheim – 20
• Suso – M/AM (C) – Liverpool – 17
• Ganso – M/AM (C) – Santos – 21
• Rafinha – M/AM (C), ST – Barcelona – 18
• Mario Gotze – AM(RLC) – Dortmund – 19
• Raheem Sterling – AM(RL) – Liverpool – 16
• Junior Hoilett – AM(RLC), ST – Blackburn – 21
• Peniel Mlapa – AM(R), ST – Hoffenheim – 20
• Emilio Nsue – AM(R), ST – Mallorca – 21
• Son Heung-Min – AM(RC), ST – HSV – 19
• Thomas Muller – AM(RLC), ST – FC Bayern – 21
• Leandro – AM(RLC), ST – Gremio – 18
• Stevan Jovetic – AM(RLC), ST – Fiorentina – 21
• Jack Wilshere – AM(C) – Arsenal – 19
• Alan Dzagoev – AM(C) – CSKA Moscow – 21
• Christian Eriksen – AM(C) – Ajax – 19

Forwards

• Oliver Markoutz – AM(L), ST – FC Bayern – 16
• Daniel Sturridge – AM(L), ST – Chelsea – 21
• Neymar – AM(LC), ST – Santos – 19
• Vitinho – AM(C), ST – Botafogo – 18
• Paco Alcacer – ST – Valencia – 18
• Khouma Babacar – ST – Fiorentina – 18
• Leandro Damiao – ST – Internacional – 21
• Meguel Medina – ST – Udinese – 18
• Lukaku – ST – Chelsea – 18

Download the list

Hit the link and away you go. If it doesn’t download, right click on it and select “Save link as..” or similar.

• Wonderkids Shortlist (15080)

How do I add a list to Football Manager 2012?

[message_box type="info" icon="yes" close="Hide"]On a PC hit F6 and click import ( FN F6 on Mac) or from your shortlist screen click Shortlists > Import Shortlists and browse to the file.[/message_box]

The important thing to remember is this list is a work in progress and requires YOU to contribute also. It’ll be updated a few times a week so keep and eye out.