A quick look at how the Loan Manager works in Football Manager 2020. Does the Loan Manager staff role in FM 2020 do the job as expected?
As I settled down last night, I came across an interview on Sky Sports with Dean Hammond, the former Leicester City Loans Manager. In the interview he explains how the role works and how important, he feels, it is when you are at a big club.
Now I am aware that the role exists in FM20, but by virtue of usually doing a lower league save I do not usually have the need for a Loan Manager. But what if I was that team in the Premier League with 10 plus players out on loan? Would a Loan Manager be beneficial, or more beneficial than having a scout do reports on the loanees? Or would it be a case of me still being ignorant to my loanees' development? Because if I’m honest, I've always tended to send players on loan to save their wages rather than to develop them.
So fast forward to this morning and I fired up a test save. Gave myself the Liverpool job and hired the best Loan Manager I could find (the incumbent one at Liverpool is not great). 14 players out on loan and a few months of simming should give me the info I need to see if a Loan Manager was something people should be making use of.
The results were underwhelming. If you want statistical analysis of how a player is playing on loan then the result is great!! The Loan Manager reports back regularly and gives you all the statistical analysis you could want. But if I'm paying someone to track my players on loan, I want to know how they are doing in context. Are they improving or have they declined in ability since leaving the club? How do they compare at different stages of their loan to before they went out on loan? But my Loan Manager doesn't feedback this information.
All in all, I don't see that the Loan Manager, as he currently works in game, as an asset, unless you want to free up a scout from watching your loanees. The interview given by Dean Hammond got me excited about the possibilities with this staff role and shows that the role is far more involved than simply reporting statistics. I realise that the position is new for FM20, I just hope that the developers look at how they can make this role much more involved and helpful to all of us Football Managers in future editions.
Maybe you've had success with a Loan Manager and think that I'm missing something? Maybe you've also tried a Loan Manager and also can't see the positives from having one? Either way, drop a comment below and let me know about your Loan Manager experiences.
