http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/53396-blog-scouting-improvements-in-fm2012/Football Manager 2012 is set to have further improvements to the scouting system, building on the new system that we've seen in recent years. The new game will address a number of the issues with the current system as well as introducing new features to aid the task of finding new players and assessing upcoming opposition.
The first big improvement is the creation of a new team report. Like in previous versions this allows you to request scout reports for opposition teams but this time it comes with a new layout and greater depth into the tactics and players available to the team you're scouting.
The opening page shows you an overview of how strong the opposition is for each position, with the three strongest players listed for each position. As handy as this is, it comes with a major downfall. Players are often listed more than once so while the report claims that a team has a strength of 4/5 stars for both left midfield and right midfield, you may find the same winger listed in both positions. In which case you'll have to look to the second column and judge who else may play in this role. If the reserves are only 2/5 stars, you'll know that one wing will be weaker than the other.
If you want more detail you can also view each position individually and see how every player who can play in that position fairs (not just the top 3 as with the other screen).
You can also get a tactical analysis which shows you which tactics the team tends to use, how many they've scored and conceded with that tactic and how many minutes they've used that tactic for, so you can see the ones most commonly used. What's even better is that you can view the same data for the tactics the team has faced as well and see which sort of tactic they tend to struggle against.
For each tactic it also breaks down the stats to show you how they faired when playing a higher rated, similar rated or smaller team than themselves.
This for me is one of the best new features of FM2011. There's nothing more you could wish to know about an opposition teams tactical setup. The only let down is guessing who is actually going to start and specific information about injuries and suspensions. For instance it would be useful to know that Cesc Fabregas is out injured for the next game and without Cesc they tend to play a 4-4-2 compared to a 5-4-1. But that is perhaps a bit much to ask of the developers at Sports Interactive.
However that is still not all. There is also a new team comparison report, which shows you how your team compares to the opposition for literally every attribute. It shows you how well they're ranked in terms of the league they're in as well as information of the best and worst teams for a specific attribute.
It's done on averages, presumably this is the average for a specific attribute for all the top players at the club, rather than the squad as a whole, otherwise a squad with more depth and young prospects may have a worse average than a team with a much smaller squad, despite being the first 11 for each being on an even par.
The attributes are split up in the same way as for players with the important attributes for keepers, defenders, midfielder's and strikers split of into their own tab as well as important attributes for all positions. While not every attribute is important, it's worth noting the difference in height, pace and even things like stamina and work rate. If your team has a much higher stamina it's worth upping the temp late on and really pushing the opposition. That's the sort of insight this new report gives you.
There's also a last match page to the report which doesn't offer that much that you couldn't see by going to the match itself, it provides the match stats, player ratings and text commentary as well as the option to watch the match highlights.
Finally, there's a goal analysis option, which shows you what period (time) of the match the team tends to score and concede goals, where on the pitch the goals tend to be scored from and what type of goals they tend to score as well as information on assists.
All in all the new team report is fantastic. It gives you brand new insight into a team, using past performances and player knowledge so you can judge how best to set out your team.
While we've focused on its use for scouting the opposition here, it can also be used to analyse your own team, including the success of your tactics and how your team fairs attribute wise compared to other teams in the league.
It's also available for youth and international matches as well should you need it.
Despite the positives there are still flaws in this new system. Additional work on your part is still needed to actually try and figure out who will play, the scout report would be greatly improved if it included suggestions on what possible starting line ups will actually be named. At this point it's also not obvious whether the report takes into account injuries and suspensions, hopefully it will, otherwise it's usefulness as a tool for scouting upcoming opposition is considerably weakened.
After all what good is knowing when they tend to score most goals, how they score those goals or what tactic they tend to use, when the star striker who gets all the goals and whom the tactic is based around is unavailable for selection.
Beyond scouting teams, further improvements have been made to how your scouting network works. For instance when you sign a scout they now bring all their scout reports with then, this is particularly useful if you've been moving up the leagues and fire your old scout in favour of someone with more ability and who has been working with teams at a higher level for a few seasons.
