Ah Football Manager. The bane of marriages everywhere. Destroyer of free time and many a real-life foot manager's genuine work aid. The transfer windows have closed worldwide and that means one thing - Sports Interactive is ready to unleash the next iteration of its hugely successful Football Manager series. 

This time around it's of course the turn of Football Manager 2016. FM 2016 allows players to take control of any of thousands of clubs from more than 50 countries around the world. From training schedules to match tactics via a side of transfer market madness, Football Manager 2016 promises complete control over your very own football club. Before you put pen to paper on that contract though, make sure you give the Football Manager 2016 system requirements a once over. 

Football Manager 2016 Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows Vista 32-bit 
• CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2 GHz
• RAM: 2GB System Memory
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 or ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• DX: DirectX 9.0c
• HDD: 3 GB Free Hard Drive Space

The Football Manager series, and Championship Manager before it, has often been likened to a glorified spreadsheet simulator. It's hard to argue with this, but over the years Sports Interactive has attempted to add a smidgen of glamour with a 3D match engine and UI overhauls. Football Manager 2016 promises to have the most impressive match day engine yet, with over 2000 new animations, but it's still ultimately utilitarian. 

As such, FM 2016 is, once again, not very demanding. I remember back in the mists of times when Football Manager was the ultimate test of CPU performance. These days it's anything but, and an ancient Pentium 4 3.4Ghz or an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ will see you through on this front. It's worth mentioning however, that the more leagues you're wanting to run concurrently, the more processor power and RAM you're going to need. You will be able to get away with 10 simultaneous leagues in Football Manager 2016, but you're going to have a long, long wait each day as it simulates events around the globe. The more powerful your processor is, the more comfortable running multiple leagues will be. 

When it comes to the graphics cards, the GeForce FX 5900 and the Radeon 9800 Pro are the minimum you're going to need for the 3D match engine. In the unlikely event you don't have this sort of graphical power, then you can fall back on the old-school 2D top-down match engine. 

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run the Football Manager 2016 System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Football Manager 2016 GPU benchmark chart.