Ever been promoted too early?

After back to back promotions to the Championship with Shrewsbury Town, I've just been relegated finishing 23rd with a record of W8 D8 L30.

I think my main problem was that when I got promoted, I had 4 high quality players on loan and just couldn't get the same quality for my season in the Championship. Strange, being that I was playing in a Division higher.

It's difficult to compete with a small transfer budget and trying to attract good quality players to the club. In hind sight, I could have done with another season in League One as the step up is big isn't it?

Has anyone else had a similar problem and what is the best strategy to succeed?

The step up from league to league is massive, but I don't think there is a definate strategy for success. IMO the year in the Championship will have given you the chance to see where you are weak etc, it will have provided a good amount of cash as well so this season you should be strong enough to challenge in League One, but you also have an idea as to what is needed when making that step up and you probably have decent funds to try and fill the weaker positions.

Yup, with tranmere i had an incredibly lucky promotion from the championship to the Prem. I got absolutely slaughtered the following season lol

The only advice i can give is hope the board don't sack you and try and rebuild after you're relegated.

When I was at Bath City, after 3 consecutive seasons of promotion I was in League 1. Before I even thought about competing for promotion I was focused on consolodating a good enough team for the Championship.

What I done was to snap up lots of free agents many of them were in their 30's and ex premiership players. With names like Diop, Sol Campbell, Carragher and several others I was able to finish just shy of the play-offs. With their reputations and my respectable finish I found that lots of reserve players from clubs like Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool etc were willing to join my club. I managed to get 6-7 of some good players who would be average in the championship and some that would go on to be a great success, no doubt I would eventually lose them but at least they were able to consolodate my championship status a few years down the line.

So I would suggest to build a team that you know you will struggle to keep hold of some key players but your reputaion would have improved and thus able to replace them.

Yes, with Leeds. I narrowly avoided relegation in my first season back in the Prem. My problem was that upon promotion from L1 I signed 3-4 new players as a lot of my L1 squad was already Championship quality. When promoted to the Prem I took on a load of free signings and other bargain buys, but of course they took until Christmas to gel properly. Went on a barnstorming run in March/April, and somehow managed to win the League cup too.

On fm07 got afc wimbledon to prem, after back to back promotions from league 1 i didnt win a game in my first 15 games

Yes with Coventry City on FM 08 first season, i was getting hammerd every week, i finshised 20th in the prem with 16pts, but like Nomis07 said, it can give you extra cash for the next season, which i had which i managed to build a very good squad for the championship, and went on to win it, and survive in the prem next season.

Everytime I get promoted from the Championship into the Premiership!

The jump is massive, if I survive for the first season then all is well. Problem is you get money to spend but rarely anyone of Prem class wants to play for you.

The only advice i can give is hope the board don't sack you and try and rebuild after you're relegated.

It's a bit of a joke to think that the board might sack me after over achieving for the previous two seasons isn't it?

Yup...happens every time i get promoted to the premier league. I usually manage to get promoted through play offs which means i aint exactly the best team in the championship. I guess this is still the best way to improve the team even though i get relegated immediately. The fact that im playing in the premier means that i can attract much better players which in turn gets me back to the premier league next year. Which is good since that annoying confidence bug would sack me

I never had any problems with any other leagues and even getting promoted to the championship wasnt such a big deal. I always managed to create a good enough team not to get relegated.

I've just been promoted to the Superleague with Diagoras after only two seasons in the Beta Ethniki. My squad is probably the worst in the league. Even though I have this class regen Egyptian DM.

Not sure I was necessarily promoted too early, but I took Stockport County up from The Championship to the EPL in FM07 and bombed completely. Most frustratingly we actually won our first game of the season, but then FM crashed a couple of games later. When I replayed the start of the season it took us 9 games to finally win one and that pretty much set the tone. We had so crippling an injury crisis though (was always a feature of my Stockport team more so than any other I ever managed despite training being no different!) that for the early part of the season when it really mattered to get a good start we had only 3 recognised attacking players to fit into 1 midfield, 2 wingers and 2 strikers positions! In the end we did what teams in that position always do - we reached a point where we were something like 15 points adrift of safety with 6 games to play and then started playing swashbuckling brilliant football for a few games just to delay the inevitable relegation.

To be honest I was pleased the following season when we lost out in the playoffs to come straight back up. That Stockport team were so suited to The Championship and it is my favourite league so it was really enjoyable managing them there and seeing them play some stylish stuff against that level of opponent. I can't say that I enjoyed our 1 season in the Premiership all that much at all

Braintree, back to back to the championship, 2nd season I got into the Prem. Man that was tough!! Really hard to keep a constant improvement in the team, survived the Prem (just) and then won it 5 years later! Just very very hard, I had something like a 4000 capactiy staduim in the championship, then 10000 in the prem, really hard as you need to keep EVERY single cost low and deal players.

It's a bit of a joke to think that the board might sack me after over achieving for the previous two seasons isn't it?

Nope football chairmans only look at what is right in front of them regardless of previous success.

I thought I had but with Reading when I took them over in 2010 in January where they were 4th in the Championship. I finished 2nd to my delight and was promoted, it then began to dawn on me that the quality of the squad wasn't the best. But I managed to sign some experienced Premiership level players and I finished 10th to my delight and suprise.

Yes certainly.

Recently I have been playing with Birmingham after updating the database, so I had players such as Marcus Bent, Lee Carsely and Kevin Phillips at the club. But I also had to sell quite a few players who were on big wages, (Gary McSheffrey and Cameron Jerome just to name a couple), and rebuild my squad a wee bit.

After roaring through the Championship with experienced free signings on one year deals and many loan signings, I simply didn't have enough strength to compete in the Premiership. My transfer kitty upon promotion wasn't very big, and the experiended players I had on one year deals weren't really good enough for the Premiership. I found my side getting hammered at home, (well 2-0, 3-0), by teams such as Fulham and Sunderland. We ended up getting relegated, 8 points adrift of safety.

Thankfully my chairman didn't sack me.