I was worried the changes might make things too hard, but on my first go, it seemed to make the beginning a bit harder, but by the end I was doing ok (3x Ballon D'or). It is definitely harder to cap stats and get more than one specialty. Maybe if I had sacrificed some stat points to start buying specialties earlier it would have been worth it, but it's hard to say without testing a bunch.
edit: also now that I had a reason to buy a house, the house price seemed to increase a bit much each season. I would say to myself "ok at the current cost versus my net income I'll be able to afford one next season" but it would jump out of reach for multiple seasons in a row. edit2: possibly this may also have been affected by rising costs of physios etc. but I remember not buying anything else in that period.