Football Manager 2011 will be more polished than ever this year, and Sports Interactive will again set a new standard for the genre by adding a host of new features. For the first time ever, aspiring managers can now negotiate contracts with players in real time. And by working with a multitude of real-life football agents, Sports Interactive gained an insight as to how these negotiations can be made as realistic as possible in-game. Prepare to meet different types of agents in your contract talks; each with their own personality so will therefore need a different approach.

“At Sports Interactive, we always strive to give the end-user the best experience possible,” said Miles Jacobson, Studio Director at Sports Interactive.

With the implementation of the most intuitive training system in the series history, there is a new match preparation area of training so that managers can give their team specific areas to focus on in the lead up to a match. There are also more basic training schedules for players, and 14 different individual skill areas that you can focus your players on. Interaction with players, staff and the board have gone to a whole new level, with a host of new boardroom and backroom requests, a new player interaction module that allows the manager to have private conversations with players, as well as public conversations regarding players at other clubs.

Two years after the launch of the 3D Match Engine, players will see a number of improvements implemented for this year’s release. With over 100 new animations added, as well as more player emotions, new player models, new stadiums, pitch textures, improved lighting, floodlit night matches, more goal celebrations and lots of other extras which improve what was already the best match simulation on the market.

The other new features announced today include a revamped media module, which will keep the managers better up to date with events going on in their football world, as well as being more customisable than ever before, and the most requested feature that the Sports Interactive community have asked for in the last few years, dynamic league reputation, which makes for an even more realistic model of the soccer world.

With more new features than anyone could ever fit in a press release, Football Manager will retain its position as the most realistic, most played, annually best selling, and highest reviewed football management simulation in the world.

Football Manager Handheld 2011 will also be available for release this year on PSP, (via download only) including improvements in the tactics screen, a completely new skin, the updated database and improved match graphics.