Whether they’re a potent source of goals or one of your team’s key defensive strengths, set pieces are an integral aspect of every football match and every manager’s tactical approach.

Many elite clubs have added set piece specialists to their coaching teams in recent seasons as they seek to find that extra 1% to help them edge out their most fierce rivals.

Their arrival on the scene has led to many of you making suggestions on our forums and socials for us to upgrade the way our Set Pieces system works in FM.

Now in FM24, the most complete edition in our series to-date, expert insight from key industry contacts means that Set Piece Coaches are making their debut and will help to power a refreshed Set Piece Creator.

A POWERFUL NEW VOICE IN YOUR BACKROOM TEAM

In FM24, Set Piece Coaches are now a specialised staff role. In order to make this possible, we’ve added a Set Pieces attribute to every coach in the database that indicates their ability to train your players in the tactical aspects of set pieces.

That said, the profiles of the Set Piece Coaches look a bit different to those of other coaches in previous editions of FM. Instead of a Scouting Knowledge panel on the right-hand side, you’ll now see their Set Piece preferences clearly indicated. These preferences cover everything from the sort of delivery style they prefer to how they like to set up defensively.

If you’re lacking a Set Piece Coach at your club and you’ve got the space to hire one, you’ll be encouraged to sign one in a Staff Meeting.

A NEW FLOW TO SET YOUR SET-PIECE PREFERENCES

These new coaches will have a big impact on your careers pretty much straight away as they are the driving force behind our refreshed Set Piece Creator.

This creator marks a significant shift from how we’ve approached set pieces in previous editions of Football Manager. Now, the focus of every routine and scenario is on the players with the most appropriate Attributes instead of their positions in your tactic.

Whether you’re bringing forward a save from FM23 or writing a new footballing story, your Set Piece Coach will present you with six key questions that focus on both your defensive and offensive preferences from dead ball situations.

The first question will ask you to indicate whether you want your team to defend with Zonal, Hybrid or Man Marking. Each option will have its own contextual explanation and visualisation, as well as a tooltip that illustrates the key pros and cons of each approach. We’ve also added in an indication of your Set Piece Coach’s preferred option.

From there, you’ll be asked further questions about how aggressively you want to counter-attack from your opponent’s set pieces, whether you want your takers to aim for the near post, far post or centre of the box, and if your preference is for inswinging or outswinging deliveries.

MORE ADAPTIVE AND INTELLIGENT ROUTINES

Your Set Piece coach will use the answers you provide to craft some initial corner and free kick routines for every scenario. 

When these routines are created, you’ll now see that every set piece has specific roles attached to it. For example, at a corner the key roles outside of the taker are:

Aerial Threat

Box Threat

Recovery Defender

Creators

Instead of you needing to manually assign instructions to specific positions, instructions are now automatically assigned by your backroom team to each of these four role categories. For example, instead of saying that you want your right-side central defender to attack the far post, your biggest Aerial Threat will now be given that job. Each role category is ranked from top to bottom, with the top instruction being assigned to your most suitable player on a matchday.

These rankings automatically update as you change team selection, formation or make substitutions, meaning that you'll no longer need to micromanage your setups every time something changes.

These player rankings are accompanied by a new Priority List, which allows you and your Set Piece Coach to determine which roles you think are the most important at each type of set piece. If one of your players, based on their Attributes, is ranked number one in more than one role, they’ll be assigned to the one that’s positioned higher in the priority list.

We’ve also introduced a new concept of Set Piece Familiarity in FM24 to reflect the work your players do on each routine in training. Having this greater understanding, as well as a smarter way of prioritising your threats, will help you to unlock opposition defences and better implement your set-piece philosophy.

When you want to add new attacking corner and free kick routines, you’ve got the choice of either duplicating the one initially created by your Set Piece Coach or selecting an alternative. The addition of any new routines will trigger a pop up that allows you to indicate the frequency with which you use each one in matches, giving you another tool to optimise your attacking threats.

You’ll notice when reviewing your free kick routines that we’ve added some instructions to better reflect the way teams approach them in real life. These include one for defensive line height on wide free-kicks and a ‘Wall if needed’ instruction that allows goalkeepers to decide if they’re necessary.

A MORE AUTHENTIC APPROACH TO THROW-INS

Mirroring more closely how teams approach throw-ins in the professional game, we’ve changed our approach from previous editions of FM. Now, you’ll be asked by your Set Piece Coach to indicate how you want to tackle throw-ins in the defensive, middle and attacking third of the pitch. The first two give you the option to ‘retain possession’ or ‘work the line’, while for the attacking third you can choose to work the ball into the box or go straight for a long throw.

Once you’ve selected your preferences for each of the three areas of the pitch, your Set Piece Coach will generate routines in the same way they did with the corners and free kicks and your players will be automatically assigned roles based on their Attribute breakdowns.

STREAMLINING YOUR CREATIVE TALENTS

Much like the personnel lists for every routine, your set piece takers are all now automatically assigned by your backroom team.

The takers themselves are now ranked based on their relevant Attributes and you’ll notice that deliveries are now categorised by swing, rather than left or right side.

As such, instead of having to copy over your setup to both sides, you now only need to create a routine and it will apply to either side of the pitch, as long as you have a suitable-footed player in your takers list.

If you want your players to do outswingers from one side and inswingers from the other, you can now do this by either setting a player as your 'designated specialist' from the takers menu which makes them take every corner or free kick, or by only selecting right or left-footed takers for that specific set piece.

Having made these changes to the Set Piece Creator, we’ve now separated Penalties into their own tab. There are two additional customisation options here, including one that allows you to change taker if your first-choice missed a penalty earlier in the game.

DICTATING YOUR LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY

Bear in mind that the routines your Set Piece Coach creates aren’t entirely set in stone and you’re empowered to edit, amend and customise them.

If you are happy with them though, this is where your Set Piece Coach can come into their own as you can delegate full responsibility for all aspects of set pieces in your career. Should you want them to, they can handle everything in training and update the personnel and set piece takers lists as you make changes to your team selection and wider squad.

Ultimately, this means that your set piece routines will now be better aligned with your specific preferences and that once they’re set, you can be involved as much or as little as you want knowing that you’ve got the expertise and support of a specialist behind you.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR RIVALS’ SET PIECE STRENGTHS

As well as helping you with the creation and development of your set piece routines, FM24 will also deliver you greater insight into the approach of your opponents.

We’ve added some new visuals to illustrate how strong teams and individual players are at both attacking and defending set pieces. There’s also a new type of visual that will be useful for seeing where a team tends to aim their deliveries, allowing you to work with your backroom team to evolve and adapt for every fixture.

MAKING AN IMPACT AT BOTH ENDS OF THE PITCH

The introduction of Set Piece Coaches and a refresh of the Set Piece Creator delivers you new and refreshed ways to create match-winning routines in every scenario.

Head over to our Features Roadmap to discover more of this year’s new additions and improvements, including positional play upgrades in our Match Engine and the ability to add new targets to motivate your players on and off the pitch.

Matchdays are the moments that get the adrenaline flowing in every Football Manager career. They’re where tactical visions come to life, underdog stories are written and players win a lifelong place in your heart with their heroics.

With every release of Football Manager, our Match team strive to make those moments feel closer to a perfect simulation of real-world football.

In FM24, the most complete version in the series to-date, the team have vastly improved the way players behave in our engine. From animation locomotion upgrades that improve off-the-ball movement right through to player rotation enhancements that enable you to incorporate more positional play in your tactics, you’ll notice the changes from your first kick-off.

The introduction of a brand-new player role brings you closer to the cutting edge of the professional game, while other roles have had their functionality refined to complement some of our other changes.

We’ve also made upgrades to our ball physics and matchday lighting to level up the immersion, so let’s dive into why this year’s match experience is the best yet.

DELIVERING NEW AVENUES FOR ATTACKING PLAY

Thanks to the likes of Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, positional play has become one of world football’s most popular principles in recent years.

Put simply, it’s an approach that sees players take up positions on the pitch that help their side to create numerical advantages with passing triangles and diamonds. The intention of these shapes is to create space, give the ball-carrier several passing options and allow the team to progress possession up the pitch towards the final third.

Understandably, many of you have been keen to try and emulate those positional play-driven approaches in FM. Our Match team have strived to deliver you more tools to do so, particularly with regards to improving player rotations on the pitch.

You’ll see that some players, based on their role and those you’ve included around them, can now move into another position while you’re in possession than would be expected from their default starting base.

Take, for example, a 4-2-3-1 with two defensive midfielders where your pivot players are a Segundo Volante and a defensive Ball-Winning Midfielder and the player just behind the striker is an Advanced Playmaker.

Following our rotation changes for FM24, the Advanced Playmaker now recognises the attacking runs of the Segundo Volante in behind. This means that the Advanced Playmaker will move across to open a new channel, freeing up the Segundo Volante to push up as a second number 10 and effectively create a 4-1-4-1 shape in attack. To accommodate this movement, your Ball-Winning Midfielder would occupy a more central position to provide more effective cover.

These rotations work with other aggressive defensive and central midfield roles too, like Roaming Playmakers and Mezzalas. We look forward to seeing you all experiment with this fluidity but in the meantime you can see some of those midfield rotations in action in the video below.

To complement these changes, we’ve also tweaked the behaviour of the Inverted Winger and Inside Forward roles. Now, when they recognise that you’ve got an additional midfield player pushing up into the half space on their side, they will stay wider to accommodate them and help you create more overloads.

On a more defensive note, the Half-Back role has had some alterations for FM24. Now, depending on where you’re using them in a double pivot, it can take up either the left or right centre-back position while you’re in possession.

In summary, these positional rotations mean that your players now behave more intelligently, adjusting their position based on the roles and movement of teammates around them. Your players should have more passing lanes open to them and a better ability to play through the lines, allowing your team’s shape to dynamically adjust between different phases of attack.

A MODERN EVOLUTION: INTRODUCING THE INVERTED FULL-BACK

Better incorporating positional play is just one of this year’s new additions that better reflects modern football trends. Another is a brand-new player role, the Inverted Full-Back.

Popularised by Manchester City’s Kyle Walker and a highly requested addition on our forums, this new role functions as a traditional Full-Back when defending but in possession transitions to become a third central defender.

When the Inverted Full-Back combines with your other central defenders to make a back three, the outermost two function like Wide Centre-Backs. This means that the defender on the side of the pitch where the ball is has licence to move slightly further forward to support the play.

This new role enables you to experiment with three-at-the-back building shapes while defending in a back four, something that many of the world’s top teams are currently doing. It also frees up someone else in your backline to move up into midfield.

LEVELLING UP THE INVERTED WING-BACK

That player pushing into midfield could well be an Inverted Wing-Back on the other side of your defence, as this is another role with much more intelligent and responsive positioning in FM24.

Now, the defensive midfielders are more suited to recognising this movement of the Inverted Wing-Back. This means that when an Inverted Wing-Back pushes up, a deeper-lying defensive midfielder on their side will move across to form a two-man pairing. This adaptation is very similar to the way Rodri tends to dovetail with the full-back on his side of the pitch at Manchester City.

The clip below illustrates the sort of 3-2 build-up shape that combining an Inverted Full-Back and Inverted Wing-Back can achieve.

BUILDING OUT FROM THE BACK WITH AN ENHANCED LIBERO

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola’s status as a tactical trendsetter came to the fore once again last season with John Stones playing as a centre-back stepping up into midfield.

That ‘John Stones role’ is included in FM24 thanks to significant improvements made to the way the Libero functions.

Available now in both a back four and all three central defensive roles in a back three, the Libero will move up into defensive midfield in a similar way to the Inverted Wing-Back.

In addition to the midfielders adjusting their position to accommodate the Libero’s forward movement, we’ve also ensured that your central defenders suitably adapt to the Libero stepping out of the defensive line.

As such, your central defenders will now alter their behaviour depending on the number of active players in your backline. If there are two, for example, they will function as a traditional centre-back pairing but split further across the pitch to cover space more effectively.

Something to note is that if you play an Inverted Wing-Back and a Libero on the same side of the defensive line, the Libero will not push up. This is because the Inverted Wing-Back has priority when both roles are being asked to transition into the same space.

These changes to the Libero, as well as to the other roles outlined above, ultimately mean that there’ll be greater fluidity and dynamism to your tactics and the way they perform on Matchday. The below clip illustrates a fantastic goal that was created by using some of the upgraded roles in tandem to open up the pitch.

TRUER FOOTBALL MOTION

Outside of their role behaviour, you’ll notice that players now appear more intelligent when they’re moving into positions.

As outlined in our June Development Blog, this is thanks to data we've obtained from a new partner from the real world of professional football. This data greatly improves the authenticity and fluidity of the animations in our games and is a significant leap forward beyond traditional studio-based motion capture.

We've also improved our in-house animation engine, utilising the Inverse Kinematics system to reflect the real-life captured data in the most accurate and realistic way possible.

To make use of the new database of animations, we've introduced Motion Matching. This new system allows us to identify these more realistic animations and directly use them for every player in FM relative to the context of the match.

Motion Matching, in combination with Inverse Kinematics, will bring a lot more fluidity to player movements. You’ll notice these animation changes most with off-the-ball actions like running, pointing and defensive jockeying. Players will now position themselves on the half-turn much more often, meaning that they can receive the ball and turn more easily, again allowing you to play through the opposition more than ever before. Have a look at the clip below to see some of these changes in action.

Ultimately, these changes mean that without any extra processing requirements, you will experience smoother and more fluid player animations than in previous editions of FM.

MORE AUTHENTIC BALL MOVEMENT

In conjunction with the visibly improved player movement across the pitch, we’ve also rewritten our ball physics system to be more accurate to real life.

Our engine now models drag and air resistance more effectively, meaning that the ball will float and spin more authentically. Similarly, deflections will also appear more realistically than they have in previous editions.

Weather is another factor that will affect the movement of the ball, as will things like the temperature or the altitude of the stadium that you’re playing at.

The video below illustrates some of these changes in action.

Supporting these ball physics changes are enhancements to the way your players dribble and finish.

We’ve implemented more authentic ball friction with the ground, meaning that dribbling attempts will be more realistically affected by the pitch and the weather conditions.

Additionally, you’ll notice that your players are now less likely to dribble all the way to the byline before stopping and turning around. Instead, they’ll slow down earlier to face up the opposition defender.

These changes also mean that your players are now able to volley the ball into the ground and are more likely to connect with downward headers when the right situation arises.

ELEVATING YOUR MATCHDAY ENVIRONMENT 

The more eagle-eyed of you will have spotted this in the first screenshots of FM24 that were revealed but lighting and pitch textures have been significantly enhanced by our teams.

Day, night and interior lighting have all been upgraded to ensure that you get better colour grading based on the weather, season and time of day. We’ve also updated our fog settings so that the time of day and weather conditions are more obvious in every match.

Pitch textures now have a much sharper and more natural look and feel to them, meaning that every match looks more authentic than it ever has.

The graphic below illustrates how much of an improvement there is between the lighting and pitch textures in FM23, on the left, and those in FM24, on the right.

MOST AUTHENTIC AND IMMERSIVE MATCHDAY YET

Positional rotations and the brand-new Inverted Full-Back player role give you more avenues for tactical experimentation in FM24. With more intelligent player movement, you’ll score some beautifully crafted goals and all of them will be visually elevated by the changes we’ve made to ball physics and lighting.

Head over to our Features Roadmap to discover the wider new additions and improvements that we’ve made for FM24, the most complete edition in the series yet.

There can, sometimes, be bumps on the path to glory. Slumps in form, standards dropping in training and player unhappiness can derail your plans and force a rethink in your approach.

So, in Football Manager 2024, you can now inspire your players to strive for more by setting Targets to elevate their performance levels. Alongside this, we’ve also made changes to the way you interact with your players and staff to ensure your conversations are realistic and constructive.

Let’s dive into the detail…

KEEP YOUR PLAYERS HUNGRY WITH TARGETS

Incentivise your squad, and help players away on loan achieve the best playing time pathway, with individual performance targets to get the most out of your players. The areas that can be focused on are:

Training Improvements (New position, role, traits and average ratings)

Goals

Assists

Clean Sheets

Match performances (first team or reserve team)

The opportunity to set a target will be available when you praise or criticise a player for their recent performances, when you make a comment to a player leaving on loan, in contract negotiations for new signings and player renewals, or as a way of resolving a player’s unhappiness. Bear in mind that both the player and their agent may want to negotiate it.

When setting a target, the player's personality, their relationship with you and the context of the situation are also important factors to consider.

For example, in those all-important contract discussions, offering a playing time pathway can significantly boost a player’s interest in joining your club, but it can be difficult to justify whether your potential signing should be promised a regular spot in a few years.

So in FM24, linking closely to a playing time pathway promise, you’ll be able to offer a target in the contract negotiation screen. For instance, if a promising striker has asked to be a Regular Starter as part of their playing time in the 2025/26 season, you can now respond with a target for the 2024/25 season, which could be goals in league matches. If they were to hit that goalscoring target, you’d be expected to honour the agreement by making them a Regular Starter in the following season.

When targets have been set, you can track how your players are progressing using the new Targets tab on the Home screen, where you will also be able to monitor the players’ opinions on their progress.

For loan players, any playing time, plans or targets will be highlighted in purple to make it clear that these only relate to their loan move, and are not specific to your club.

For players that you sign on loan, they may arrive with targets that their own parent club has set, so keeping to the conditions of the loan will help that player meet their own targets.

Your staff can offer advice, through Staff Meetings or inbox items, about where they feel it’s suitable for you to offer targets to a player.

If a player successfully meets their target – such as scoring more goals, providing more assists or achieving a strong training rating - you’ll be able to congratulate them, but also may have some promises to follow through on, such as offering them a new contract. So, make sure you follow through with those to keep your players happy.

On the flip-side, if a player fails to hit their target you’ll be notified by your Player Liaison Officer, who will explain their reaction to the target failure, and who they think is to blame - it’s then up to you to decide how to handle the situation.

If multiple players fail, you’ll be given the option to discuss any outstanding contentious issues directly with these players. This can arise because of any issues the player has with you, which can include game time, or any problems a loanee has with their manager.

In fail scenarios, a player can respond in different ways. If they came close to completing their target, the player might come back to you and back themselves. The player can also reference other metrics that highlight positive performance levels. For example, while they might not have met the goalscoring target you set, they may have recorded several assists during the period.

If injury causes the failure of the target, either at an early stage or at the end, the player will accept that the target couldn’t be met at this time.

So, if you feel your star striker needs a bit more motivation in front of goal, or you want to see your youth prospect make big strides out on loan, Targets give you the opportunity to challenge your players as you look to maximise their ability.

BETTER CONVERSATIONS WITH INTERACTION LOGIC CHANGES

The newly added player targets are part of a wider group of changes to try and make Football Manager 2024 even more immersive than previous versions of the game – and that required some big changes under the hood to how the logic of interactions works.

It’s not just new interactions added with targets for players, or agent interaction, we’ve also looked at hundreds of other areas of the game where you are having conversations with your players or their agents to try and make them even more believable. We often speak about how important the suspension of disbelief is to the experience you have when playing Football Manager, and there were times in-game where your players may have had an extreme reaction simply because they didn’t have options not to.

One of the big changes we have made to interactions in FM24 are the improvements to the string severity system, which allows each positive or negative AI response to have three different variants of severity - with over 2,000 new AI responses.

So, you’ll now witness fewer instances of overly severe and unrealistic responses from players. For example, if your star striker has just single-handedly led your team to victory and you’re keen to shower them with praise, they’re less likely to react to extremes. Now, positive, netural and negative reactions of differing levels more accurately reflect their opinion.

Increased context for reactions will also be provided where suitable, helping to provide additional reasoning and opportunities to convince them to change their opinion if you’re not quite on the same page about a conversation topic.

Issues have also been resolved to address instances of unrealistic player unhappiness, and providing clearer reasoning behind their concerns. So, if a player is considering exploring options at the end of their contract, their desires should be made more obvious – be it the lure of continental football, or waiting for the club to be promoted.

Elsewhere, requirements for promises are clearer, making it easier for you to see how your players feel about the current progress – such as the promise to strengthen your defence, for example. If you complete a promise earlier, that player will become satisfied – rather than having to wait until the end of the promise date for their happiness to change.

As a result of this extensive work, your interactions in FM24 will result in a wider range of more realistic reactions, both from a verbal and body language perspective, ensuring you have truly constructive conversations with the players and staff at your clubs.

GET THE KEY INFORMATION YOU NEED IN STAFF MEETINGS

We’ve also improved Staff Meetings in FM24 with them now being more customisable and surfacing the most relevant information you care about.

When the meeting agenda arrives, you can now skip individual topics if they’re not of interest or relevant to your focus. For instance, if you really want to speak to your staff about Coaching but would rather leave Recruitment to another week, a new option gives you the opportunity to directly shape the conversation.

When clicking on ‘Meeting Preferences’, you can now customise the delivery of each staff topic. You'll have the option to include subtopics in Meetings, get summaries to your inbox or skip certain topics going forward – whatever’s important for you.

In your Meetings, when suggested hires for your backroom staff appear, their club and rating have been removed to show more relevant information. Now, you’ll see their key Attributes for the suggested job role, along with some context as to why they have been recommended. A new pop-up also allows you to look at your existing staff members in that role at your club.

GET MORE FROM YOUR PLAYERS AND STAFF

Targets, interaction changes and Staff Meeting enhancements bring you closer to the key people at your club. Realistic conversations help you set important goals for your players and communicate vital information with your Staff.

Make sure to check out the other feature drops detailing new additions, including new Intermediaries that help to offload players and changes to Squad Building. Sign up to FMFC for exclusive feature content in October on gameplay upgrades and wider enhancements to your FM24 experience.