Football Manager 2023 Winter Update OUT NOW: Data Update hits FM23


Football Manager 2023

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FM23 players had to wait an age for the Football Manager 2023 Winter Update, but Sports Interactive has finally released the patch. Albeit with a new name, the "main data update" serves to bring a host of improvements to the match day experience and a huge amount of database updates.

Sports Interactive's gameplay changes will impact every save, but if you want to have Jorginho at Arsenal or Mykhailo Mudryk at Chelsea you will need to start a new save with the Football Manager 2023 Winter Update database.

Football Manager 2023 Winter Update now available

SI is notoriously quiet about the Winter Update, and the developers made fans wait a bit longer than usual this year.

The big winter update has traditionally dropped at the end of February as transfer windows wrap up around the world. This year the newly minted main data update arrived on 2 March 2023 across all platforms.

Endrick in Football Manager 2023
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BYE BYE - This update will give Endrick his future transfer to Real Madrid

The new update comes in at 2.14 GB on Steam, which is quite hefty for Football Manager.

What is in the main data update?

Per a tweeted video from Sports Interactive, this update will cover a lot of things.

Along with bringing the January transfers into the game, there is also data updates that will likely to see players like Cristiano Ronaldo dropped and Bukayo Saka improved.

There are also "match and gameday enhancements". That's quite a broad term, but the patch notes detail exactly what's changing. It shouldn't impact your tactics too much, but might make some more exotic systems feasible within the match engine.

Football Manager's official tweet regarding the main data update
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UP TO DATE - You can now start a Chelsea save with an unhappy squad of 35 players

There are also stability fixes which should mean far fewer crash dumps. Overall this is the biggest update to the game we've had in a long time and probably the last one we will get.

Patch notes

SI has said that the changes in update 23.3 are not limited to the following, but that these are the main changes.

  • Stability and crash fixes
  • Fixes to reduce mistakes from bad touches in certain areas of the pitch
  • Fixes to defenders not preparing correctly for crosses in certain situations
    Improvements to defender reaction to long through balls
  • Tweaks to make attacking players move quicker to support counter-attacks
  • Improvements to how AI managers use different midfield role combinations
Football Manager 2023 Jude Bellingham
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ON TOP OF THE WORLD - Bellingham is proving to be one of the best around
  • Improvements to central defender and defensive midfielder positioning from long goal kicks
  • Improvements to how attacking wide players track back when defending
  • Fixes for defending wide indirect free kicks at the edge of the area
  • 'Header won' statistic now only counts contested headers
  • Improvements to the Recruitment Focus logic
  • Fixed cases of reserve or youth team tactics appearing blank in the Development Centre
  • Tweaks to development loans for AI teams
  • Improvements to fixture scheduling, particularly the frequency of consecutive home or away games
  • Updated substitution rules across various competitions

For more articles like this, take a look at our Football Manager page.