The Football Manager series is very popular, and also decidedly not for everyone. For one thing, it's a soccer management simulator, meaning less general interest from US audiences (not to say no Americans play it, the sport has been steadily increasing in popularity here). For another, even some passionate football fans in the US or abroad who play video games are intimidated by its dense, complicated nature--but I promise it's a ton of fun once you get into it.
Football Manager 14 has just received what is probably the most major patch of its lifespan, the v14.3 Transfer Update. In addition to normal patch upgrades like fixing bugs, crashes, and tweaking gameplay, in FM and FIFA the winter update is particularly special: it contains the roster changes of players who were bought and sold during the real-life January transfer window.
All the big roster moves have been be made, seeing Juan Mata off from Chelsea to Manchester United, Shane to Hull from West Brom, Cabaye to PSG, and many more. In addition to the major roster updates, millions of player attributes were changed and raised or lowered to reflect the current real-life performances of players.
The roster changes and attribute updates will not affect game saves you currently are in the middle of, since it would completely mess with the simulated universe you were in the middle of, but the game tweaks and fixes will. The match engine, where the games are simulated has been updated and improved, hopefully limiting silly or incredibly frustrating plays.
If you're unfamiliar with the series, you don't play the games yourself like in FIFA, but manage a team in an extensive version of most sports games manager mode, and watch your team play (in not very realistic, simple graphics) according to your tactics.
Starting a new game and selecting the updated database will get you the new rosters and player ratings. Get the full update change list from Sports Interactive's website here.
