Training has been simplified in CM 2008, to such an extent that you can even just leave it up to your assistant manager. However, for those who want to get the maximum out of their players it is better to try a more hands on approach.

You can train your players in 9 different areas; defensive, midfield, attack, fitness, tactical, tackling, passing, shooting, pre-season.

From here your assistant will then assign drills which are to be undertaken relating to your chosen area. This will improve your players’ attributes in different ways. For a full list of which attributes improve from doing certain training drills click here.

However, a note of caution is required if assigning a certain player to do one schedule over a long period of time. Whilst the players attributes will increase in the desired areas, his other attributes, the ones that are not linked to improvement in his chosen field, will decline. For example, a player who is undertaking ‘passing’ training will not improve his finishing attribute.

Therefore, it may be a good idea to rotate different training schedules from week to week, month to month, etc. Doing this will lead to a more widespread improvement of your players‘ attributes, making him a more complete player.

For instance, using a central midfielder as my example, you could train him in four different areas over the course of a month, changing his schedule at the end of each week.

Week 1 - Midfield training

Week 2 - Defensive

Week 3 - Attack

Week 4 - Fitness

Some of the drills remain the same under different schedules (eg. ss counter is in both the ‘defensive’ and ‘attack’ drills), others are not. Therefore, your players core stats, such as fitness are worked on constantly, whilst more specific stats are only trained under their individual schedule (eg. creativity is only worked on under the ‘attack’ schedule in the training programme listed above).

Other factors that might affect the speed and extent to which your players improve are your backroom staff and the quality of your training facilities. As well as the potential ability of any given player; obviously a player with poor all round stats is unlikely to turn into a world beater just because of a rigorous training regime.

> Drills and skills improvement chart