Newbie looking for a good pre-season guide / tutorial

All,

Although I have played FM in the past; I am a newbie to recent incarnations of the game - it has been six or seven years since I attempt to tackle the game with any gusto - and have decided to attempt it with FM16. Ahead of the full release, I am familiarising myself with Beta version of the game & have decided to start with a League 2 [Luton Town] save. I always recall that a strong pre-season was critical to getting off on the right foot. Consequently, I have such trawled through the forum in order to find a decent detailed guide [for FM14 or FM15] from more experienced players as how to approach pre-season. I have though struggled to find anything.

Are there any detailed guides within the forum [or on wider sites] on how to approach pre-season?

Thanks in advance.

The most common thing is changing players' training to fitness and high load (if it's still in this year).

In the very first preseason I also fire most of my staff and replace them with better ones, send scouts everywhere and check whether there are good free agents available.

Check this guide out and see if it points you in the right direction.

I have nothing to do with the guide. Saw others recommending it at some point in time.

For the last 4 or 5 versions of FM I schedule a friendly for every 3 days to begin 3 days after returning to training from holiday. I pick my first eleven and my backups for each position, plus the best of the rest for the sub 12 spot. I always manage the friendlies, as soon as the condition of a player dips below 70% he gets subbed by his backup. I frequently rest the whole squad from training before the next friendly so that the condition can improve closer to 100% or sometimes start the backup players and have the first eleven on the bench. I save both team selections as FR 1 and FR 2 to make it easier to switch them before the match. By the time the season starts everyone is at 95-100% condition and 100% match fitness (now sharpness).

I am possibly missing out on some physical gains somewhere, but I have not noticed them.

Check this guide out and see if it points you in the right direction.

I have nothing to do with the guide. Saw others recommending it at some point in time.

I'm pretty sure that very high fitness training is going to get you lots of injuries. It was said on the tactics forums somewhere in a discussion that it has no effect on 'fitness' itself but rather on the physical attributes.

For pre-season training I go High individual and medium fitness (dropping to low ball control/tactics when the season kicks off) as that usually suffices.

Also, friendlies, get everyone 100% fit and that's basically all that's needed.