Kevin Keegan's Player Manager

Gameplay

The player takes a football team and manages them to win games and eventually the championship. The player does not control each individual team member directly. Instead, the player designs plays and acquires players from other teams in order to make the perfect team.

Kevin Keegan's Player Manager gave the player the option of having direct control of the team on the pitch like a regular football sim (but only if the player's personal character was still within playing age and currently representing the team on the pitch), as well as doing all the managerial side of the gameplay as in regular football management sims. The game was based on the Player Manager game developed by Dino Dini for the Amiga and Atari ST, but was not endorsed by the original creator. Players take the role of the player-coach, and begin the game as a 28-year-old. At the age of 35 years (corresponding to the end of the 2000 season), the player character automatically declares his retirement. Controlling the players during a match from that point becomes impossible from that point onwards. After a few more seasons, however the player could sign a nephew or other family member and again become able to control the players on the pitch again. There were only forty-eight teams in a three division structure, and the top tier was titled 'Division 1' as this was before the days of the Premier League. It also featured the FA Cup (titled the Misawa Cup), and Football League Cup (titled Premier Cup) competitions.

The game has features like training, scouting and newspaper reports; one-field positions associated are associated with unique colours.

Reception

Power Unlimited gave the game a rating of 80% in their January 1994 issue. Consoles Plus rated the game with a score of 71% back in May 1994 while German video game magazine Total! gave it a score of 4.25 out of 6.