My first sacking!!

After managing Rangers for 7 and a half seasons winning 3 SPL titles, 1 Scottish Cup and 2 Scottish Cups I decided to manage Boston United of the Conference North.

After 29 games I could only manage 14th position; with 39 points from 29 games: 7 points above the relegation zone and 19 points off the play-offs. Seemed a bit harsh, but the club expected more. Needless to say I am now applying for other jobs - ust applied for the Blythe job.

One thing I have found is that lower league management is much harder than the 'bigger' clubs because there is no money to spend and a huge pool of players that you have no knowledge of (unless your a non-league expert.)

Does anyone have any tips for lower league management??

Does anyone have any tips for lower league management??

Heaps.

http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/19-Lower-League-Managers

Heaps.

http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/19-Lower-League-Managers

Just to point out that this is last place you should go to get tips on lower league management, since tipping is against the rules in that forum.

The basics:

ASAP, you need to get rid of all the high earners with no talent. Sign anyone decent on a free you can afford to if they'll improve your team significantly. Mutual termination is great if you can get it, but free transferring useless players with only a year on their contracts costs you as much as keeping them at the club (you pay off their contract), but can free up your wage budget. You can also try transfer listing players for no fee, but you're not likely to get many takers for bad players. Too many terminated contracts immediately followed by new signings will bankrupt you though, so use this sparingly. 10,000 pounds is A LOT of money at the lowest levels

Don't be worried if you exceed your wage budget a little bit (i.e. if you've got a few thousand per week to play with, going over by 100 or 200 won't kill you), but don't go too far, or you'll be broke very quickly.

Get the best scouts you possibly can, and send them out to find players. Use the player search feature to filter out players listed for loan that will sign for you (ask the ass man to filter out unrealistic targets). You can often get in the odd loan player that is significantly better than what you have. You can do the same for free transfers of course.

In your first season, you'll only have a few months before the season kicks off to scout for and sign players. DON'T GO OVERBOARD WITH THE SIGNINGS! In the very lower leagues, you can sign new players at any time of the season. Throughout the course of the season, your scouts will unearth a few "gems" by your standards. You will want to have kept some wage budget in reserve for these players.

You do not need a transfer budget (and you almost certainly won't have one anyway in the Blue Square)

Young players are good if they are expected to progress (check the scout reports), but remember that with terrible facilities, these players will need to play to improve significantly. Only sign them if they're good enough.

When signing players, you probably want to ensure your team has a good blend of different skills. You'll want a couple of guys with mental attributes to keep their cool and be your captain. You'll want a player who can pass to create chances. A player who can cross and a good jumper/header up front is a good mix. A pacy striker can cause havoc, even if the rest of his attributes are pretty poor. Try and get players who complement one another, and a couple of other players to shake things up a bit if necessary. Players who can play in more than one position are invaluable, as they can cover for injuries and give you further tactical options. In general, you'll do better with players who are good at a few important things (e.g. a defender that can defend), rather than mediocre at everything. But you will need the odd rounded player: for me the central midfielders are prime candidates for being Jacks of all trades.

Don't sign players on very long contracts. 1-2 years is easily sufficient unless you're sure a youngster is amazing (very very unlikely). You don't want to tie up large chunks of your wage budget for extended periods of time. Be brutal and release players when their contract is up. 9 times out of 10 there's a better player to be had for half the wage.

At the end of each season, check out the free transferred players from the league clubs. Some won't sign for you, some you can't afford, but some will, and they're often much better than what you have.

One of your medium term goals should be a good (FA) cup run. The money from playing a league side will cover your budget for an entire season or more.

Your tactics should play to your strengths, which will be few. Keep it simple, don't have everyone trying to do everything. 1-3 players will be responsible for creating chances, the rest should probably just knock the ball about when you have possession

Don't pay attention to your ass man, at this level they do far more damage than good. They're really just there to train, handle your reserves and filter out unrealistic targets.

all good advice in the previous post - and one more thing - get players with plenty of pace!

Good set of basics, though i'm not sure I agree with all of it.

In your first season, you'll only have a few months before the season kicks off to scout for and sign players. DON'T GO OVERBOARD WITH THE SIGNINGS!

Disagree! If you are sad enough to spend enough hours trawling through lists of obscure teams and released players (like me) there are always enough talented players to be found who'll play for peanuts and are twice as good as the rest of the league - squad cohesion be damned!

However, I would caution to try and keep contracts simple. Things like Team of the Year Award, Appearance, Goal bonuses and Yearly Wage Rises can really eat into your finances. It might be better to give new players slightly higher contracts without all the fancy extras.

At the end of each season, check out the free transferred players from the league clubs. Some won't sign for you, some you can't afford, but some will, and they're often much better than what you have.

Absolutely crucial. What I do is shortlist any youth players from the EPL, Championship and SPL that have a year or less on their contract. Don't be put off by the fact that most wouldn't ever consider signing for you. After a bunch of them get released into the cold wilderness of football they'll suddenly realise that actually non-league football might not be such a bad idea after all. All those signings you are mocked for even attempting are immediately worth it the moment you swoop for that (comparatively brilliant) PL reject

When signing players, you probably want to ensure your team has a good blend of different skills. You'll want a couple of guys with mental attributes to keep their cool and be your captain.

Definitely. I would go even further and say that hiring an influential, determined captain figure is a real must - I've never managed a successful campaign without one!

Your tactics should play to your strengths, which will be few. Keep it simple, don't have everyone trying to do everything. 1-3 players will be responsible for creating chances, the rest should probably just knock the ball about when you have possession

I don't agree per se: I've had great success playing with tactics that emphasise cohesive attacking and defending. I primarily use a 4-3-1-2 formation that relies on the midfield alternately holding possession and bursting forward, the strikers running wide and the defence pushing up. Our main alternate is 4-6-0 with three attacking midfielders. This year (1st year) we won the title and a cup.

I wouldn't say that you need to make your tactics simple, more that you need to buy players with a specific gameplan in mind. And yes, play to your team's strengths!

Good luck

EDIT:

Another thing is to pay much closer attention to a player's stat record. You'll often see some players who look roughly the same on paper, but one will have 0 GL 2 As 6.34 Av and the other will have 7 GL 15 As 7.13 Av. You'll probably be wanting the second one

It might well be worth constructing a custom team view (VIEWS > CUSTOM > CREATE COPY OF CURRENT VIEW > MANAGE VIEWS... ) that you can use to browse teams for effective players.

Fantastic! Cheers for some really useful info.

Just to note I took over Blythe and were in the relegation zone with 6 games to go!!

Just to clear up a few points:

In your first season, you'll only have a few months before the season kicks off to scout for and sign players. DON'T GO OVERBOARD WITH THE SIGNINGS!

Disagree! If you are sad enough to spend enough hours trawling through lists of obscure teams and released players (like me) there are always enough talented players to be found who'll play for peanuts and are twice as good as the rest of the league - squad cohesion be damned!

This is meant in the context of the fact that you'll find better players throughout the season and can sign them throughout the season. If you sign everyone who looks half decent in the first few weeks, you won't have the budget to sign the better players later on. Sometimes a player who looks quite good at the beginning of the season, when you can only see a few players' attributes looks quite poor when you've played 4 months and scouted more. Obviously, if they're much better than the rest of the league, you should snap them up.

Your tactics should play to your strengths, which will be few. Keep it simple, don't have everyone trying to do everything. 1-3 players will be responsible for creating chances, the rest should probably just knock the ball about when you have possession

I don't agree per se: I've had great success playing with tactics that emphasise cohesive attacking and defending. I primarily use a 4-3-1-2 formation that relies on the midfield alternately holding possession and bursting forward, the strikers running wide and the defence pushing up. Our main alternate is 4-6-0 with three attacking midfielders. This year (1st year) we won the title and a cup.

I wouldn't say that you need to make your tactics simple, more that you need to buy players with a specific gameplan in mind. And yes, play to your team's strengths!

Simple in the sense of giving players a clear role that suits their attributes; don't give every player loads of creative freedom; don't get your defenders to try defence splitting passes etc (well unless they can pass, but I doubt it). If you give everyone mixed options etc. you rely on their decision making, and that's never a good idea with these players. I've played crazy formations in lower league, but the formation is only a small part of the tactic. You definitely aren't restricted to 4-4-2 or anything like that.

This is meant in the context of the fact that you'll find better players throughout the season and can sign them throughout the season. If you sign everyone who looks half decent in the first few weeks, you won't have the budget to sign the better players later on.

Fair point

Simple in the sense of giving players a clear role that suits their attributes; don't give every player loads of creative freedom; don't get your defenders to try defence splitting passes etc (well unless they can pass, but I doubt it). If you give everyone mixed options etc. you rely on their decision making, and that's never a good idea with these players. I've played crazy formations in lower league, but the formation is only a small part of the tactic. You definitely aren't restricted to 4-4-2 or anything like that.

Ok, yes, I'll second that; Creative freedom is the bane of a lower league defence!