Why Lower League FM is Harder than Ever

I am currently managing Worcester city in the midlands premiership. I have a transfer budget of zero. And a wage budget of £3100 per year. I have no staff other than one scout One assistant manager One fitness coach and one general coach they are all part time. I have seven players who are on zero wages but have small appearance fees. I came across a player called Mark Jeraldo this guy really improved my team he is like the Ashraf Akemi of the non-league world. He can play left back left wing back right back and right wing back. He does not need a work permit although he is Spanish but he also has English nationality. Born in England with Spanish parents. So if you’re managing in the lower leagues definitely have a look at this player you’re going to need at least £150 per week to pay him his wage he will be your highest earner and your most influential player. At the moment I’m at the risk of losing him because Club is in league two I’ve taken any interest he’s been at my club for two years and we have climbed two leagues in those two years.

It was really difficult in FM2019 with Guiseley AFC too..

should be called budget manager these days ...not football manager and I couldn't get players on loan last summer....(preaparing for Championship)....Because all of them said they "wanted to play with better players...and we couldn't afford others...Geez!

Trying to find your lower league scouting video, any help?

I feel like non leauges and top leauges are completely different beasts.
I started FM in 2020, hardly touched it but picked up fm21 on the cheap, this is my first real game.

I've recently been playing a journeyman save, but started at chippenham, got sacked for looking at a job in Scotland, then got hired by dumbarton for 2 halfs of a season, saving them from relegation once, but was sacked during a losing streak.

But none of that matters, what matters is where I am now.

I signed for eastbourne borough, given the expectation to "battle bravely against relegation" and through some serious fuckery won promotion to the VNL through a very lucky playoff.

The board is delighted and offers me a new contract, but we're hemorrhaging money, so I tell them to make the team professional, reasoning the only way to escape debt hell is to get to L2, They do.

Play the second season barely keeping my head above water against the much stronger VNL teams, finishing 14th in the table. But hey, we're in position to buil- oh. The board has decided we're spending too much, has sacked most of my staff, taken away our professional status. I suppose half a million quids worth of debt will do that to you.

I resign from the club and start looking up. Fluke getting a job with oldham athletic in leauge 2 and I'm immediately out of my depth. They finished 21st in leauge 2, and now want me to achieve promotion, meanwhile I'm sat here having my best players taken for half a million each, the board overwriting my transfer refusal, and suddenly I have no idea where or how to spend this windfall.

These things weren't a problem in the VNL, there's just so much more to worry about once you become a leauge side.

It hurts so much yet I can't stop trying. Somehow I got lower league Bulgarians to play tiki taka, avoid relegation and finish in the top end of the table. Science will never find an explanation. It should not work.

Doing a journeyman and with my semi-pro experience wigan handed me an interview then a job. And fuck english lower league has way too many games. I had 4 games in a week and my squad has 2 people per positions…..

Have to say I’d enjoy a save where I just trundle along in a career and it’s not all about promotion after promotion and titles etc

IM FROM SLOUGH. AT LEAST SOMEONE FAMOUS KNOWS US

Hi

Hi friends. I've been playing this game for almost 10 years now. And I do almost strictly lower league because it's more fun. Dynamics is more important these last two years than ever before.
Usually you get a new job and everyone is unhappy and there are bad contracts.
I'll give you some main things that you need to do to grow your club slowly.
1. Sign free young players ONLY I can't stress this enough. Free under 23 they will improve.
2. Keep everyone happy as much as possible. Buying yourself time allows for signing more free young players as they get released.
3. Be cheap with your contracts.
4. Don't have a youth set up! You dont need it you cant get the best guys youre poaching top level clubs talent anyway.
5. Coaching matters. Keep their contracts short and keep getting better coaches.
6. Tactics keep it simple to something you know.

The main idea at the lower leagues is to lower your average age. This is a video game it is not real life so you can abuse the fact that younger players always improve while older ones don't. However it's not as easy because dynamics matters so keep everyone happy.

Good luck. You can message me if you have specific questions :)

This is honestly the first FM “I’ve been playing since FM 17) where I played anywhere lower than Championship 😂😂

In my 3rd season with a German 3rd league team and money has gone down from 45k/week to 18/week.

In real life in the vanarama leagues they will players from way down the football pyramid. playing for many leagues lower than even the Vanarama leagues.
So in real life there are loads of players to find that would be easily signed cheap because they are barely earning a wage, compared to vanarma league wages.
Not been a vanarma league side since about Fm18, but I can't remember there being all these options.
I used to like signing foreigners on a free by finding them by typing in 3 letters into search like 'Mar' and then loads of French, Italian etc younsters would come up that have those letters in their name. Get some on trial and have a look at them in preseason before signing them. Literally bringing in dozens of them on trial.
Obviously that was all a bit unrealistic. many of them were not even good enough. But now with Brexit this is not an option. It's now rubbish managing in England at any level. Never enjoyed the prem so much anyway.

It was the opposite for my friends in French lower league, rising to the top in a few seasons

F*ck Brexit.

The game is getting too realistic. Its supposed to be a game. Work permits and covid have no place in a game

homie I feel you, I know the pain. All the hair, it connects stay strong stay proud!

This is how I pry Cape Verde players from Praia and the National team for 6K a season or two in after free transfers.

Aeh you talk much, just play it or ultimatum hahahaha😂😂.

Its not that hard for vanarama north/south to L1 in England. The second season, youll got plenty of 18- 23 y/o English talents from higher clubs. Now championship and premiership are another challange for non scumming game.

It's definitely not easy, although I've climbed the ladder from Vanarama National League North to Sky Bet League 2 in 4 seasons with Gateshead FC. But currently having a tough time trying to stay up.

And there is me who gets Darlington from National League North to league 1 within 4 seasons...

I was playing Stuttgart in FM20, BL2 is not so bad.. I manage to win in first season, with 5 games in hand😅

I had a save starting at Vanarama League South and arrived at Cahmpionship very easy. When I started saving I followed a friend's tip: "All teams are bad, you just always have to play offensively and pressuring the opponent's defense that they will concede several goals." I was champion for the 2 Vanaramas, with more than 100 goals scored in each season. Before I got to the fourth division, I started looking for players from the uper divisions youth teams, that they didn't want, at the end of the contract. That's how I got to England's second tier.

I'd personally recommend trying to source regens from non-league sides. Cardiff Met and Cefn Druids tend to get a few come through who are future Prem quality.

The great part is they are levels below lower league in terms of reputation so players are interested in signing and because of where they are at you can get them for next to nothing, I paid £0 and £500 for two on my save, they are now both worth £40m.

Two words: Se7en's Kloppdiola.

If you are struggling to find players in llm saves you should use the youth team. If everyone is garbage a 16yo with league 1 or championship potential will be a game changer by the time he is 17. Get the best youth coaches you can focus on personalities.

If your team has no youth intake then enjoy the grind.

I uninstalled it, the lower leagues are truly fucked.

I did notice the board with the "pay attention" phrase right below the Colombian flag. I imagine it's a subtle message for people to look at what is happening there. As a south american, it's incredibly hard to see what's happening there (and frankly, in all south american countries as well). It's been a while since I last played FM (my last save was with Brentford in FM 2014). I mostly played CM, and the only FM game I played for a ridiculous amount of time was FM 09.

It looks like the game changed a lot since then haha.

First FM since 2007 ,got kidderminster promoted in the first season into the national league ,lost 10 games in a row in the 2nd season then jumped ship too Eastleigh fc, better team just had to save them from relegation

Brexit destroyed Fm21 smh...

Just promoted from 4th league to 3liga in Germany, 3 years of strungling(3-5th places and 3 wins in a row in Berliner Cup) finally paid off FeelsGoodMan
And yea, it was hard

Can anyone here direct me to the video where Zealand does the head bop for 3 mins and Reece edits it

3 years with ibiza they haven’t give me a penny

PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME :
I "accidentaly" create a b team in my save with a team in sud america that dont had it before( after one season game gave me the chance) , now this b team plays in a inferior division that is not in the game, how i can remove this team :( help, sorry for speak english as a neandertal

Im not sure the player A.I has made any advancements tbh Im sure most of us have players who want a new contract every 3 months or want to move to a bigger team even through their in the world biggest team already, to say nothing of the players who wont sign a new contract only to go to a lower team for half the wage they were on, so yeah /shrug.

5 season in tier 8 with Shieffield FC, hopeful we get promoted this season, we are now 2th season 2033-2034 with 7 matches left. I actually love it is more difficult and challenging, I hate to see LLM-saves people getting promoted third season in raw

I’ve found a factor this year is my scouts keep bringing me 2.5/3 players when in the past they’d bring me better players.

My biggest tip is forget scouting at that level. Just take tons and tons of players on trial and in 2 weeks you will see who is good enough for the level.

Vanarama North Promoted 1st season.
2 Seasons in Vanarama National
3 Promotions in a row
Gets to Championship:

Oh, I'm poor.

I have been playing since Championship Manager 2 and pretty much the only way I play is to play up from the lowest league. What you are saying is very true- FM 21 is far and away the most difficult of the versions to play your way up from the bottom- for specifically the reasons you lay out. The best tips I can offer (that you haven't already discussed) are A) to remember you can ask the Chairman (assuming you don't have a GM at this point) for player suggestions- they have found me quite a few gems that I wouldn't have had any knowledge of; B) Understand what the 3 or 4 most important attributes are for the positions in your tactics and look very hard for young players that hit those marks (in VN-South/North I tend to look for pace and acceleration since I play counterattacking); C) Even if bottom league work hard to build squad depth as much as you can within your budget, because injuries will happen and the depth can be crucial; and D) FInd the best Keeper you can - because you can't afford to give up soft goals - it is worth it to pay more for a solid keeper than most other positions and since you are likely to need him to steal some wins and draws. (sorry about the length).

I got stuck in the 3rd tier of France on FM20 as a semi-pro side that had one of the smallest budgets in the league every season and a 1* club rep after promoting up from the 7th tier, so I definitely agree that that's a hard league to get out of.

Then I picked up FM21 on sale on Steam and finished bottom of the Northern Irish 3rd tier in my 1st season when they fortunately didn't have relegation. I have a weekly wage of ~$250 p/w for my 2nd season and no coaches want to work for me either. Yes, I'm a glutton for pain when I play FM.

the struggle of taking over a team in lower leagues, getting promoted, and having absolutely not budget to compete at a higher level is so painful. I must've spent tens of hours just finding, scouting, and trialling free transfers/end of contracts as well as balancing my almost 0 budget in my 1860 Munchen save.

z you growing the chest neck beard? lol let it grow !!!!

That and the games broken and doesn’t generate the players at the top level to trickle down with clubs hardly signing youth intake players

I am a veteran player of this game franchise, and I will definitely be using some of these tips, especially so on the "team report depth chart" .