Football Manager's realistic approach to transfers means that, even in the game, it's often necessary to trail a player for some time before you have the funds to make a deal happen, the player is interested and the selling club is amenable to your approach. Plus, sometimes you'll feel you simply want to keep tabs on a player who has caught your eye and see them develop over a period of time before you sign them. It's for just such scenarios that the Shortlist feature has been created.

When you bid for a player (see Make Offer) he'll automatically be added to your shortlist, or you can add him without making a formal bid via the Player screen.

All the players on your shortlist are displayed here and can be sorted using the 'Filter' option. Use View to alter the information displayed about each player.

To help you more easily manage the players you are trailing you can save a shortlist and even Import/Export a shortlist from/ to another game of Football Manager. All of these functions are carried out on the Search drop-down menu. This feature is ideal if you want to maintain a shortlist for different positions or categories of players. For instance, you may want to have a strikers shortlist and one for up-and coming stars.

To add a player to your shortlist you can also go through the Player screen and select 'Add to Shortlist' from the 'Scouting' menu, specifying the period for which you want to keep tabs on that player.