Ok here's some general pointers from my limited experience although being new it's all quite fresh!
1. Important first up is that it's never too soon to start planning for the long term in terms of your squad and training. Straight away you'll need to sign up 10 coaches, a financial guy, a pr guy and probably 5/6 psychologists
2. Nets can/should be used to improve your current team but also try and allocate 3/4 nets to a promising 17 year old that you can sell for a huge fee after a season or so. Having a million quid or so in your bank account makes a huge difference to your potential overall performance as you get 5% interest each week (up to £80k max) although you'll need 8/9 financial guys by that stage to earn the full interest.
3. Try and ensure that any players you buy have balanced ratings with regard to appropriate concentration/consistency and stamina. e.g. a "competent" batter might look better than a "mediocre" but if his concentration and stamina are worthless then you'll be better with a guy who has mediocre for all three. Be patient in the transfer market as the right players will come along at the right price soon enough.
4. Stamina and player fitness levels are very important and seem to be overlooked by many players. Try and get enough decent players so that you can rotate enough so that your players are either energetic or sublime in each game.
5. Hugely important to know your opponents. Look at their squads esp fitness and also pay attention to which managers are "real" in your league and which are "bots" (computer teams to make up numbers esp in div VI). See which managers are no longer signing in? You can get away with playing an average lineup against a bot or inactive manager whilst resting your better players for the tougher games.
6. Don't bother with the youth academy for at least a season or until you're rolling in cash
7. You can develop a free youth pick each week. Although they will likely be poor at this stage it is possible to get lucky. (instantly fire any rubbish youth picks!)
8. Try and always keep your cash account in the black and plan financially ahead in terms of when your home games with gate receipts are coming up.
9. Keep an eye on how full your stadium is getting and expand it as you become more successful. Do this carefully though as it is relatively expensive initally and incurs ongoing maintenance charges. Also only expand with the types of seating you are going to be likely to fill.
10. Definitely become a paying member as the extra stats etc are very useful. Plus I love seeing pics of my players...lol
11. Don't bother wasting training nets on players older than 17/18 as it takes them longer to train the older that they get. Only exception to this would be stamina where older players improve at same rate as youngsters and it might complete an older guys stats by rounding up his stamina rating.
Whoops...hope the above doesn't sound too heavy. Hope not, as the game really is fun to play!
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