Depending on what date your at, look for released players from the Premier League and Championship, and offer trials to anyone in the 17-20 age and then do the same for Leagues 1 & 2 but increase the age to 30.
You should be able to rebuild a squad easily enough with a transfer budget of £0, but if you are past the contract release date, the number of freebies does drop fairly fast.
Edit. When you go to the Transfer tab, go to your DoF and ask for recomendations for every position that is a free agent or loan target. They will come back with upto 3 options if there are any that they rate, then you offer a trial if not signed with anyone or scout them if they are at a club
thanks @aussielad, My transfer window perhaps wasnt as efficiently done as your suggestion but seems to have gone well so far. I’ve pretty much built up a new squad with just 4 or 5 lads from last season and have created sufficient depth that I can rotate them more easily to keep fresh and hopefully minimise injuries. Biggest issue may be keeping them all happy - I promised too many of them that they are star players or that they will play the key games I just hope that we continue winning and that by rotating regularly they will not kick up a stink about it.
Went with the 424 wing play as I have picked up some good forwards. I’m 7 games in to the season, winning 6 and drawing 1, dominating most of those games. So managed to meet the immediate target of 8 pts in 5 games and pick up a manager of the month award too!
Back in the day when I played (probably 25+ years ago) the earlier FM games that was what I did. I had two jobs one with Utd to ruin them as much as possible, and one with Liverpool to try to win everything.
I create another player and took the united job and spend all their budget to buy Voronin, I get alot of money to buy players and they got their season screwed with no money to buy other players
Finally got round to finishing the second season this week. Finished top of the Vanarama south. Admittedly, I did save scum about 7or 8 matches with a view to trying to better understanding the match engine/ tactics - but I can safely say I didn’t learn anything from doing so
So now trying to navigate the end of season/ start of season period and figure out which players I can look to keep. It looks like it is going to be much busier than I had anticipated.
Two of my favourite players (my starting keeper and my top scoring target forward) are now out of contract and asking for a sizeable bump in wages to stay, so given we have got promoted and will be playing against theoretically stronger teams, I’m not sure If I can justify paying them £1100 and £1700 respectively (plus bonuses) (was paying them about £700 + bonuses before).
I’ve got another forward expecting to be sold because I didn’t play him as often as I promised, and I’ve just released a centre midfielder for the same reason. I’ve got another two or three players leaving/ retiring now too.
So that leaves me with needing to sign about 8 players just to stand still on numbers from last season.
My same problem every summer until I get into the Championship and am at as level where I can feel comfortable walking away if the demands don’t match my judgement of their ability
The difference between National League N/S and National League isn’t that big, and if you can pick up the right level of ex-Premier League youth players, they should develop really quickly playing regularly. You also need to be careful bumping wages that much as the level of finances is not that great at that level of the pyramid
Well, I wimped out and re-signed the two players - one was my leading scorer last season with 25 goals (and a heading ability of 15 - I’m struggling to find any forwards with a heading ability above 8 and I want to have that threat from set pieces) and the other my keeper with 22 clean sheets. Both are very influential figures in the dressing room.
I’ve now got a third player demanding a transfer because he thinks I have let him down over playing time (despite him as a 20 year old pretty much playing every other game in rotation with a 35 year old who I’ve just released).
I’m hoping I can sell him and the other forward I’ve listed quickly enough to bring in some of those prem/ first division youngsters - I’ve already missed out on two I really liked the look of.
I just hope that we continue winning and that by rotating regularly they will not kick up a stink about it.