There's only one F in Football Manager 2006

It's back. We've missed it desperately. All the transfer gossip, the grumpy fans, the teacup-smashing half-time team talks, the stupid players mouthing off at every opportunity: we live for it. No, not the Premiership (or should that be Predictableship?), but Football Manager, the greatest football management game ever.

Crave got its pie-stained hands on the beta test version of Football Manager 2006, and it's already shaping up to be a back-from-3-0-down, shaky-kneed penalty shootout of a game. We loved FootMan 2005, with its browser-inspired interface and all-you-can-eat complexity, and this is a solid improvement.

Like a diligent manager analysing his team's flaws and subtly tweaking the tactics over the course of a season, Sports Interactive, FootMan's developer, has added a feature here and a little more depth there, to craft an unbeatable style of play. New features include enhanced commentary and a great half- and full-time team talk option, where you can chuck the aforementioned crockery around or congratulate your brain-dead charges on a game well won.

Managing stripy West London chancers QPR, we went 1-0 down early on against Wrexham. As it was a friendly, a bit of arm-around-the-shoulder at half-time seemed the way to go, and it did the trick: we drew level late in the match, before decrepit supersub Paul Furlong somehow blasted in a screaming winner in the 89th minute. In our full-time team talk, we were able to praise Shepherd's Bush's finest for the brilliant late comeback.

Other interesting stuff includes a quick-tactics option, so you can tweak the formation without having to wait for the ball to go out of play, and a split-screen match configuration where you can see your match progressing and keep an eye on the scores. Sadly, Jeff Stelling is nowhere to be seen.

FootMan 2006 isn't finished yet -- we haven't seen the new player photos or heard the sound -- but it's due for release on 4 November, so expect a bone-crunching, onion-bag ripping, Robbie Savage-baiting review before long. -NH