Of all the different staff roles in Football Manager 2023, assistant manager is probably the most important. Except manager, of course, but that’s always going to be you. Football Manager 2023 is an extremely complex game that is absolutely loaded with data and information. You’ll need to use all that to make an enormous number of decisions. Your assistant manager helps you to make those decisions by offering advice on several aspects of the game. Many Football Manager 2023 players prefer to fully delegate many tasks to their assistant manager so that they can progress through the game’s timeline faster, focusing on the managerial activities that they most enjoy.

No manager wants to be taking advice from, much less delegating tasks to, an assistant who has no idea what he’s doing or what he’s talking about. Appointing a good one is vitally important, especially if you plan to do a lot of delegating. It’s not so easy to find a good assistant manager, even if you’re managing a high-profile team because very few of the tens of thousands of staff in Football Manager 2023’s database actually want to be one.

So, the best assistant managers are usually not the staff members for whom the role is the first choice. Instead, you should search for staff who have the required stats for an assistant manager (People Management, Judging Player Ability, and Judging Player Potential, plus Motivating and Tactical Knowledge if you plan to delegate), and checking to see if they have at least a half-full circle for assistant manager under Staff Roles. Some of them still won’t consider a job as an assistant manager, but we’ve collected several of the best below to help you out.

The best assistant managers at the start of the Football Manager 2023 season

All of the staff listed below have high stats for assistant managers, and will consider taking a job as an assistant manager (at a high-level team, at least).

Alex Thuran

  • Nationality: EnglishReputation: 4/5Tactical Style: Fluid Counter-AttackPreferred Formation: 5-2-2-1 DM AMPlaying Style: Direct

Arthur Causse

  • Nationality: FrenchReputation: 4/5Tactical Style: Tiki-TakaPreferred Formation: 5-2-1-2 DM AMPlaying Style: Passing

Giancarlo Finardi

  • Nationality: ItalianReputation: 2.5/5Tactical Style: Vertical Tiki-TakaPreferred Formation: 4-4-2Playing Style: Direct

Gianluca Spinelli

  • Nationality: ItalianReputation: 3.5/5Tactical Style: Vertical Tiki-TakaPreferred Formation: 4-3-3 DM WidePlaying Style: Passing

Stuart Lewis

  • Nationality: EnglishReputation: 2/5Tactical Style: Tiki-TakaPreferred Formation: 4-3-3 DM WidePlaying Style: Passing