Over my life I've spent many months playing Football (née Championship) Manager, so it seems quite fitting that I'm finally putting these years of 'painstaking research' into print. It should be noted that with the pedigree the series has, Sports Interactive would have to make some very strange mistakes for Football Manager 2008 to score any less than an 8/10. The series has, in many people's eyes, reached perfection for the football management genre, and as such the improvements made each year can theoretically only be incremental and have minimal impact on the gameplay itself. But is that true this year's release?

It's hard to believe that anyone can be unaware of what Football Manager involves, given how ingrained in PC gaming culture it has become. Its title is also a bit of a giveaway: you manage a football team. The manner in which the long running franchise (the king of spreadsheets previously went under the name of Championship Manager before the team behind it ditched Eidos for Sega, losing the rights to the name as well) differs itself from others is in terms of its presentation. While rivals like the FIFA management series have tried to make the game graphically rich and appealing with 3D interpretations of the matches, Sports Interactive have always stuck with the admirable principal that a solid simulation needs no graphical (or aural) bells and whistles to get the acclaim it deserves.

Using a series of text screens and statistics, players adjust their squads and training schedules to ensure that their team meets the board's objectives. By wheeling and dealing in the transfer market, getting your tactics just right and with a bit of luck, you can progress from club to club living up to your full potential, or try and reach the big time of the Premier League with your Blue Square Premier team. It's entirely up to you. In recent years, FM has followed the trend set by real football in ensuring that your involvement in the game isn't just settled on the pitch and transfer market, but in the media too. This has changed from a tacked-on (but fun) addition with little impact to being a real part of the gameplay here. Feel like imitating Sir Alex Ferguson and complaining about every disallowed game and penalty turned down? Go right ahead. Feel your team is underperforming? Get one of your squad to call a players' meeting to sort out some answers. The minutia of management has increased (though thankfully not to include the price of tickets and pies) to the extent that you can now even instruct your ground staff to make a smaller pitch if you want teams with wingmen and passing strategies to struggle when they come to your fortress.

But all of this feels optional, and it's very possible to be successful in the game while ignoring all of these extras - Sports Interactive are clearly aware that their fans will have very different expectations in this respect. They've also catered well to newcomers to the series; while the menus are daunting and confusing to navigate your way around at first, a tutorial box with helpful hints and explanations as to where to go to tinker with aspects of your management is switched on by default to help newbies become acquainted with the system. Veterans will be relieved to hear that this is very easy to switch off, because, helpful as it is, it is often a little overzealous in its desire to inform.

It feels a bit harsh to have to grade FM2008's graphics, because there's a natural ceiling over how visually appealing a screen of statistics can ever look. No one ever complained that MUDS or text-based adventure games were lacking, and the same suspension of disbelief is required here. Thankfully, a suspension of disbelief is incredibly easy and it's (alarmingly) easy to feel truly gutted after you opposition sneaks a last minute equaliser or you go out of the cup on penalties. The front end is appealing enough though, and the match engine is getting better - it's a nice touch that your bird's eye view of the pitch allows you to see your players swarming around the linesman if an offside ruling is not given, resulting in a goal for your opponents.

So what of the new improvements to the game? Well, as mentioned before they're nuances rather than complete overhauls, but they all blend into the engine seamlessly and veterans will soon be clicking around the menus like the new features have always been there. The best of these is a greater knowledge of the fan's expectations and views; while previously the board and fans opinions' were compressed into a single paragraph of text, you can now find out how both sets of people feel about everything from your latest signings to your performance against Rochdale. Another nice feature is the build up to match day, where you're taken through three or four screens that mention everything from your team-talk to tactics and potential landmarks that could be broken this game (your striker may score his 100th career goal, for example.) While it sounds like these proceedings only slow the game down yet further, they're actually something of a godsend to the thousands of other amateur managers like me who often fail to tailor their tactics more carefully before matches: The slower pace ensures you will make the more fiddly, yet satisfying, tactical changes that were too time consuming to bother with every match in past versions.

If you're in the transfer market for a few criticisms to stop you blowing thirty notes on the newest version then there are some mild caveats. While the changes are genuine improvements, there's not that much different from FM2007, although the progression from FM2006 is definitely noticeable. And while it's hard to imagine going back a year now they're here, skinflints may be better off not trying the demo and never finding out. There also seem to be a few bugs - a defender of mine with an average performance level of 6.43 always made his way into the Championship team of the week when he played, and to my mind too many of the opposition's free kicks go in; it gets a bit silly when you know there's less chance of a player missing a free kick than a penalty. But these are minor points and should not detract from the overall score.

Football Manager 2008 has once again managed to exceed expectations. Each year it seems that the minute gameplay tweaks can have very little impact on the way the game plays, but every time we find ourselves finding the improvements have been so well implemented that it's hard to imagine going back to the way the beautiful game used to be played. Just like Microsoft Excel spreadsheets can be made immeasurably better by the skill of the programmer, Football Manager manages to take a number crunching exercise in stat micromanagement and take it to a level than prompts true passion. That's a hell of an achievement for a humble spreadsheet.

Reviewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).