Respected_Boss

I never start with a premiership team as I like to build my dynasties from the ground up, so I thought id give a few tips for managing in the English lower leagues, ill start with the Championship.

Im going to use Wolves for this one, theyre actually a middle of the road team, even though in real life I’d put them in the top 4 or 5 teams in the last few years. The board arent expecting promotion, and I have a grand total of 100k transfer budget, which should be sufficient.

Also, for a smaller club, it’s a good idea to load the Scottish database too (it doesn’t have to be playable if you don’t want). The Scottish lower leagues are packed with decent affordable players who will do the job for you.

So, first day is the most important for a club like this. Ive spent a lot of time playing the lesser clubs, and know if you want the decent signings, its all about quickness.

LOANS

Loans are important for every club outside of the premiership, and to be honest if you don’t have four long term loanee’s before you kick off the season, you want your head testing!

Im going to give a short list of players that championship clubs are capable of loaning, players who will always do well in the championship. The perfect club for loaned players is Middlesbrough, you’ve got about 7 or 8 championship standard players, on the fringes of the team waiting for first team football.

Andrew Davies – DRC – Always my first choice, but get him early, to be sure offer to pay his full wages if circumstances permit.

Danny Graham – ST – Will hit close to the 20 a season mark if played regularly in the championship, also good as a third option striker

David Wheater – DC - Very consistent centreback

Andrew Taylor – D/AML – In the Boro team for real, but get in early and you could have him flying down your left flank. Will always perform brilliantly at Championship level.

Adam Johnson – AML – Rapid left winger, would walk into most championship sides

Matthew Bates – DRC – Youll be lucky to get him, but he can be got, just be early

Lee Cattermole – DM - Another genuine Boro player, god defensive midfielder, you sometimes get rejected, saying he has first team duties though

Tony Mcmahon – D/WBR – Good all round right back.

David Knight – GK – Works as a backup keeper

These players dont have to be first team regulars in your side, but four could easily give you backup for almost all your positions. Obviously you can get loans elsewhere, mine are just a guide. Just use player search, ask assistant to filter out unrealistic targets and sort by value. You can sometimes loan transfer listed players.

SELLING AND RELEASING

So with my loans chosen, lets see who I can buy for real. Before I search, im going to get rid of the Turds from the Glenn Hoddle era. (Remember, im still on day one)

Denes Rosa
Rob Edwards
Seyi Olofinjana

All should fetch in excess of 100k each!

Im going to sell Jody Craddock too, hes worth a bit, and his ability isn’t what I want

Im also going to reduce the wage bill by cutting the useless youngsters (which is practically all of them) Some of them have potential in the early hundreds, but so what? They’re not going to do any good in the Premiership.

Carl Cort and Gabor Gyepes (two more turds) will probably start the game with lengthy injuries, and you will find you have to put up with them for most of your first season. Mark Little and Keith Lowe will fetch decent fees, well you know the score.

So you should have a nice slimmed down squad now, it should be something like this..

Murray – GK
Oakes – GK
Clapham – DL
Mulgrew – D/WB/ML
Mcnamara – D/WBR
Breen – SW/DC
Collins – DC
Karl Henry – ****ing everywhere
Kightly – AMR
Mcindoe – AML
Potter – MC
Davies – MC
Ricketts – AMLC
Keogh – FC
Bothroyd – ST
Johnson - ST

Murray is a good keeper with good potential, but recruit a third first team keeper, because his injury proneness is high, and if your backup keeper happens to have an injury at the same time as Murray (which seems to always happen) Don’t get caught out and having to play a 16 year old youth team keeper.

SIGNINGS

So, its time to look for recruits, because its still day one, I still only have 100k to play with. No biggie, im going to give a list of potential signings, not world class players, not even premiership quality, im looking for players who will get me out of the division, players to put around my squad nucleus

*Note, this list is with Scottish players loaded, some of them I cannot afford, but so called bigger clubs could afford.

Mario Boletti – DM – 60k (Has decent potential too)
Hugh Murray – MRC – 50k
Scott Morrison – WB/ML – 20k
Iain Turner – GK (loan)
Robert Snodgrass – ML/ST – 70k
Neil McGregor – SW/DRC/WBR – 40k
Frank Sinclair – DRC – 50k
Chris Smith – GK – 100k
Derek Carcary – ST – 20k
Sito – WBR – 100k
David Van Zanten - D/WB/MR – 130k
Carlo Nash – GK – 350k
Andrew Traub – DRLC – Free
Kevin McBride – MRC – 120k
Aleksandrs Kolin’ko – GK - 400k
Don Cowie – MRC – 70k
Peter Murphy – WBL/AMLC – 55k
Neil Mcvittie – DR – 18k
Ricky Foster – MRL – 70k
Steven Naismith – AMRL/ST – 275k (bargain)
Robbie Winters – ST – 500k
Frazer Wright – DC – 30k
Steve Lovell – ST – 625k
Choi Jin-Chul – DC – 30k
Greg Ross – WBR/MRC – 5k
Paul Quinn – DRC – 16k
Bobby Donnelly – DC – 6k
David Preece – GK – 90k
Teddy Lucic – DRLC – free
Sigurd Rushfeldt – ST – 40k
Lauri Dalla Valle – AMC/FC – 95k
Simon Jensen – D/AML – 3k
Paul Wotton – D/MC – 100k
I’ve tried to stay away from the Billy Jones, Freddy Eastwood Greg Halford lot, as you probably already know them. But if your stuck with a small budget, give those guys a try, you might grab a few bargains.

TRAINING

Thrown in that list are a few decent youth prospects. It shouldn’t really be any concern of yours to start developing youth yet. Wait until the first season is over and then you can spend hours trying to unearth the best regens. But a good senior training regime is paramount. My personal preference is to assign different regimes to positions, so centrebacks have their own regime, as do strikers etc. I also develop a youth scheme following the same principles. My own scheme is a downloaded scheme that I tweaked to reduce injuries and tiredness, if you want to try it just gimme a holler.

TACTICS

A lot of people have problems with the tactics aspect of FM. It doesn’t really matter that much when your Man Utd, but a smaller club with average players, tactics will make all the difference. I first see what type of squad I have, in Wolves’ case, I have a number of good wingers and wing backs, pretty creative midfielder in Davies, a defense that doesn’t have a lot of pace, and quite pacey strikers. I have to go 4-4-2. So lets deal with the defense first, my wingbacks should be able to roam a little upfield, to feed the midfield, especially on the counter attack (something I only use away from home). I MUST defend quite deep as my centrebacks have little pace and will be caught out by fast attackers. No man marking, this is to do with the pace again, zonal marking will have to do. Im going to let my wingers advance up the flanks, but not to the byline, because my strikers don’t really have any notable aerial ability, so it would be silly to fire crosses in from there, my centrebacks have good aerial ability, but then again their lack of pace means getting back into position will be hard for them. So instead, my wingers are only going to go so far, and thread through balls into my fast strikers. Mark Davies (MC) has good flair, so maybe a playmaker role for him, he has a good long shot on him, so tick that box too. My (DM) will have an arrow pointing to just in front of the defense, so he can help out in the anchorman role when the opposing team attacks. All in all im going to play quite a fast tempo game, my team has a decent enough fitness and stamina level to do so, so im going to set my goalkeeper to distribute quick throws, rather than long kicks, and my passing will be short.

I have 4 tactics overall, home game tactic, away game tactic (same but tweaked a little), I have an ultra gung ho tactic for 1-0 down with 10 minutes to go, and a park bus in front of goal tactic for 1-0 and 10 minutes to go.

You should always have a tactic that ensures you hold onto the lead (park bus tactic), on your 4-4-2, bring a striker off, and a defensive midfielder on. Put him in front of your back 4, so the tactic is now 4-1-4-1. Plenty of time wasting, tick counter attack, and remove all forward runs and run with ball options on your midfielders. This will run down time nicely.

The gung ho is just basically an opposite of that. You get the idea!
Confused? I think I confused myself, but ill get a few pictures up to show what I mean. Basically, just look at what your players are good and bad at, you’ll find the tactics start to pick themselves. You can download other people’s tactics, but I personally find this a waste of time, as the tactics were tailored for a team probably nothing like yours, so they usually don’t work for you.

OVERALL

So now you should have slashed your wage budget down considerably, have a bit more in the bank for the January window, you should have four loan players either in the team or ready to step in for injured players, and a good number of squad players to call on. I personally don’t bother with staff recruitment until the end of the first season, as all the good staff are where they should be, with the good clubs. But if you start without an assistant manager or any other staff, placing an advert in the jobs gets you the best on offer. I also hear that Valter Di Salvo makes a good assistant manager (wink, wink) he is fitness coach at Man Utd, but takes Asst manager jobs at championship clubs, be prepared to pay some heavy compo though.

With these steps I taken Wolves are 4th in the championship as I write this, on 31 games. Its no big deal if I don’t gain promotion this year, im making profit and scouting players ready for next season. If I do win promotion, then the serious team building will begin, and next to none of my current players will be a regular in the premiership. That’s the best guide I can give you without use of editors and scouts.

I hope this helps someone, for most they will have heard it all before, or totally disagree. But if one small nugget of info helps someone, then it’s worth it.

Cheers

P.S Any additions/critiques appreciated