As MOMS resident gamer, the August/September period was a special time growing up. FIFA vs Pro Evo, pick your poison, get the game, buy the new kit, be enthused for the actual season and still spend less than a Champions League ticket at Villa Park.
Then in later life, parties and beer-fuelled sessions through university, or the night before Saturday matches meant everyone huddled round the screen. Trips as a games journalist to Gamescom in Cologne to play the latest versions months before release earned you sage-like status for a while, before everyone else got their hands on the discs at a midnight release.
Sadly, those days are long gone. Parenthood, expense, and lack of free time mean that as an adult you generally just play the free trial, say “This isn’t as good as I remember”, then forget about it until next year.
This year, for some unknown reason, I’ve actually bought the only game in town. EA’s FC27
What’s Changed
Surprisingly, it’s with a Villa slant that I initially approached the 10-hour free trial.
For the last few years, the Aston Villa side has been settled, successful and mostly enjoyable to watch under Unai Emery’s stewardship. This meant when loading up a game, you knew what you were getting with Villa. It was hard to improve on Emery’s formation and tactics. It meant you played as Villa, and as a game, there was no escape from reality. You just played out what was actually happening and it all felt a bit pointless.
Enter the summer transfer window of 2026.
With real-life Villa losing basically their whole team, you load up FC27 and have as little idea what to do with Aston Villa, as Unai Emery did against Brighton.
It makes a massive change to the adult mindset of loading up a game. You don’t have to feel guilty about dropping your favourites; there are no untouchables in the side, and Watkins has already been sold to Saudi, so there’s no need to get rid of him straight away.
The New Villa Boys
Player ratings must be a great discussion point in modern changing rooms as you can see from John McGinn, Manzambi and Bogarde doing their press for the game prior to release.
This year, with the unique situation Villa are in, having nearly a whole new squad at your disposal means you get to wreak havoc on the starting line-up without your real-world preconceptions influencing the game, and for someone who’s been jaded with the series, it makes it feel fresh again, before you even get to the game itself.
Want to finally prove that Ian Maatsen is actually a winger? Stick Ruggeri in behind him.
John McGinn, injured? Throw in Leon Goretzka.
Emi Buendia? Is he still here? Good news – he’s upgraded to Istanbul’s Europa League final version.
Madjo. They clearly haven’t watched him yet if he’s getting outmuscled.
Watkins Who? Nicolas Jackson is better.
Johan Manzambi? Maybe Mbaye. Maybe he’s better in real life.
Alejandro Garnacho? The jury is out, but his future is in your hands now.
Ultimately, in relation to the real Villa, the squad has lost a few heavy hitters with overall scores above 80, with them being replaced with players largely in the upper 70s bracket (see below).
The Actual Game
Of course, a desire to play the game and experiment with a new Villa side would mean absolutely nothing if the game was unplayable.
FC27 is a decent game of football, if you can find what you want to do in it.
What I mean by that is, this has a game mode for any iteration of football you can think of, and that’s both a strength and a weakness for someone giving this a go.
Immediately, you want to just jump in and play, but the game’s new ‘The Grounds’ mode has you talking to Mbappé, Chloe Kelly, and other ex-players who want to tell you how important it is to follow your journey as you wander around a small town and earn coins to improve your avatar and dress it up.
If you’re over 30, this may be the breaking point, but persevere, and you will find there is fun to be had.
1 vs 1 with a keeper, five-a-side, and other options are in this mode, and if you’ve any football brain, you’ll be surprised how good you are online against younger players who are obsessed with tricks and flicks instead of winning games.
Ultimate Team is still in the game, and as always, you can win without paying real money, but plenty online take the Manchester City approach to making their online side as strong as possible. Each to their own.
But the meat is where the money is, and in FC27, the meat is in playing seasons with your team.
Authentic?
There’s a setting that makes all the difference. It’s called authentic. Instead of Competitive, Authentic makes your season have dynamic weather, misplaced passes, handballs and injuries out of the blue.
This actually brings the game closer in gameplay to the traditional purists’ choice, Pro Evo.
Since there hasn’t been a proper Pro Evo since 2021, FC27 has this ‘Authentic’ setting to hoover up fans who want their game to be more unpredictable.
Playing at Villa Park or away at the Spurs Stadium, the passes roll like a snooker table; they zip to your players, and you have to feather-touch through balls, which are less automatic in this year’s version, or else you will look like Buendia on a bad day.
Contrast that to an away EFL Cup game at a lower league club, where all the opponents sit behind the ball, and a pitch that you need to put full force to make a five-yard pass make it, and you have enough there to coax in older players who are looking for something closer to a simulation than previous entries.
PSG even do their rugby-style kick-off into the corner.
Pau Torres goes to a family wedding and sprains his ankle dancing. Out for four weeks. McGinn and Kamara collide in training and both are out for five weeks. This is FC27’s effort at tapping into the older Football Manager market. As their once core audience ages, they have to age aspects of their product.
For tactical enthusiasts, the season mode has more than enough depth whether you play as the whole team, one player, or even take the Emery hot seat and be the manager.
Decisions to make?
FC27 is not cheap. It’s in and around the price of a Premier League ticket at Villa Park. But this year, with Villa in transition and new interest in how the squad will line up, coupled with a decent simulation with endless options for playing football, it’s worth checking out, if only for the last digital representation of the old North Stand at Villa Park.
Updated Aston Villa Player FC 27 Overall Scores
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Rank Name OVR Position
1 Kamara 84 CDM
2 McGinn 83 RM
3 Goretzka 82 CDM
4 Cash 81 RB
4 Onana 81 CDM
4 Pau Torres 81 CB
7 Buendía 80 LM
7 Manzambi 80 CM
9 Maatsen 79 LB
9 Jackson 79 ST
11 Ruggeri 78 LB
11 João Gomes 78 CDM
11 Wan-Bissaka 78 RB
14 Abraham 77 ST
14 Barkley 77 CM
14 Bizot 77 GK
14 Garnacho 77 LM
14 Lindelöf 77 CB
14 Mings 77 CB
20 Suzuki 76 GK
20 Mbaye 76 RW
22 Harwood-Bellis 75 CB
23 Bogarde 74 CDM
24 Alysson 70 RM
25 Cissé 68 CB
26 Burrowes 65 RM
26 Hemmings 65 CDM
26 Jimoh-Aloba 65 CAM
26 Madjo 65 ST
26 O’Reilly 65 RM
26 Rowe 65 RB
32 Feeney 64 CB
33 Broggio 63 RM
34 Borland 59 CM
Original Villa squad when FC27 came out scores
UTV
Follow Phil on X here –@prsgame
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