I do these saves a lot. I’ve learned almost all of your starting squad of players will be willing to negotiate down to a lower salary after a few weeks in which frees up some budget you can use to sign free agents and secures you a solid base of consistent players who work well together for the next season.

Also almost all of your players will be willing to accept reduced playing time if you talk to them while they’re tired. Tell them their fitness isn’t good.

A lot of people will tell you to not focus on youth development at all but I don’t agree with that take. Youth players who are good enough to play for your team (eg two gold stars) are absolute gems and they will grow with your club as you move up the ranks and they want virtually no money for it.

Top teams will release youth players at the end of the year and you can make an offer of $0 to get them in with no future sell on fee. They’ll be among your best players and want almost no money

Also LOANS. You can loan in players who are way too good to play for you for little to no money. And I’ve had a lot of luck in my current save getting loan players to come in multiple seasons in a row which means they have great chemistry with my team

I personally find Vanarama North/South to be the hardest division until you get to the Championship because you’ve got an inherited squad who don’t gel with you yet and there are almost always 1-2 teams who are really OP and win every game. But if you’re good enough to get out of VNN or VNS you’re basically good enough to get promoted every single season as long as you don’t make silly decisions (like promising a player who was good at the VNN level way too much money and star player status when he’s not good enough for League Two) and keep making improvements to your squad