Right on schedule, today saw another Inside FM video released, this time focusing on Sports Science:
As with the previous videos, our emphatically-spoken presenter promises a ‘complete overhaul,’ a combination of tweaked and new attributes, and a new overview page, the Medical Centre.
Sports Science has now been added as an attribute in its own right as a clearer distinction is made between the roles of the sports science and physio teams. While physios will treat injuries, the sports science team will provide the manager with detailed analysis of data regarding the fitness of the squad.
The most useful-looking aspect is injury risk assessment. Based on the fixture list, training programme, and the physical condition of the player, the medical centre staff will be able to predict the likelihood of injury – this is bound to be useful if you are managing a team with Daniel Sturridge in it.
A lot of the features of the medical centre overview screen are already in the game such as player injury history, a current out-of-action list, and treatments being received. What will interest the stat-hungry players out there is the comparison with other teams in the league and with previous seasons. This should, in theory, help players identify problems in their training schedule and make the necessary adjustments to keep their players fit. As a bonus of the developers, it may also reduce online rants about human-controlled teams getting more major injuries than AI-controlled ones.
Detailed histories of your players injuries and matches missed over the last 12 months will also be useful when trying to spot any sicknotes in your squad to ship off to some unsuspecting club during the next transfer window. Now, let’s just hope our £35 million midfield maestro doesn’t tear his ACL is pre-season…
