John M Doe

I'm not very keen on big introductions but i must do it here.
I've been playing CM and now FM for since i can remember always with GREAT success. There were times when if i didn't win 4 trophies in a season, i would not have achieved my goals.
For FM06 i took about 1 month to tweak my FM05 tactic but once i got it going i never again changed a slider.
I thought this would be the case in FM07 but i was never so wrong.
I've been playing now the same first game i created for 17 seasons with the likes of Lazio, Juventus, River, Liverpool, Barcelona, Porto, Milan and Tottenham.
In these 17 seasons i won the league only once with River. Had good success with continental competitions winning a Libertadores, losing a Mercosur in the Final, Reaching 2 UEFA Cup finals and winning a Champions League. As for domestic cups, only one in Portugal an a Final in Spain with Barcelona.

Which leads me to why I'm here:

My preferred tactic is 4-5-1 where the winger are AML/R and with one DMC. Pretty Basic! Like i said before, i've had great success with it in the past.
As far FM07 is concerned this tactic gives me great possession (always near and around 60%) as i've always played short passing and slow to normal tempo. It fails in the shooting aspect of the game. So i thought: "it's because the striker is lonely up front!" And since i only manage World Class teams, the opposition has always 11 men behind ball.

So i changed to 5-3-2 Normal. This way i would have still enough defensive players (as opposing teams generally have defensive stances) and got an extra player up front with the support of the wingbacks. The result was the same: Great possession, almost no shots. Still this was the tactic that brought me more success, namely in Argentina.

And then there's the 4-4-2. I've always interpreted this tactic as a cheat tactic. I admit that it is probably the most balanced tactic of them all but i've always had the impression that 4-4-2 was always favored in all FM versions. My belief was strengthened in FM07. Real Madrid eventually won the "liga" having lost only 4 games, 2 at my expense, and conceding only 11 goals in 38 matches!!! The same had happened with AC Milan when i was managing Juventus where my 16 games unbeaten run was short of Milan's 28!!
I've changed once to 4-4-2 to prove my point and i trashed league runners up Villareal 6-0!!!
I see a lot of threads discussion 4-4-2 but i think there is no discussion possible. Just employ it and win!
Getting other tactics to work, that's where the difficulty is!

I dare you now to prove me wrong by helping me build a 4-5-1 or a 5-3-2 winning formation...

aston_martin

in my personal expierence 4-4-2 is the most balanced formation and one of the strongest, but for it to work well you must have a team with very high stamina and/or high passing and there are ways to exploit it.

for example you say you used 4-5-1 and 5-3-2 the problem here is that these are traditional formations that have all areas covered by the 4-4-2. So the trick is to create something unordinary that the 4-4-2 doesn't cover, for example the usual AI 4-4-2 does not employ an anchorman so putting a AM in exploits the space allowing you to create more chances and more goals, also you could be suffering from the ranking system so if your team is good, lesser teams will look to sit deep and counter-attack.

so yes the 4-4-2 is a well balanced and strong formation and a great starting point to make your formation from, but there is not one single strongest tactic becuase different teams play different systems which all have strengths and weaknesses, and it is up to you to combat the strengths and exploit the weaknesses, for example I play a modified 4-2-3-1 and it tears 4-4-2's apart becuase it is strong defensively, it uses space that 4-4-2's don't cover and it can be adjusted when using a weaker team to work and adjusted for a stronger team to work for example i took aston villa to the EPL title and champs league Q/F in 2 seasons. my tactic is available at fmdownloads.net and is in the FM2007 tactics file and is saved under the name 4231 V6 Aston Villa Oct 2008.tac and there is also a thread in the a
training a tactics forum about it called 4-2-3-1 development if you want to check it out.

so all in all the 4-4-2 is a good tactic but it can be beat:thup:

Jumbalumba

I actually used a counter attacking 532 in my first game with a lower league team (full backs going up to M RL). Worked pretty well.

Of course there can be good tactics with almost all formations. The thing is, 442 is probably the most balanced formation and with the right players it should do well in both attack and defence while with some other tactics, they may be concentrated in certain areas while lacking in others.

bcm

Chelsea does not employ 4-4-2 and win everything.

John M Doe

bcm, do you mean IRL?

If you are mentioning Chelsea in the game that takes us to a hole new level. AI "always" performs better than human managers...

RealMeanDigsy

You get shafted with 442 since the patch - fact.

r0x0r

While i usually play 4-4-2, i've switched to 4-5-1, 5-4-1, 4-3-3 and 3-4-3 mid game before when either leading and struggling or losing and dominating... And every tactic seems to work well in it's own given situation.

Hagi_07

I play a 4-4-2 because i think its a solid base and within the instruction you can manipulate it while still remaining solid.

For me positional weaknesses in my team come from team who play with a DMC and a AMC as these players can find space between my two ranks of 4.

I believe you can make any tactic work well tho i think some may be less solid as a base and require a bit more thinking.

4-4-2 or a variants of it are probably the most widely used tactics in football anyway.

bcm

I meant in the game.