After 10 seasons in Div 4, Stockport County finally made their Div 3 debut, but have so far failed to find their feet in the higher tier of the English League.

The Hatters have lost all three of their opening games and have received two red cards, a sure sign that the defenders are struggling to cope at the higher level.

Manager Mike Connor remains positive, though.  "I knew it was going to be tough.  When we were promoted to Div 4, we went straight back down and although I don't plan on doing that this time, I know what to expect and hope that we've learnt from that experience."

"The things that you have to be prepared for are players who performed superbly in the lower division, suddenly not able to keep up with the game.  Some adapt and take to it straight away, but you can't expect them all to be like that.

"We have more strength in depth now and more options than after our last step up."

County have signed Portuguese defender Joao Vidigal as a free agent and Polish striker Jozef Koniarek to bolster the squad.

"We're working on other signings and hope to close one deal very soon.  We plan to use our full allocation (of four signings) this season."

And they're going to need it if they are to maintain their Div 3 status.  After shipping 8 goals in 3 games, with only two of their own to show for their efforts, County are currently sitting 2nd from bottom on 0 points.

"If you look at Div 4, it's littered with clubs that have spent one or two seasons in Div 3 and then dropped straight back down.  There seems to be a glass ceiling that most teams struggle to break through.  It may well be that above that are fully-pro clubs with rich benefactors - I don't know. 

"What I do know is that we don't intend to end up as one of those Div 4 'graveyard' clubs.", said the County boss defiantly.

It's that time again that comes around every 4 weeks, the end of season, or off season.  There's the bizarre weekend wait between rounds 29 and 30, the last of the regular season that just prolongs the agony if you're in a promotion or relegation battle.  This is followed by the play-offs and cup finals of rounds 31-35, then the season switchover occurs, on the Wednesday evening IIRC.

It's important to make sure you make the most of this time, as it's a window of opportunity that normally closes once the next season's started.  So here are a few tips of how to make the most of it...

1. End of Season clearout.  Like most managers at the end of the season, you're probably assessing the season just finished and deciding on who's surplus to requirements and which areas you need to strengthen up on.  So, obviously,  you know which players you want to get rid of, but don't be too hasty to sack them just yet!  Even players that have been on the Transfer List all season without a sniff from another team, can suddenly become desirable in the off-season.  That's because everyone's looking at bolstering their squads and your surplus players might just be what another manager is looking for, especially if they can get them on the cheap!

List your unwanted players and set the Auto-Accept level to $1 above the minimum bid value.  This lets other managers know that you're not going to start haggling over the price.  You might only get one bidder for your player(s) but you would then get more money for them than if you'd just sacked them outright.  And if they don't sell, then just sack them anyhow and you've not really lost anything.

2. Extra training.  Your team will lose to squad levels at season switch-over, so try to get as much squad training in as possible before then.  Don't bother with Morale as that gets reset back to 50 at the start of the new season.  When the new season starts, try and get your morale us high as possible in the first few weeks.

You can also do extra training camps and friendlies, Player Cups, etc.  If you're out of the cups and not involved in the play-offs, then you can let the players' fitness levels get quite low in the off-season as they'll be replenished at season switch-over.

3. Pick your Cup strategy,  Unless you're in Div 1 or Div 2, then chances are, your team will usually get knocked out of the League Cup fairly early on and your chances of having a long cup run or even winning it are pretty slim.  The League Cup fixture schedule is tight and relentless, with each round coming every couple of League rounds.  I've found that having a 3 or 4 round League Cup run can tire out and injure your players, which has a detrimental effect on the League campaign.  So best to put out a weakened side for the League Cup, to allow your first team squad to rest for their assault on the League.

If you're in Div 5 or below, then you don't enter the League Cup, but have a smaller Department Cup competition which only contains teams from your Div and Dept. The rounds are quite far apart and it can be quite a big money-earner if you progress far and/or win it, so you might want to put out a full-strength team for this.

4. Sell or Keep your 17 yr old?  As happens every season, a 17 yr-old player graduates from your academy.  This player might be your star striker in a few seasons' time or he could be permanently warming the bench for several seasons, until you decide to sack him for a pittance of his original value.  You need to make a decision straight away as 17 yr-old players are worth a lot at this time, but the market is also flooded with 17 yr-old talent.

Scout him 2 or 3 times, just to get an idea of his potential.  If you get 3 x 5-star reports, then keep him.  Otherwise, it might be worth cashing in on him and hoping for a better graduate next season.

There are lots of other tutorials and guides out there, which you should try and hunt down and read.  Most will tell you to buy a promising 17 yr-old (especially the unsigned ones that appear on or around Wed evening) and get them playing loads of friendlies. This probably does work, but you'll find that these players are ridiculously expensive to buy and might be way out of your budget.

That's all for now.  Until next time....

When I wrote the first part of this guide, I was half-way through my second season in charge (first FULL season) and was top of Div 5.  I went on to win the league and the Dept cup that season.  My team didn't concede a single goal in the League all season!!!

It was a very different story the next season as I finished 3rd from bottom of Div 4 and got relegated automatically.  We bounced straight back up the following season, doing the double again, but the game engine had changed and we lost a few matches on the way.

I mention that because some of the game engine changes that were implemented between my first and second promotion seasons mean that I would recommend adapting your tactics slightly.

Firstly, the game engine now relies less on individual stats than it used to and more on the squad stats.  The squad stats are the ones on the top-right of the Training page and are also represented by the series of stars at the bottom of the Team Info page for each team.

You can improve these by setting them in the training page - it's the four icons at the bottom of the panel on the right under "Current Training Program".  Also, you can improve them further by buying weekend training camps.

I've found the training camps to be of little benefit.  In order to get a big improvement on your squad stats, you have to select 5*, overseas, intensive, etc., which can work out at $6m+ per camp.  If you do that every weekend in a season, that soon adds up and the stat gains aren't usually that great.  You can also find that you ended getting stat gains in areas that you didn't ask for.

I prefer to boost the squad stats through training.  The best way to get quick results is not to pick four different attributes to work on as this is painfully slow, but select the same attributes for all four choices - attack, for example.  Within a couple of training sessions, you should start to see big gains in that stat and because they usually take a lot longer to drop down again, you can try to get that stat up to 85-95% before switching all four onto another attribute and doing the same.

Be careful not to let any particular stats get low.... 50 is the minimum I believe.  You can switch them around as much as you want but I've found that leaving the 4 training  attributes on one setting for several rounds makes it increase faster than keep switching them around.  Also, bear in mind that training sessions happen only twice a day (8 UK) so don't expect instant results.

You'll find that the gains slow down as they reach 90+ and unless all your other stats are 90+ it's best to switch to another attribute to maximise the gains on that.  Like I said, I've found that the stats gain quicker than they reduce.

You can also boost your training stat gains by improving your training grounds - you have to make a decision whether to boost your club's earning potential by increasing capacity and restaurant and club shop facilities or to improve your team's training facilities!

Initially, I spent the development time on increasing the capacity up to 20,000, which I've been able to fill  for most matches.  This gives me a steady income stream to keep the club in the black.  Remember, that attendances in Div 4 & 5 go no higher than 30,000, so don't obsess about getting the biggest stadium money can buy just yet.

After improving the restaurant and club shop, I then focussed more on improving the training grounds up to the top spec as well as the Youth Academy, which will produce better young players each year!

The reason I did this was that I realised that although the older players are great in Div 5, when you reach Div 4, the level is so much higher and you'll need much better Q players to succeed there.  The main problem with this is that I've found that in order to get promoted from Div 4, you really need a team of Q82+ average, but most Q80+ players don't want to move to a Div 4 team!

So, youth players really are your only option.  Older players' stats will be dropping within a season or two and certainly won't be increasing, so you'll need the best players coming from your academy to get that Q82+ level needed to get promoted.

The hard bit to swallow is that unless you've already got a team of Q75+ 18 yr-olds,  you're going to have to face being in an around Div 4 for a long time whilst your team develops.

OK, now I'm going to give you a few tips that I've either picked up from other guides/players or worked out myself.

Sponsorship
Look at all the packages and add-up  how much you'll earn for a full season from each one.  Bear in mind how you expect to perform in that season.  For example, if you expect to do well in the cup and the league then go for the best overall package that also pays out for each cup round plus a cup winner bonus and payments based on final league position. If you know you're likely to get KO'd from the cup early on and you're probably going to end up in a relegation battle, then go for a package that pays out a high amount per round.  Factor these into your calculations, so add up your initial payment, then the 'per round' payment x30.  Then add in league and cup bonuses if you expect to do well, or leave these out if you don't.  Be honest with yourself - if you've just been promoted to Div 4, then chances are you're not going to win the Division and do well in the League Cup.  Likewise, if you've just been relegated from Div 4 and you did the double in Div 5 last time you were there, then there's a good chance you'll do the same again.

Credits

You'll find that you'll earn credits for various things and unless you use them for things like home friendlies or whatever, these will build up quite nicely over a few seasons.  You can then convert these into cash - particularly useful if you've overspent on your next star striker and don't have enough to do that next stadium upgrade.  Always try to leave yourself with at the very least 10 credits, just in case you need to use them.

You can also convert cash into credits and even buy (as in pay REAL money!) to get more credits.  This seems to be what a lot of the top managers do to, which they then use to either buy over-inflated prices for players or for Home Friendlies.

Friendlies

From what I can gather, you are allowed to play 100 away friendlies every season for free and up to 200 home friendlies which cost credits.  Most guides will tell you that you will need to use this full allowance up every season, playing your youth players in order to boost their abilities.  I'm not denying this, nor am I approving of doing this, but I personally don't want to spend a fair bit of money on this game just to play friendlies.  I won't slag off the players who do pay every month because they are the ones who subsidise those of us who play for free.  However, it then begs the question - is it possible to climb the pyramid to Div 1 without buying credits?  I'd like to hear from anyone who has!

That's enough for now.  I'll give you more tips next time around and hopefully I won't wait as long to do so next time! ;)

OK, so my team is still in Div 5 (England Dept 62) but in rnd 15, we're currently 1st with a 4pt lead, have won all our games except one (which we drew) and haven't conceded a single goal in the league or Dept Cup, all in my first FULL season in charge, so I'm pretty confident that we'll finish top, or worst case, second.

So, first of all, let me explain that the technique I've employed to get this far isn't fool proof and that changes in the game that are planned to happen or happen in the future may welll render it useless.  I give no guarantees that this will work for everyone - I've taken calculated gambles with some matches that may have gone badly wrong, but so far have gone my way.  Also, if two or more managers in the same dept decide to employ the same techniques, only one of them can come first and the other may have to endure the agonies of the playoffs.

Another thing I should point out is that the odds are stacked heavily in favour of relegation and not of promotion.  Check out your league table...  only 1 team gets promoted automatically from each division yet 4 get relegated automatically.  Even the play-offs are loaded against you getting promoted, as you have to play a series of knock-out games, all of which you have to win before finally playing a relegation-playoff team from the division above, who only have to win that one match to stay up! 

This is all to facilitate the pyramid system that exists from the top division of every league, ie you can be in Div 6 Dept 598 and stil work your way up to Div 1 Dept 1 (afaik each country's league has only one Div 1, which is Dept 1).  I'll discuss my understanding of the ML pyramid system in a separate blog at some time in the future.

So all this leads to the conclusion that the absolute best method of getting promoted is to finish first in your department.

However, getting promoted as champions doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be able to hold your own in the division above and you may well find yourself back in the same division a season later with your tail between your legs, so be warned.

This technique should work with lower leagues Div 5 & 6, but may also work well with Div 4 or higher, but without having actually tested it myself, I can't say for sure.

First of all, I'm going to assume that you've just taken over a team in Div 5 or 6 and it's part-way through an existing season - congratulations!  You've just taken charge of (probably) a mid-table or struggling Bot-team!  If you're really lucky, your former bot manager has taken the team to near the top of the table or the season hasn't started yet!  If you've inherited a promotion-destined side, you will probably only need to organise the backroom staff, sponsorship and the stadium as well as tweaking the team to push on for the top of the table - lucky you!

If the season hasn't started yet, then you can try and use this technique to go for promotion in your first season.  The reason I highlighted FULL season in the first paragraph is because you've more than likely inherited a team that for one reason or another isn't going to get promoted even if you win every game until the end of the season 5-0 - that's fine... just think of it as a chance to get used to the game and your players and to determine your best tactics and strategies for the next full season when you will be in with a chance of finishing 1st!

First off, I'm going to use a 4-3-3 formation as an example.  Have you got enough players in your squad at Q68+ to put out a full team in that formation?  If not, you've got three options:-

1. Train your other players up to reach Q68 - this will take a long time (many seasons in some cases) and some of your squad will never reach that level,

2.  Adjust your formation so that you have enough Q68+ players to put out a full squad, eg 4-5-1 or 3-5-2 - this is not ideal as you should be comfortable with the formation that you want,

3. Buy players at Q68+ to make your squad up!  This is the route I took and it paid immediate dividends in terms of results.  HOWEVER, I should make the caveat that ML have introduced a limit of 3 players purchases per season before you start to lose Q pts on the rest of your squad so be warned!  I didn't realise this when I started and subsequently bought 9 new players before my first match - I wouldn't recommend this.  If I started over again, I would have spent more on each of the players and got even better ones, but it worked out OK for me in the end.

Now the key to buying players if you want to get promoted in your first FULL season is to bear in mind that your team isn't Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, etc., it's more like Accrington Stanley and so you have a limited budget to work on.  My team had approx $40m in the bank when I took over.  Look at the ML transfer market and you'll see that you can easily spend about half of that on one player with Q68 and ideally you want players with Q72+!

So how do you get quality players on a tight budget?  Simple!  Buy old players!  Players start off at 17yr old and cost about $17m for a half-decent one then get more expensive as their talent matures.  However, they start to slow down as they hit 30.  This plays right into your hands, as it's a lot cheaper to buy a quality player when they're coming to the end of their careers.  The thing to bear in mind is that players can retire without warning although usually from 35+ (39+ for a goal keeper)  so these aren't long term purchases.  What they'll do is fill in the gaps until you can afford to buy the ML equivalent or Ronaldo or Messi.  Buy wisely and don't buy the cheapest or the first one you come across - look at what they've done in the past and see if (for example) the forward you're looking at has scored lots of goals when he was playing regularly (many will have been warming the subs bench for a few seasons, but they may have been a team's top striker in the past).

The only thing about older, good players is that they can still have a bit of pride which means they won't want to move to a Div 5 team with average attendances of one man and his dog, and there's not a lot you can do to persuade them otherwise - by the time you've improved enough for him to want to move to your team, he'll probably be retired or too rubbish to even consider.  Just go back to the transfer market and find another player to try and buy!

That's enough for now.  I'll continue next time when hopefully I'll be much further towards Div 5 dominance!!! :)

MikieC