Jack Arnott writes for Eurogamer in the Football Manager 2016 review:
Anything beyond that, though, and, once again, I'm stumped. It won't tell you whether you've lost because you were closing down too much, or too little. Or because your defensive line was too high, or too low. Would Prozone analysis have helped me tame those pesky Shrews? Not without a hireable in-game performance analyst. This is no panacea for those, like me, who crave some FM feedback.
[...]
Despite a couple of neat additions, Football Manager 2016 is an iterative release that's sadly short on big new ideas.
None of this directly applies to this review or the quality of the game but is a bit more generalist rambling on my part -- I feel SI is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It's difficult to make a game that is seen as holding realism above all other values and then see it being criticsed for lack of feedback.
The hypothetical version that sorts this out would be surely used by all real world managers as this gives them the winning formula for winning their own leagues! The marketing of FM being used by real world managers only strangthens this conflicted ideal in my mind.
With all features already in the game the developer might be making enourmous investments now to advance the simulation just that little bit, unable to make great leaps as there is no great leap to make.
I used to think that making Football Manager light was the solution to create a more playable game but as people expect "all of the realism with less options" I don't think that is ever going to work either.
As long as it keeps selling though they would be silly to overhaul it, as it would alienate the existing fanbase.
I'm hoping there will sometime be an approximation of the FM lineage but with fun and passion as the core values under a different name, perhaps with fantasy clubs and players, silly things happening, no numbers and passion for the athmosphere of football.