I put my world-class midfielder Tom Smith in the roaming role as it was his best role, and since the roaming playmaker is the heartbeat of the team, this was a perfect choice. I wanted both players to come short and link up with the anchorman, giving him options to pass too, and both roles involve getting up and down the pitch. The right-sided of the two was set to be a box-to-box midfielder and the left of the two to a roaming playmaker role. Next to get some attention was the rest of midfield. Great I could work the ball out and stop the aimless hoofs. The description was just what I was after, someone with a defensive mentality who would drop deep to get the ball, often fitting in between the DC’s.
To help link the defence and midfield together, I put my DM onto a halfback role. ‘Who are they going to pass short too?’ I hear you say?
This comes with more risky passes as default, but I put the passing range to short to negate this. The first thing I did was change both DC’s to ball playing defenders. I was leaving huge gaps in the middle and my defenders were just hoofing the ball up to no one.Ī check over past games and I still could not get over 55% possession, despite four CM’s and playing bad teams. It worked, results and style picked up markedly, my midfield were passing to each other until I effectively had a 2-6-2 formation, then the ball was being whipped into the box.īut I was playing weak opposition apart from Canada and Mexico, who I struggled against.
PI wise I changed my full backs from FB(a) to WB(a). I clicked exploit the middle and look for overlap, my thinking being I wanted the ball retained in the middle without playing possession football I only want it in there long enough for the wing backs to advance. I developed my tactic by having a close look at the player (PI) and team (TI) instructions.Īs for the TI’s, the tactic is set up ok by default, with normal tempo, depth and width. I didn’t want to be a counter-attacking team or a defensive or attacking team.Īll I was looking for was for my midfield and forwards to keep the ball long enough for my wingbacks to get forward, spray it out wide and whip it in the box. Very narrow, very scrappy, just poor football. I started by clicking the pre-set button on the tactics creator, but I didn’t like the shape and the way the team played. I decided I needed a formation that doesn’t play a left winger, as Philip Cook was awful.įirstly I unsuccessfully tried a 4-4-2 box formation made so famous by Brazil, but I couldn’t get it to work how I wanted, and all my players just ended up on top of each other.
I had one world class DC and one world-class MC, with a handful of good forwards and my first team fullbacks could also play wing back. To say he wasn’t international class is a bit of an understatement, I wouldn’t even sign him if I was still in league 2! When I took over, there was only eighty-seven Americans to choose from, and just one could even play left midfield. I hope you find this useful if you want to keep two up front after promotion to a top division and you read on.įirstly, a background to how this idea started. So I developed a 4-4-2 diamond narrow, and after getting promoted straight away, I am currently sitting 8th in the Prem after twenty points in the first twelve games. I was determined to keep two up front because my youth intake provided me with no less than five strikers that had the potential to be world class. before getting swiftly relegated playing my standard 4-4-2. On FM16 I got all the way up to the Prem with the mighty Chester F.C. To be honest, in old FM’s I often found the same problem and would play 4-4-2 all the way up to the Premier League, before getting a few batterings and going 4-2-3-1. The general feeling is that you lose control in midfield and can not get enough possession to dominate games, as well as not being solid enough at the back.
While reading posts on various forums about FM, it seems to be a common issue is a lot of people feel that they cannot play two up front anymore. Football Manager guide by Mike Griffiths on setting up a great 4-4-2 diamond narrow tactic.