tips for non-league management
1. don’t bother hiring scouts, they have to be paid weekly & it costs money to send them out anyway, offer trials instead & let your assistant judge them (make sure your assistant has 10+ judging player ability, potential isn’t important because you’ll be upgrading your team every year as you get promoted anyway)
2. Get a senior affiliate, they’ll loan you players without you having to pay wages
3. Don’t buy anyone until you get to at least League One. There’s plenty of free transfers out there who are far better than what you have
4. play home games against higher rep teams in pre season. Helps the finances
5. when searching for players, look at unattached players homegrown status & search trained at big clubs with great academies United, Liverpool, Chelsea etc.
I got Curzon Ashton promoted 4 years in a row on FM20 without spending a penny on transfer fees or scouts.