Football Manager has finally added women’s teams – I put the game to the test

After playing the game for quite a few hours, I was torn.

You have to reward the studio for the ambition. The matches are great, and women’s football is an excellent addition.

But you can’t manage national teams for men or women, only club teams, which seems ridiculous after England goalie Hannah Hampton’s heroics this summer – though I’ve had it confirmed this will be added later as a free update.

And on that point, the studio confirmed to me there will be only one paid extra, an editor that lets you change player’s stats. There will be no flood of micro-transactions or season passes, as has become common elsewhere in the gaming industry.

But there are glaring bugs. As someone who’s been playing since 2004, it’s clear to me the user interface needs many more months of work.

Ultimately, the thing fans will want to know is: can you still be hooked by the new version of a game so addictive it has reportedly been cited in multiple divorce cases?

As I enter my fourth season in charge of Liverpool, following a genuinely devastating 1-0 defeat in the Uefa Women’s Champions League final to Arsenal courtesy of a late Alessia Russo goal, my answer probably becomes fairly obvious.

All the changes take some getting used to, but that desire for just “one more match” hasn’t gone away.

Does that mean you should get it? I don’t know. But I do think the early social media critics should remember one thing that’s been a fact of football for decades.

Fans calling for the manager to be sacked should often be careful what they wish for.