Fresh off the back of a 20 season save at Billericay Town in which he brought them from the National League South all the way to the Premier League, FMPurdz aka @_GrassrootsGuy gives us his Top 10 Tips for Managing in the Lower Leagues in Football Manager.
1. Be More than the Manager
This has been mentioned in other blogs before but we all know that money can be tight in the lower leagues, especially at the bottom.
One of the best ways of saving money for me in the early days was to avoid over recruiting in the staffing area. For example, if at the start of the save you don't have a full squad in your under 19's then why would you need a full rota of staff? The same can be said regarding a Director or Football, Loan manager, Technical Director etc - all of which could lead to a very useful saving for the club if you don't fill these roles until you really need them.
If this means you have to take full reign on your transfer dealings and maybe leads to you casting a more regular glance at your players out on loan you may find this leads to more positives than negatives!
2. Make the Most Out of Poor Youth Recruitment
Regularly within Football Manager you can be incredibly disappointed with your youth intakes, and unfortunately when you do start in the lower leagues this can be a common occurrence with poor facilities and a low budget for youth recruitment all leading to that disappointing update from your HoYD come youth intake time.
On a few occasions within my Billericay save I was actually able to develop some below average players to be able to feature in my first team meaning that even though we didn’t see many wonderkids or hot prospects, a higher expense was saved by developing these young players into decent first team players / squad players.
To explain this further I point in the direction of this fantastic piece of writing from FullerFM where this topic is taken into great depth and offers some fantastic tips and insights with regard to maximising your youth intake.
3. Parent Clubs/Feeder Clubs
Within my save with Billericay I was fortunate to gain Coventry City as my parent club. Their youth system really boosted our ability to rise through the leagues especially in the Vanarama National division and in Sky Bet League Two. The beauty of having a parent club is that the players you can receive on loan are absolutely free and luckily some of these players can be well above the level you are playing it.
My advice here is to utilise this opportunity when possible. Sometimes chairmen of football clubs can be awkward around the subject but FM loves a trier so keep asking until you get the answer you require. If you hang around long enough you may also get the chance to pick your own affiliate club, and eventually maybe even become a parent club yourself!
4. Make Hay when the Sun shines
If you are lucky enough to find or develop a gem of a player in your save but aren't in the top division(s), you may find that you have often end up losing these beloved wonderkids and having to sell these players on. My advice: sell when the interest is high and capitalise on the opportunity.
Within my save with Billericay Town I managed to pick up a young Portuguese midfielder from Sevilla who was an incredibly talented pick-up for a free transfer. I knew that this player would eventually be wanted by bigger clubs and that selling him on for a profit might just be an option when the timing was right.
After only one season his value shot up to £12 million but we eventually sold him to Bournemouth for £35 million. This was (in my opinion) a great time to sell and for great value. When a player is in good form and you know your club could do with the cash, you are sometimes better off severing ties and cashing in on your best assets - in this example the transfer funds enabled me to sign a host of players that would eventually get us to the Premier League.
5. Keep your Tactics Consistent
This point could be open to debate but I believe having a consistent tactical approach throughout a long save can lead you to have a far more secure foundation on which to build your team around.
Having a solid tactical strategy in my save with Billericay was incredibly important as it enabled me to know what players I needed and in what positions; it meant that year on year long serving players were already comfortable with the tactical approach as the seasons rolled by, facilitated new players to settle in and lastly allowed my coaches and staff to build around that philosophy.
I played a flat 4-3-3 all the way through until we reached the Premier League and it was only then that we evolved and looked at changing our tactical style to fight for relegation due to the huge jump in standard at this level.
6. Patience is a Virtue
Now of course we all start FM saves with fantastic ideas that don't particularly work out the way you want them to and sometimes (or many times) in FM these ideas can fall at the first hurdle. I can only advise that when attempting to rise through the leagues that patience may well just be your best ally and not to force it too soon or you will end up disappointed.
For example, my Billericay side spent 3 seasons in League Two before our first promotion to League One but those three seasons in League Two enabled us to develop our players in a manner which made us good enough for League One and subsequently bounce straight up to the Championship.
Sometimes slow progress in parts of the save can lead to greater progression further down the line. Be patient, trust your ideas and your club will (eventually) keep progressing.
7. Youth Release Date Scouting
This is quite simply my favourite day on FM when managing a lower league club. On the 30th March every year the bigger clubs announce which of their youth prodigies are being released into the big wide open world without a contract. This means you can approach to sign them and potentially bring in a near Premier League level youth prospect to a club a couple of tiers below!
Of course Manchester City's youngsters indeed refuse to join such teams as Billericay whilst they are still under contract at their club, but once this expires this makes them much more approachable and perhaps vulnerable as they are without a club. When approaching these players, ensure to manage your finances effectively in the contract negotiations as some of these players can demand hefty wages.
An example of a player I found using this method was Josh Phillips from Manchester City's academy who is pictured below - he turned into a quality Striker during our rise and sometimes that drop in level leads to a huge boost in their development and confidence.
8. Take a Friendly Reward
The old trick is going to be mentioned here, but there may be some readers who aren't aware of such fund-raising avenues so here we go.
Inviting big clubs to play against yours in a friendly is a fine way of making some quick cash. Within my current Fenerbahçe save I have recently accrued £1,000,000 in Revenue for inviting the German giants Bayern Munich to Turkey.
Even if you did this 5 times with big sides at revenue of £100,000 a game you could earn your club half a million which goes a very long way at lower league level! You get my drift. If you're looking for quick bucks to raise the bank balance be sure to use this little trick in pre-season.
9. I am Legend
Within Football Manager one of my favourite things to do is sign incredibly high reputation players who are probably close to retirement. My earliest memory of this is signing Francesco Totti for Bristol Rovers on FM14, slightly surreal turning the Roma legend into a 2 club man by bringing him to the Memorial Stadium!
Recently in FM20 I managed to pick up the likes of Pjanic, Neymar and Willian for Billericay in different seasons picking us up a significant amount of revenue from shirt sales as well as benefiting from their experience and ability. I mean if Willian signed for Billericay in real life I’d have to purchase a shirt myself to preserve the memory of such an event!
The major point here is that these legends can increase your clubs bank account, not by a lot of course, but every little helps.
10. Fit But You Know It
This has been mentioned on occasion by a few FM content creators in the past and it has always held true in any rendition of FM when managing in the Lower Leagues. You cannot underestimate the value and importance of having players that have strong Natural Fitness, stay injury-free and are more-often than not close to full match fitness in the vast majority of games as you navigate through a 40 or 50 game season.
At this level, lack of quality and squad depth is a real challenge and rotation is usually a luxury you cannot afford, so putting an extra focus on signing players that have good natural fitness, are less injury prone and of course having a substantial emphasis on Fitness Coaching, Physical Training and suitable resting periods all will contribute to having a fit and healthy squad for most of the season - this is often crucial in the business end of the season and can be the defining factor in avoiding that dip in form and losing points when most important.
So there you have it! Nothing complicated or revolutionary, just a few pieces of advice and insight that helped me really enjoy and progress over a 20 year save which is sometimes a rarity in modern day Football Manager! These saves are often the ones we remember for years to come, and if you are lucky enough to get hooked on such a save then the rewards are awesome - put the effort in and before you know it you might just embark on an epic journey from the lower leagues all the way up the bright lights of top tier football.
Thanks for reading
If you enjoyed this or would like to check out more of FMPurdz content be sure to check out his blog here.
