6. Buy Fewer Players
Steve Drew/EMPICS Sport The best advice there probably is. The more players you buy, the more likely you will face a transfer bust, both in the real and virtual worlds. In 2009, then Barcelona CEO Joan Olivier had said that the clubs aim was to have one of the best, perhaps the best, team in the world, without having to spend x-million on players. Two years later, the Catalanshad seven home-grown players in the 2011 Champions League final, and according to CIES Football Laboratory in Switzerland, in 2014 Barcelona had the most stable squad, with every player at the club having been there for an average of 5.5 years. Theres no point in overhauling the team every year: instead buying one or two players every summer will work. I have bought three players so far and will try not to exceed that number next season. I plan to look to
La Masia to replace my outgoing stars. As "Soccernomics" states, another advantage of not buying players in the transfer window is the one-second rule. The success of a player on the pitch is "decided in less than a second" and the same applies in Football Manager. If a player is not accustomed to a teams set-up, he will struggle to make the transition. Moreover, even in the game, new players tend to take some time to settle down (although it vastly differs). So continually overhauling the team could render futile.