Looks like I finally started a save that will really get me going for a while.
Picked Accrington Stanley and won the League Two in my debut season there. The level in that league is so low that even without any proper transfer budget (only a couple thousand pounds to spend on signings and a relatively small wage budget) I managed to get together a team that scored goals for fun! Loans were also an important part of my strategy, of course. I used my 3-4-3 tactics that worked brilliantly for me in another save with Leiceister - apparently it's the best tactics I've ever created in this game, at least in the lower leagues.
Promotion to L1 meant a huge challenge since most of my team wasn't good enough for the step up. Nearly all my squad, with the exception of 3 or 4 players, had only 1-year long contracts or were at the club on loan so I let the whole team go and started a new one from scratch.
At first I thought I was going to fight against relegation, but like the L2, L1 is a league where there's so little quality that any bit of good business means you suddenly go from relegation fodder to title contenders. After I signed two Brazilian strikers Arthuro and Claudio Pitbull, as well as Paddy McCourt from Celtic and Paul Gallagher from Leicester, I found myself with the best attacking talent in that division, apart maybe from Leeds United.
The only thing you really need in a situation like mine is patience to look for transfers - and that I have in abundance. I usually waste more time building the squad during pre-season than actually playing all the games. I got 10+ players on free transfers and lots of loans to build a squad that is actually quite big, for a club that had only 3 players at the end of June.
Arthuro's 30 league goals helped me to win the League One, which means I won 2 league titles in 2 years managing Accrington Stanley and got the club to the Championship. I'm already a quite popular figure in the club
I think the real challenge starts now. If L1 and L2 do not differ in terms of quality as much as I thought, the Championship looks like a different planet. Lots of clubs and players there were recently in the Premier League... while my best players are lower league rejects or nearing the end of their careers.
Also, the club is really small in comparison to my competitors and has barely any money, so it'll be hard to build a decent squad. This time it won't be simply a matter of signing a few decent players on free transfers. Looks scary!
I got the 2nd smallest stadium in the Football League so I guess pretty soon the club will be announcing plans to expand the stadium or build a new one... my aim is to get the club to the EPL and there's no way I could get there with my current facilities.
Very excited to try and make Accrington Stanley one of the biggest clubs in England
I hope to escape relegation from the Championship in my first season there and slowly start building teams to fight for promotion. Who knows how long it'll take though... !