I'm a "CM only" player since 1998, before that I'd just played Elifoot. Now with this separation thing I would like to hear your opinion in which football manager game is the best, and which one of them you have played. I don't just mean FM2005 and CM5, I know that there are plenty more, like Total Football Manager, and many others!
If you are a CM player then you should go with Football Manager as it is the exact same game when it was CM only with many improvements. I seriously doubt that CM 2005 from Eidos will be any good as they planned on using Opta stats make the game work (i.e. they don't use researches like SI uses more than 2500). Football Manager now has licensing from MLS and other leagues for pictures, logos, kits, etc. In fact it is the Official computer game of the English Nationwide Conference.
Can't say that I have. I know TCM tends to be more flashy graphics. They use the same match engine as FIFA. The video tends to repeat itself only with different kits.
If you don't like the spreadsheet that FM gives, give Sick as a Parrot a shot. It's an independent SMG, so there aren't as many leagues but it more than makes up for it in gameplay. You have to figure out how good your players are by talking to your coaches, instead of merely viewing their stats, for instance, and the propietor has been known to fix bugs within hours. Whats the website... http://www.machoward.com/
There's no knowing which of the CM5/FM2005 games will be the best as yet as CM5 has been delayed a few months. I guess they're taking a good look at FM2005 and will attempt to add something to give CM5 an edge. In the meantime visit this site. It's an Aladdin's Cave for soccer fans with reviews of over a hundred soccer games, over half of them soccer management games. There are links to demos of many of the games. The site also has a rating system that allows you to rate games you have played, averages the ratings and produces a soccer game league table. You might be surprised to hear there are several games with higher ratings than CM (all versions of which are reviewed but not FM2005 yet). Here's the site url: http://sgh.soccergaming.com/sgh_main.php
I wouldn't but TCM. I've been loyal to it for awhile but no more. You constantly have to install patches and it always crashes. (Especially this years)