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Welcome back RahDoe

You are right about there being a lack of managers in the lower leagues. If you fancy some real competition, the majority of it is in the top divisions. You'll get there quickly enough so don't panic (In fact, you'll probably end up getting there and realise that you aren't ready because the step up in challenge is massive!)

There's still lots of useful information in the forums. Reading through the game updates is a must as the core of the game is similar to the old version but some things have changed- some for the better (such as youths being far more viable as a strategy now) and some for the worse (like an increase in injuries and suspensions compared to the previous version of the game). If you have any specific questions, someone is usually on hand to guide you in the right direction without giving away all the secrets.

Hey Firesilver,

Can I ask a few newbie questions until I start getting the hang of things.

1. As I understand only subscribers can arrange Friendlies but it sounds like anyone can schedule a Reserves match. I have a friend who is playing and want to invite him to a Reserves match. However I cannot seem to find the option anywhere. Any ideas?
2. What is the easiest way to see the effect of my trainings. I've set up some schedule but on the Training tab I only see the 6 most and 6 least improved players for the entire season. Any way to see a weekly breakdown or something like that?
3. I have a few players with very low ratings and red bars on most their attributes. As per my understanding they have maxed out those attributes, meaning they won;t do me much good anyways. And I will have a very hard time selling such a player. Any way to just release them (provided I don't go below the minimum player count ofc)?
4. What is the best way to invest money for starters? I see I only have a few staff members with very low scores. Should I focus on getting new coaches? Or new scouts maybe? With more scouts would I see more players on the transfer market?

If I am missing something crucial that a new newbie should know - feel free to add to my (limited) knowledge and thanks in advance

Competitions -> Reserve matches -> Schedule reserve match. It's not exactly in an intuitive place, is it?


If you subscribe then you can download .csv files of your daily training. If you aren't subscribed, then unfortunately you'll have to keep track by checking your player's stats on a daily basis and noting any changes.

Changes of 1 point or more are marked by a green arrow to make things easier, but players can also increase their stats by (for example) 0.8 points and no green arrow will show, making it hard to track unless you keep very detailed records or use the .csv files.


You can negotiate a Release If Not Promoted clause into their contract and so long as you avoid promotion they will leave at the end of the season. Sometimes it's just better to let their contracts expire naturally though. It's a waste of money either way but the only alternative is to find some sucker willing to buy them

You can also fire them, but you will have to pay off the reminder of their contract anyway, so it won't save you any money.


Starting off by getting better staff is a good idea. Your club rating is around 3700 so you will get 3500-level staff applying, and they should be slightly better than the ones you already have. You should probably get 1 staff member in each area except scouts, where it definitely makes sense to get extras.

However I would use these scouts to find youths initially. Youths usually cost less than a million credits to get through the academy from start to finish, usually promote successfully as long as they've been in your academy for at least a couple of seasons, and often turn out better than players on the transfer market anyway. With blind bidding, it's hard to be sure you're going to sign a transfer market player anyway, plus you usually have to pay over the odds for most players anyway as you're competing against other managers in a similar position to you.

There's also no real need to send out scouts to look at the TM unless you're trying to find a specific player that you've agreed to buy from another manager. The transfer market rotates to always show 1 other league so, assuming you check it every day, you'll see about 60% of all players that are listed anyway. Plus there are two transfer windows where you can see every other league's listed players- we're in the middle of one right now.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions

Cheers a lot of useful info.
A bit of a followup if I may,

Where can I see the club rating (4500, 5500 etc), I see some rating saying 462 but I guess that's something different.

I inherited a club with about 45m in the bank - is that good or no?
Also was reading through a thread with newbie tips by KevinHann and he mentions its best to have a profit at the end of the season but not too much to avoid high taxes. As I currently already have around 2.5m profit I seem to have some leeway to spend some money. Transfers would be my best bet but I already have a 23-man squad and I see that less is better in many cases. Yet for many crappy players I still have 80-90 days left in the contract. And almost all have a seasonal wage rise in the contract. Is it still best to let that expire?

Thanks a lot again for the useful info!

Welcome back from another player from the dim and distant past that relapsed

If you don't mind me having my two penn'orth...


462 is your club's position in the 1,000 teams in the game. Click on your ranking on the left-hand menu (where it says 462/1000) and you'll see a table with your points. Or you can go to Statistics on the top tab and then Rankings on that page. You can also go to Clubs within that Rankings tab see the top 100 clubs and all their ranking points - also how you compare to the rest of your league and division.


Pretty good for your level I'd say, will buy you a fair few players if you wanted to. But bear in mind that money in the bank counts towards club value which gives you ranking points (up to a club value of 100M), so if you spend all your money you'll lose a lot of points - it's 12 points per 1M.

Also you have a pretty decent stadium so no need to improve it yet but when you do, 45M would get plenty of extra seats.


First things first, that's an old thread and there have been a few changes since then, mostly to the youth system. I'd say there's been a fair bit of price inflation in the transfer market, and perhaps more crucially, the top teams have increased their rating points into the 7501+ bracket. Look at Piper_FC's thread about reaching 6501 - it was hard for him then, but even harder now.

However, most of it is still good advice - some profit, but not too much, and certainly don't lose too much or you'll have to make it back in big profits (and taxes) later.

On the paying off contracts issue - the one benefit of paying them off early is that you only pay their current wage, ignoring all future wage rises. E.g., if you have a player on 5,000/day for another 112 days, but he's due a 10% wage rise in 56 days, keeping him on would cost 5,000 x 56 + 5,000 x 110% x 56 = 588,000. Paying him off now would cost 560,000. Not a huge difference but every little helps if he's a real no hoper who will never play and is unsellable.

Also, to elaborate on this point...

Something that you might work out from this is that you could have an attribute go from say 43.2 to 43.6 - the headline number would go from 43 to 44 but you wouldn't get a green arrow because the underlying increase is less than 1.

Also, I'm not entirely sure whether rounding is done by cutting off the decimal point or actually rounding the number. Does 43.6 go to 43 or 44? I'm not sure, and it probably doesn't really matter anyway.

Final point, I'm not on commission but the price of a year's subscription is barely anything for being able to download the csv files that make tracking your training that much easier.

I'm very new to this game and one thing I think should be of benefit to you is when negotiating contracts, don't give the players what they are asking for because you will end up with a huge wage bill everyday,,, you can easily give them alot less when negotiating -renegotiating a contract.

I'm not sure what the more experienced managers think as a general gauge but I've noticed its 1k for every 10 player rating. I.E... A player with say 40rating should be getting no more or not a lot more than 4k a day

Ive seen in previous discussions that certain managers talk about tricks and ways to get players wages even lower,,, to which I'm still experimenting with but it would be nice for these managers to let all newcomers know these tricks because I feel this could be a reason why alot of new managers don't continue as before you know it, you're spending too much in wages and it takes 56 days until you can renegotiate again

I forgot about the other (better) place to see your rating points - go to Club and then Board. While I'm on that, don't worry about trying to please the board, their satisfaction will inevitably reach zero but nothing will happen.

Not sure that holds for the top players - look at the wages for the top teams and they're all in the 15-20k region. Based on that though, I'm definitely overpaying some of my players...but also remember it's based on loyalty and morale.


The method I use has definitely been discussed before because I picked it up from a heavy handed hint on the forums... by promising players lots more money in the future you can get away with paying them lots less right now - and they will let you keep on doing that every season

Thanks all for pitching in, some very valuable info here. If you don't mind, I will continue with the stupid questions, it will keep this cool thread alive anyways

When I go to Squad -> Squad Manager, I see all my players' status is Res as Reserves, not a single one is Sen(ior) or Youth - does that matter for something? Should I switch the better ones to Senior or how does that work?

Someone mentioned that now we are in 1 of 2 periods where we can see the transfers available in each league - is there a list somewhere of how long those periods are and what periods we should expect. I don't wanna miss signing players when there are at least some available as it seems the market is very scarce anyways.

About Subscription - I was actually considering it but it seems the options there are Paypal and Bank Transfer - any way to just pay with a CC/debit card? What would be the major perks about that apart from the csv downloads (and maybe the Friendlies option)

Btw is there anyone left from the REALLY old days of IAG? I remember back when I was playing the leagues had completely different names (I was in Hammer )

Player statuses (and squad numbers) are absolutely irrelevant apart from roleplaying.

The transfer window starts (I think) on day 25 until day 29, that's what it says on the news article from 2021. Then there's approx a week straddling the end/start of the season.

Not sure about CC payment (though you can use a CC through PayPal). The csv download is the main benefit, but you can also have a second account if you're a glutton for punishment

Hiiiiii, me again with a few new stupid questions

- Is only the group winner the one that moves into the higher division? Any playoffs for the 2nd or maybe 3rd? As I joined mid-season, I might be able to climb up to top 3, but the leader seems way ahead even though its a caretaker team.
- Talking about the club points, I understand there are some thresholds but what do the higher threshold give you - better staff suggestions? more players scouted? I just recently passed 3750 points so what would be the next threshold?
- Tried negotiating with new staff members (a coach and a scout) and I am giving them what they want (and more) apart from the contract length because 5 seasons seems too much. Yet they always reject me. The scout even stopped answering after the second offer. I see many here are able to negotiate good deals but I cannot seem to make it work. It's all or nothing with them.

Now, most importantly, the transfer market

- I am just now able to make transfers and (of course) I just missed the period where you can see all leagues. Not too worried as most my players are crap anyways so practically anyone would be an upgrade. Thinking about the fees tho. I have money to spend, got a healthy budget to 40+million but am thinking about the end of season balance. Right now I am about 1.5-2m ahead which I understand is the sweet spot, but when I start spending that will quickly drop to and below zero. And I don;t really have any players that can attract any interest to be sold. So what would be the best approach to keep the balance good and not get hit by further taxes at the season end?

Thanks in advance to anyone who clears the air

I can answer 1st Question ref staff Give them whatever they ask including contract length or they will reject you. 4550 Is the next Threshold. Transfers there is better managers who will give you pointers

Nope, top three move up and play in the inter cup next season.

Thresholds are at 4501, 5501, 6501...so you've got a few more points to get but you should make that up pretty quickly in the lower leagues.

Yep, no negotiating with terrorists staff.

Transfers...that's a matter of opinion and approach. As you say, a lot of your team isn't good but Bessho might give you some income as he isn't too old and has potential to be an 80s player. Finger in the air, maybe 10M? Happy to be corrected on that, others know the market better than me. That could get you two or three players at your level. You'll also see your squad improving now you're actually training them, and when you hit 4501 even more so.

Losing a bit of money in a season isn't too bad as long as it doesn't give you too much to catch up in subsequent ones. I personally wouldn't be bothered by a 5M loss.

Is it just me but I always offer slightly less to staff and mostly they accept!

Fair enough, I stand corrected. I guess I don't bother because saving 200 credits per day isn't much in the grand scheme of things. I might reconsider though now

I usually offer 5 years' contract when they ask for four, unless I think I might get over a CR threshold - they are happy to sign.

Yeah, I'm dealing with the opposite - they all want 5 years and I try to give them 4 because I believe that better applicants will come once I raise up the ranks (as far as I understand it). Right now I am getting staff applicants in the low 30s which is twice better than my existing staff but keeping them for 5 years? Come oooon...

Also, how do the fixed attributes come into play? Anything that indicates a player who will develop well. Judging by the Football Manager games, Work Rate would be a very important thing to watch out for, maybe Discipline is also one?

All of 'em. Rule of thumb is that the lowest FA gives you the ballpark for the maximum rating that player will achieve. There is a bit of an averaging effect too I'm sure, a player with seven 80s FAs probably isn't as good as two 80s and five 90s...I think.

Now whether work rate actually helps in a match, or if players with better leadership are better captains...pass