The long-running football management franchise crashes out at the semi-final stage, not good enough to win any trophies.
The bold innovation of customisable tactics and training schedules and the ability to see your team on a 2D pitch certainly helps rather than hinders, but watching goalkeepers rush out of their goal when the attacker is nowhere near them, invariably leaving an easy open goal, does not suggest that much thought went into the realism of the actual match.
That said, players and clubs are exhaustively detailed as always; you can manage virtually any club in the world and buy almost any player you can think of, agents will offer you players in the patched version of the game and stadium expansion, negotiable contracts and the option of applying for jobs in different countries all lend the player a freedom and flexibility that was lacking from earlier games.
Unfortunately, Championship Manager 5 suffers because it aims to be so resourceful that the gameplay got forgotten somewhere along the way, meaning the game can be frustrating at times and ridiculously easy at others with no discernible middle ground, and likewise, fans of the series will either love or hate this one.