Wide midfielders helping in the center. How?

Suppose I'm playing 4-4-2 against a 4-5-1 formation. Since I'm outnumbered in the middle of park, how do I set up my wide midfielders to come inside and tackle/close down their CMs to nullify their number superiority in the middle? (just like in real life) I've tried lots of different roles/duties but I still can't defend solidly and prevent chances.

Anyone?

Like many other modern tactical commands, its not possible in FM due to a fairly (imo) rigid tactics engine.

well your going to be out numbered no matter what, if your wide players come inside to close down your going to get hammered on the wings, if your struggling you should look at changing your tactics to counter the extra man in midfield, either play a defensive forward to help out the midfield or drop someone back in to help, or push a centre back forward into more of a stopper role playing a high line.

I know I can set up a different formation to counter that but that's not the point. See in real life, Stoke City always line up as 4-4-2 against all kinds of opposition formations and still manage to stifle them and play solidly. Their wingers are always 'tucked in' supporting their CMs and also taking care of the wings. How do you achieve that in FM?

I know I can set up a different formation to counter that but that's not the point. See in real life, Stoke City always line up as 4-4-2 against all kinds of opposition formations and still manage to stifle them and play solidly. Their wingers are always 'tucked in' supporting their CMs and also taking care of the wings. How do you achieve that in FM?

Not sure if this would work, but you anc instruct your wingers to cut inside. If they are cutting inside wouldn't this mean they would by more in the centre. Dont know if this is just for attacking play though, maybe others could help

Have you tried playing with a narrow width, as set in the Team Advanced instructions? You could also try using the 'Play Narrower' tactical shout. By definition, this should make your formation more compact, leaving more space on the wings, but at least your wide midfielders should be closer to the the opposing CMs.

Firstly I'd say, play wide mids instead of out and out wingers. Then set width narrower in team instructions and push your def line up. Like Milnerpoint says though, if the AI manager is any good he'll just use the wings.

Like irl 4-4-2 is a hiding to nothing against good teams playing 4-5-1/4-3-3 etc...

Yeah playing wide mids instead of wingers with very high closing down might help, but a 4-5-1 will take you apart down the wings, not every tactic can be countered with a 4-4-2 unfortunately. In regards to Stoke i dont really think Pennant is the type of player who pushes into the middle to help close down, he hugs the touchline looking to beat his man and get balls into the box to the big strikers stoke like playing, the same on the otherside, what stoke do have is a fantastic team work ethic. Their strikers play a big role in their defensive shape by closing down the defense and deep lying midfielders very quickly which means they dont get over run through the middle.

Yes as already said you need to play more narrowly. 4-4-2's advantage is that if balanced correctly it has superior numbers both in attacking play and on the defense.

The problem with this is that in FM(11 at least) the midfield gets played through very easily despite numbers because passing is universally accurate. The solution is to close the gap between the three phases (defense, midfield, attack) either by deploying players in between them in the form of defensive and attacking midfielders or by pushing up the defensive line while instructing the midfield to lie deeply (rarely run forwards). Of course, then the gap up to the forwards would be quite large, so close that gap by telling the strikers to lie deep as well.

If you do this + play narrowly, you will have a very compact team. Success isn't guaranteed when doing this, though. I usually reduce width only when I make counter-attacking/defensive tactics, since the correct width is important to have the forwards receive the ball at the right angle to the goal. This, I have found, is the first notch on Wide (imo).