^^ agreed. There is 2 ways of looking at it. You can either buy all 20 players at roughly the same time and same age, as floriana has done, and you will have about 4-6 seasons of a very strong squad between seasons 5 and 11 in the players careers. The early days will be tougher, but not impossible to be competitive, if you know the game.
The second way is to spread the squads ages or buying pattern to spread over 4 or 5 seasons, replacing a handful of players as and when. This is what I'm doing as most other managers are. I think my squad shows that even though around 3/4 of my squad are under 3 seasons old I can still beat anyone on my day. You'll never have 20 full strength players at one time but you'll always have at least a starting 11 of strong players.
When it comes to replacing players, or certainly a bulk of them, some managers will drop down for a season or 2 while their squad gets to a decent level. Some managers won't. Personally I will never drop down, I'm here to win. And even if my squad is full of newer players I like being the underdog and pulling a result out of the bag.
Nothing is wrong with the game at the moment. Apart from credits updating apparently and how involved the owners are. As far as I remember it's always been about 523 and 451, and sometimes 541. And people have always used subs after the first 15 mins and sometimes 30 mins. I don't understand why some people moan about it. The game has played the same for 10+ years. These are the things that obviously have some sort of benefit of using. So if we all know it and know that it probably gives us an edge in a game, e.g. using 451 use wings in a longball game and subs after 15 mins, then use it!
Personally I'm not sure it even gives any advantage, but if the top managers are doing it, then I sure as hell am! I still firmly believe it's all about player stats. If you have decent stat players, you'll always stand a chance, subs or no subs. This is why I'll always buy the strongest players on the market. Fair play to all managers who spend little on the lesser players on the market and develop them, like stevenm does, and I think fc town of Luton does too. But the game is much harder that way, somewhat more challenging and rewarding maybe, but silver will be hard to come by.
It all comes down to this. Buy decent players, train them hard early, and play the game how we all know it plays .. use subs if it helps, use the stronger 2 formations. Do this and you'll be fine.
Just my view
