When match day comes, your decisions in the build-up to a game will be tested fully. This match screen lays the scene for a clash between two sides, enabling you to choose how you view a match and to analyse the performances of both sets of players.

Interacting with this screen can be done in three main ways - by altering the View Drop-down (see section below for more details), using the top left panel to adjust the Live information you see and by tweaking the bottom left hand buttons, sliders and options to adjust the Match View options.

If, at any point, you wish to make a tactical change you can select the appropriate option from the Actions Menu, or by clicking the 'Tactics' button if in TV View. From here you can alter player and team instructions, positions and personnel within the rules of the competition.

During the match, the panel at the bottom of the screen is a great at-a-glance indicator of how your side is faring. Showing possession in the last five minutes, it sways to and fro with the ascendancy of the sides. If it is constantly towards your team's end of the chart you know your boys are taking a bit of a pounding and it may be time to make a tactical change.

View menu

The default view on the match preview screen is the team line-ups. At this stage it's too late to alter your personnel, but it's still worth running through some build-up preparation by using the View menu to see some pre-match info.

The injuries and unavailable screens show who is unable to play for reasons beyond the manager's control. When assessing the formation and approach of an opponent, it's worth bearing in mind which first-teamers are out of the side for unforeseen, rather than tactical, reasons. Often a manager will make do and mend to put out the best team without key men, and it may mean there are identifiable areas of weakness in his side.

A team without a string of left-sided defenders, for instance, may be forced to ask a central defender to play out of position, for instance. Such a scenario will be exploited by the successful football manager by, for example, asking midfielders to load balls into the opposing makeshift left-back's area of the field, putting the uncertain (or ineffectual) player under pressure.

Match Preview

The Milestones and Recent Games info may be just as helpful to you in your final preparation for a game. They'll give you a direct indication of form and a reminder of any psychological factors hanging over players on either side. You may consider a change of approach during your half-time team talk, for instance, if you are in the middle of a record-breaking losing streak. Now might be the time to start throwing some tea-cups around the dressing room...

The TV Info provides a quick media prediction, as well as bookmaker's odds, of what will happen in the game. Measure yourself against such predictions as pulling off victory in a game you're expected to lose will earn you kudos as a boss. On top of this you'll receive a pre-match interview for most games with the press quizzing you on your expectations.

- Overview
Found in the 'Information' tab, this breaks down the basics of the match, highlighting scorers and major incidents as well as information such as the attendance (once a count has been confirmed at half-time). This is your first indication of the kind of revenue you are likely to receive from a game.

- Formations
The formation is the face of a team's tactics, revealing the player's basic positional instructions, but hardly fleshing out the details of your rival manager's tactical subtleties. That said, a change in formation will often result in a dramatic reversal of a team's fortune as a manager bids to take advantage of the weakness of their opponent's formation.

Theories clearly differ as to whether a formation should remain fixed, or be altered according to the changing approach of your rival and the circumstances in a match.

In the match commentary an opponent's shifting formation will be mentioned in overview, with a comment such as 'they've switched to a more attacking formation' covering a multitude of changes to a team's approach. Check the formation screen to see exactly how dramatic such changes are, then you can make the informed decision of whether to stick with your current line-up or adapt to the new line-up. If a team switches formation to overload the midfield with a fifth player in a bid to reverse your dominance of possession, for instance, it may pay to respond in kind to avoid conceding that balance of power.

- Report
The match report can be requested at any time during or after the game, but may take a few seconds to load in the thick of the action. Its primary use is to give you a chance to review and assess the commentary during key moments in a match. If you opt to watch a game at higher speeds you may have missed subtle clues to the performance level of players in this text. The results of tactical changes and even team talk will all be referred to here.

It's advisable to look back on match reports at your leisure, particularly if your side has failed to pull off the desired result, to work out just what went wrong. Clues in the commentary will often expose woeful displays by your players and shouldn't be difficult to spot.

- Latest Scores and Goal Updates
Simply enables you to keep abreast of other games in your competition. A risky policy would be to make tactical changes to your own side, based on the performances of rivals during key games. Given football matches' tendency to reverse in a moment, such a course of action should be favoured only by the Football Manager with a gambling streak.

TV Pitch View
The TV view takes you from the main Match Screen, familiar for years in Football Manager, to a brand new match screen designed specifically for the 3D match view. The primary and majority focus on the screen is, as you'd expect, on the pitch and what's going on. To the top left is the scoreboard, and to the top right is a 'Match Day Info' dropdown box, allowing you to select any number of the items usually found on the tabs menu and use them as a pop-up box in the TV view. These are all completely free to be positioned anywhere on the screen and can be closed at the click of the red 'x' button towards the top right of each widget.

Along the bottom of the screen is the match time bar, which will log moments of note and incident for quick reference when playing the match back, and in each corner is an indicator of which player currently or last had the ball for each team. Alongside each name is a visual conditioning bar indicating the player's stamina levels, and any injuries or cards he may have picked up during the course of the match.

The 'Advanced Controls' button expands to allow the user further control over what they watch. The 'Camera' dropdown presents a list of different views from which the match can be watched. For example, a 2D top-down view is still available, as are a variety of other cameras. From here, you can configure replays, the speed of the match and the amount of highlights shown. These are all also found on the tabs menu outside of the TV View.

Classic Pitch View
The Classic View displays the action shown whilst remaining in the traditional Match Screen. The time bar remains along the bottom of the panel with the action above it, but all other options are in their 'usual' places.

Stats
These figures present the key information on how each team is performing overall. Use them to judge the collective success of your side. This information is a more straightforward route to analysing your effectiveness as a coach during the match. If your tactics are working well, you will expect to have the best of the stats on show here. If not, you should probably look more closely at individual performances as you attempt to work out exactly what things are going wrong for you on the field.

- Action Zones
Another tool that will give you a more general overview of the way the two sides are performing in a match, the Action Zones view splits the pitch into three sections: defence, midfield and attack. This view charts how much possession of the ball each side has had in those thirds and it therefore provides a vital pointer as you look to improve the way your side is performing.

Ideally, you'd like to enjoy dominance across the board, but tactical decisions, such as the number of players you select in the midfield third, will have a significant bearing on this. Considering your formation and player instructions, therefore, it pays to think carefully about the roles of your players in these areas. By changing player instructions you may easily be able to shift the ball into areas of the pitch you feel suit your team's strengths. This is the essence of tactics in football.

Say, for instance, you have a bevvie of top forwards and only a core of good midfield players. In this scenario you may wish to play a variant of the 4-2-4 formation to accommodate your better forward players instead of making up the numbers with weaker midfield players. Clearly you must expect to lose out in midfield with such a formation, and a glance at the action zones chart may indicate your forwards aren't seeing much of the ball.

Rather than addressing the situation by moving a weaker player into the midfield area, you can consider switching to a more direct style. By doing so you can hope to bypass your weakened midfield and play to your attacking strengths.

If you implement changes to your tactics and you are still unable to see your decision bear fruit with improvement in the action zones graph, then you should consider more drastic changes to your approach.

- Home/Away Stats
Simply the best way to examine the impact of both sides' players on a game, these stats look at the passing, tackling and shooting of each player as well as their other involvements in a game, tagging their performance with a rating out of ten.

This is a more detailed, match-by-match, view of the information displayed in a player's profile page. Use it to see beyond the rating score, which can often disguise a player's true contribution to a game, by analysing how well they performed in each incident they were involved in. Here you can see how many shots were on target, how many tackles they made and, crucially how many key contributions they made to a game.

It's worth noting that some of the most valuable players in football history have been temperamental performers who have contributed little to matches while making match-winning or match-saving interjections. Such performances may not have drawn the highest ratings (see Player Ratings below for more details) in Football Manager terms, but they would have proved crucial to a side's success over a season. Only you can decide if you can afford the luxury of a player who contributes little to the match overall, but turns on the magic to clinch vital goals and victories.

- Player Ratings
Ratings alone don't tell the full story of a player's game, but they do provide an at-a-glance analysis of their contribution to the match. Don't take them as definitive evidence of a player's overall worth. You must consider form and happiness, as well as the effectiveness of your own tactics on their game. These are all significant influences. What's more, in-game factors, such as how often a player is called into action, will affect their rating, which is why you should examine a player's more definitive stats in the Home/Away Stats section to get a fuller picture of their performance.

Ironically, for instance, a poor goalkeeper rating could be less a sign of a poor goalkeeping performance and more an indication that a defence has played successfully in preventing the goalkeeper from being called into action.

- Assistant Manager Feedback
On a match day, your Assistant Manager can be more vital than ever. You have so much to deal with that at times you may not notice things, but your Assistant, with fewer responsibilities, may be more aware of these things. In Football Manager, your Assistant Manager will offer you detailed feedback on how the match is going at 15 minute intervals, and advise on how to remedy or take advantage of any problems he or she has noticed tactically or in the motivation and mental approach of your team.

- Analysis
The Analysis panel allows you to break down a number of incidents from the match and see where they came from, how effective they were, and who produced them. Select different events from the dropdown to see them appear on the pitch graphic.

- League Tables
Also useful for enabling you to make risky tactical decisions based on the performances of other teams elsewhere, with the added drama and excitement you'll enjoy by seeing the table change in real-time. Also useful post match for immediately seeing what impact the day's action has had on league standings.

Split View
A great option for stattos determined to take in as much key information as possible, the split view enables you to see two of the display options at once. Use the drop-down menus to alter the stats you're viewing in each window.

Match View Options
Aside from the Play button, which restarts the action, and the Save button, which enables you to record a game for viewing at a later date, these options all alter the manner in which you view a match. Using these options will enable you to trade off the limited time you have to devote to your team's on pitch action with the fact that the more you see of a match, the clearer the picture you'll build of your side's performances.

Use the sliders to dictate the speed of the match action and highlights and the first three options in the Actions Menu panel to alter the quantity of highlights you wish to view. The key option here is the Highlight Mode button, which enables you to see a Full Match, Extended highlights, Key highlights, or just the Commentary - according to how much time you want to spend watching each game. During a match these options can all be tweaked if you feel you have seen enough or would like to examine your side's play more closely.

The most detailed view is Full Match. The usefulness of this doesn't require a great deal of explanation - as this view enables you to see the whole match unfold and watch your players making decisions and performing you can judge directly how well you think they are doing in a game.

If you already have a good knowledge of football, you should quickly be able to identify when players are out of position, make a poor judgement call or dazzle with a piece of ingenuity. If your eye is a little less well trained, watching the game in conjunction with the text commentary and by referring to the other statistical options on hand will ensure you build up an accurate view of how each player is doing.

It should be noted that there is no 100% perfect substitute, when it comes to analysing the performance of footballers, for actually watching them in action over the full 90 minutes or more. Of course not all football managers have the luxury of time to do this, but you'd be well advised to take time out to watch segments of play as you bid to learn exactly what makes your players tick.

Post Match
This TV-style breakdown of the game's action will give a bried closing statement under Post Match Analysis, summarising the day's play and hinting at the impact of the result. Keeping an eye on this summary will help you to judge the mood of your fans, especially when they are becoming disgruntled. It enables you to nip any ill-feeling towards you in the bud before fans become directly critical of you in the media. If there has been any debatable decisions that may have affected the game, the press may approach you afterwards with evidence that a mistake has been made asking for your thoughts. Be wary, too much or continual criticism of a referee is likely to result in a touchline ban.