Any advice for a first time lower league manager?

So I have been playing this game from the first game, I had a few gaps but there has never been more than a couple years at a time I have not had a Championship/Football manager game. I have won pretty much everything along the way, I have supported one team, then another, then not really supported anyone but played teams I like a few players in, most recently the staple of my year has been the SAF challenge which I started this year's last night.

The thing is I can kind of see the future here, in my first match I drew with second place in the table,I am likely going to end up around midtable with only really the deficit I had to make up keeping me from a Europa league spot. I have 36 million and a decent youth setup so by buying for next season, within three years I will likely have a real shot at winning the champions league. It is great doing it with the SAF challenge, I love it,but this year I am not even worried about relegation whereas my first few years it took me a run in the last five games. I will probably go three seasons and then if I have a good youth regen maybe a season more.

But what I have never done is step out of the top two divisions and certainly not the Vanarama north/south, so I am kind of thinking this year I want to take on a club I have followed the progress of since it formed, FC Utd of Manchester. The thing is, as I said,I have never done a LLM game. So does anyone have any advice and are there any articles I should be reading or videos I should be watching?

More specifically, does anyone have any advice on tactics and facilities? My aim will be to work towards my under 18's being in the top youth league with a well established scouting and highly rated youth facilities and a good percentage of my team coming from my own regens, so when do I go for higher facilities? In terms of tactics, I have been a fan of three at the back since before it became the in thing and while I am not expecting tiki taka I tend to go for fluid/very fluid shape, non-specific roles and shorter passing, am I going to need to make big changes there?

And any other general advice would be appreciated.

@Doctor Halloween, going LLM is quite frustrating but also immensely rewarding once/if it clicks, so I would definitely recommend giving it a go.

As in real-life, however, the kind of concepts you are looking to impart will not necessarily be as successful down the leagues as they would in the higher divisions, for the very simple reason that lower-league players tend to be in lower-league for a reason, which is they're not good enough to player higher up the pyramid. To have a fluid set-up with interchanging players and short passing requires a combination of skills which may be beyond the average sixth-tier player, if you know what I mean. That said, with a bit of patience and an eye for the right players, I'm sure it can eventually be attained.

Same goes for your laudable aim to have "a well established scouting and highly rated youth facilities and a good percentage of my team coming from my own regens". I'm sure you can appreciate that the financial imperatives down the leagues are much more pressing and that focusing expenditure on scouting and facilities, while again being laudable and logical, could well mean you would face stringent restrictions on money being made available for transfers and wages.

In my experience, (a) you need to be very patient and willing to commit real-life weeks and in-game years to see tangible progress in an LLM game and (b) a good strategy would be to pick up higher-league cast-offs on loan or after their contract has expired in the summer, with the hope that some of them may be sold off to help/assist the club's running costs, as happens irl unless you get a good cup draw/run or a rich chairman covering the club's debts.

I'm making it out to be a slog, which in a way it is. However, there's fewer things more satisfying in FM than a motley crew of freebies and loanees battling their way to promotion and giving bigger clubs a bloody nose despite being predicted to finish in 18th place, and doing it all over again the next season with a mostly overhauled squad

Hello DrH,

I'm a sucker for Lower League management. Even when I have the intention of managing a big team I end up at a small side.

Best game I ever did was with Nuneaton Town. few promotions and great free's from other teams and loans.

The thing I looked for in this instance were the small helping hands, not cheating, but something that will make it better for a longer term game. In this instance Nuneaton were the lowest team I could find that were Full-Time (I think there was 1 other in the Conf South). This way you'll get a better chance of getting some better level players and be competitive.

Also, look at what club they are affiliated to. I had Coventry City. Coventry aren't the best in the world but I took on 3 of their players for 2 seasons Free of Charge and those 3 were critical to getting me into the league.

For me I think this is a good way at pushing the boundaries to your advantage. It's by no means cheating but it's a nice advantage you can give yourself that makes these initial seasons sometimes difficult, like a wet Tuesday night away at Boreham Wood F.C