Football Manager 2023: Predicting the 10 best players in the game

Football Manager 2023 is one of the most highly sought-after games coming to shelves in the next few months.

Sports Interactive has released a new game every year since 2005, when the game first split from Championship Manager, and 2023 is unlikely to be any different.

Football Manager 2022 was a huge hit for Sports Interactive and has now sold over a million copies, according to Miles Jacobson, the head honcho at the studio.

With the new game set to release later this year, we’ve taken a quick stab at predicting the 10 very best players in the game.

Football Manager operates on two ability types, from Current Ability to Potential Ability. The highest CA available is 200. The same goes for PA.

We’ve taken a look at the best players from FM22, and thrown in some predictions of our own, to come up with this list.

10. Virgil van Dijk – Liverpool

An absolute Rolls-Royce defender, Van Dijk was the ninth best player in FM22, and the very best central defender. We don’t see that changing.

9. Manuel Neuer – Bayern Munich

Neuer remains the best goalkeeper in the world despite his age and will remain the best goalkeeper in the game in FM23.

8. Mohamed Salah – Liverpool

Salah underwent something of a dip last season but he remains one of the very best attacking players in world football, and his pace, technique and finishing mark him out as one of the best attackers in FM23.

7. Karim Benzema – Real Madrid

The France international enjoyed perhaps his best ever season in 2022/23 as the Spanish club won both La Liga and the Champions League. He scored 44 goals in 46 games and is ageing like a fine wine.

6. Erling Haaland – Manchester City

Haaland was the 13th-best player in FM22 but we’ve given him a big bump here because of his move