Well here it is; LMA Manager is back from finishing top of the table and brings out a new squad to continue its unbeaten run on the console footie management circuit…

The first thing LMA’s done for the new season is brought in a new manager. Before you start your career you get to choose what kind of manager you want to be, which can range from the young Chris Coleman-a-like in trackies to the dodgy manager of the local Sunday league side, complete with sheepskin coat and flat cap!

When I reviewed last year’s helping of LMA I marvelled at the sheer depth that you could go into when managing your team, but also how confusing having all that information flying around could be. This year Codies have made the menus more user-friendly with each main menu being scrolled by the triggers and the sub-menus with the right analogue stick. Again there’s no real tutorial to show you where everything is but after about ten minutes of fiddling with menus you’ll find your way around.

As usual winning games in LMA is palm-sweatingly tough no matter what team you’ve got, and you’ll also need to keep an eye on things during the games as well as before and after if you want to keep your job. LMA now has a much better system of tactics and team management than it did last year, which was restricted to yelling “get up there” and “hoof it!”. There are shortcuts on the controller for tactic shifts (counter/all-out attack, defence) and formation changes, which you’ll have to change between quite a few times each match to stay on top of things. The half time (and in-game subs) menu is also very helpful, showing player performance ratings, stamina and morale for both teams.

The match engine is serviceable, looking like a Fifa game from a few years back but that isn’t the main problem; there’s something a little wrong with the players’ AI-they’ve got no skill! At first I thought it was because I’d chosen Bournemouth but when I started another game with Chelsea the same mistakes were happening. Granted, there were far less missed passes and headers with Chelsea but players were still running past the ball, letting players run past them and twatting the ball into the backs of other players! At least when I played Championship manager I knew that the scoreline was because of the stats rather than because my defenders “forgot” to tackle that attacker in the last minutes…