For many Football Manager players the new system in the game's latest version will be merely a cosmetic change. Nothing more wrong! Introducing of decimals into players' ratings has a huge impact on the whole game. It seriously influences all types of rankings from the team of the week, through best players' rankings, to an average rating throughout the player's career (particularly in the case of long careers).

The main reason for that is the fact that we will be now able to see the difference between a player rated at 6.5 and another one rated at 7.4, what in previous versions of FM ended up as a 7 in both cases. It's worth noticing that this option wasn't previously hidden, but is a genuine new feature.

Miles Jacobson admitted that he doesn't tell the big gaming magazines about this feature out of apprehension about being considered a nutter. I also think he exaggerates by calling it one of the most significant changes in FM 2009 but... it remains to be seen.