Only a game...?

A colleague of mine is a big fan of those football management games you can play on your computer. The other day he told me that a new version of the market leader, Football Manager, is about to come out, and that a tempting 'pre-release' edition was now available to download and try out.

Now those kind of games aren't really my thing, but I do accept how thorough and realistic they've become over the years. This became particularly apparent when he told me that on the pre-release version of the game, he took charge of West Ham United and bought Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, the Argentinian duo recently signed by the Hammers.

After a few weeks of the season had passed, he was informed by the game that both Tevez and Mascherano had put in transfer requests because they were 'having trouble settling down in the area'.

He ended up putting both on the transfer list, Tevez eventually moving on to Valencia for £11 million and Mascherano going to "some other European club" for around half that.

It just might happen, and if it does, you'll be wanting to know that Football Manager 2007 is available from October 20th via all major outlets including Amazon UK, HMV and WHSmith, priced around £24.99.