Steven Schumacher: Plymouth Argyle must 'overperform' with Championship's lowest budget
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Steven Schumacher led the celebrations after guiding Plymouth to the title in his first full season in charge
Plymouth Argyle boss Steven Schumacher says his side will have the lowest budget in the Championship next season.
The Pilgrims beat Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday to the League One title and will return to the second tier for the first time since 2010.
But Schumacher says his side will find it hard to compete against established Championship clubs and those coming down from the Premier League.
"The challenge is can you overperform your budget?" he told BBC Radio Devon.
"That's always the brief - can you punch above your weight for a couple of places, and if we can do that and manage to do well and survive in the Championship then everyone would obviously see that as a progression.
"I understand where we're at and what we're going into the division with."
Argyle had a wage bill of £6m in their last accounts, far less than the average of £32m for the Championship.
The Pilgrims will get about £7.5m from the Championship's share of the English Football League (EFL) television rights deal in the coming season, but that is dwarfed by sides coming down from the Premier League who could get as much as £100m in parachute payments over two seasons.
Chairman Simon Hallett is committed to ensuring the club is 'sustainable' in the Championship.
"The challenges are that you're shopping in a different shop now," added Schumacher, who has just completed his first full season in management.
"You're having to get players who are that next level, so that next level requires more money and that's why it's so important that we try and spend the money that we've got available to us wisely and make the best use of it that we can."
With Argyle's bid for promotion not secured until the penultimate game of the season, the club's recruitment team have been working on two pools of players for much of the year - one for League One and one for the Championship.
Now they know what league they will be competing in next season Schumacher is confident he will be able to add to his squad - which had a budget outside League One's top 10 this season.
"We got the recruitment right last season, we will try and get it as right as possible now," he said.
"We know what we can afford, we know the types of player that we want to try and get because of what suits us as a club and me as a manager.
"We know what type of player we want, it's whether we can afford them and whether we can put a squad together that can compete - but I'm really confident we can."
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