Play Football Management 2011

Play Football Management 2011. It's a title that just rolls off the tongue, isn't it?

It feels like a name that's been tossed about endlessly in a boardroom, its makers taking excessive steps to make sure it doesn't offend, mislead, or encroach on anyone else's trademarks.

In short, Play Football Management 2011 depicts a game that sounds as stale and uninspired as it plays. So functional and – sadly – familiar is Bravo's approach to football management on the humble mobile that this could be any one of countless releases over the last couple of years.

No time for tactics

There's little feeling that any tactics you employ, or any moves you make within the squad, have a genuine impact on your team's performance on the pitch. Indeed, even the options make no attempt to extend beyond the obvious.

Once you've picked your team, it's possible to change the line-up, formation and general strategy with little fuss. You can also dedicate the entire team or individual players to focus their training in certain areas, presumably so they show off their prowess when you actually take to the pitch.

Whether it makes any difference or not is undecided, given that the matches themselves fail to depict any variety in play. As such, it's hard to tell how well your team has performed beyond the match result itself.

Players simply seem to make one run after another – some breaking into the box and having a shot, others predictably losing the ball along the way.

Back and forth

As such, the games feel like mini ping pong matches, with the ball bouncing back from one player to the next, rather than the team as a whole working the ball through to the goal.

Any confidence that Play Football Management 2011 has a solid grip on the beautiful game is further eroded by the transfer system.

While it's no hassle finding the players you're after (despite the fact that both team and player names are absent) or putting in offers and counter-offers, it's somewhat unrealistic to see other clubs attempting to poach players you've only just purchased.

Pick up Torres, Rooney, or Lampard for instance and rival clubs will send you offer after offer within weeks of the deal being finalised.

Either way, it's really only foraging around in the transfer market that seems to make a notable difference to your team's results. Buying a star or two – if your budget allows – will see the goals begin to mount up, just as you might expect in real life.

However, the fact this is the one strategy that appears to pay off almost instantly simply serves as perfect evidence of the rather one dimensional take Play Football Management 2011 brings to the table.