This is something I've resisted to date, but the quality of opposition on my level (apart from 2 or 3 players who are decent) and the slow progress in the game is making me reconsider. How does it work exactly? Are the 4 stars assigned your players in the form of training points for each individual skill - allocated evenly across all skills (kind of like an auto-assign)?

Also, and very importantly, what happens if you have training points saved up to be applied early next season (some of my guys have somewhere in the region of 130 points to be allocated, most at least 100)? Do you retain these or are they lost (which would be a disaster and I can't imagine it to be the case, but just want to be 100% sure)?

They are allocated evenly per trait unfortunately. I have not heard of training points going missing but I've never used this method. This is sweet nitros answer to an unfortunate problem that constant promotions has caused. When I started I believe that lvl 20 was the highest so I had to play for 6 months to get to the top level, now you have to play for a year or more of constant double promos to get to the top. Many on here agree it's an issue that needs addressed but how to address is tough

Sorry, 2 years to get to the top

I wouldn't mind so much but the competition is so poor as you progress that the game really starts to lose its lustre. I got a perfect 65 in my champs this season and I didn't even bother to sub on 11 of the games. My GA was around the 500 mark too. I'm assuming that things get really tough again right at the top, but the mid levels really are full of poor or inactive players.

They get not easy midway there and then tough in the top 3 leagues, imo

Sadly is a necessity as Black Monks says. Not sure you want to spend that time normally given it is also a moving target with two new levels a month.

So we seem to have lvl 60 now or has that always been there?

The max level goes up 1 on the 1st and 15th of each month, thus the reason it will take over 2 years of all double promos

I forgot to follow up on this. I took the plunge and paid my 3 pound 55p and jumped a level. All my training points were safely still available and the game assigned 4 points to each and every skill. I then was able to top these up after change of season. All fairly smooth and nice to see some new faces. The quality on the level isn't much improved but it feels a little fresher playing new teams and having marginally improved auctions.

Thanks for reporting back. I'll be doing this or quitting at the end of this season, at the moment it's 50/50