Thoughts on FM2009: How to improve players

As you all know, in my Football Manager 2009 game I have started a so-called "ultimate challenge" with an underdog Italian team, Andria Bat. I have noticed - like everybody else who starts with a team in the lowest divisions, that the coaching staff completely lacks quality.

Usually (and hopefully) this staff will agree with a mutual termination which will not cost you too much, but it rarely happens in lower divisions, and since money are also a problem, you must stick to keeping them. Generally this means a very poor number of stars in your training schedule, which further means that your football players won't improve their stats too much, even if they have a big potential.

Right now there are not lots of things you could do. However, you should take the time to set particular training schedules and also make sure that the coaches train players in the areas they are the best: when the game starts, coaches are selected to train all categories, and this results in a lower number of training stars.

If the workloads are high and your team doesn't have the money to purchase another coach, or if the board simply won't allow it, you could do a little trick: let your worst coach train all categories (in order to decrease the general workload) and then set your coaches to their best positions.

However, you should do your best to offload your coaches as soon as possible and the best moment to do so would be the second season of the game. That is because a lot of newly generated coaches will get promoted in Football Manager 2009 - usually with very low reputation (therefore likely to accept any offer) and great skills. So go ahead and sign a few young coaches with good stats (which can also get better) and try to get rid of the dead weight.

Indeed, it is costly to wait one season to get good coaches to improve players, but especially for teams in lower divisions, this is the best call, since they save lots of cash. Good luck!