Anyone made a 4-2-4 work?

By 4-2-4 I mean a flat back four and 2 central midfielders with two wingers/inside forwards in the attacking midfield positions and 2 forwards upfront.

Being a Man united fan I prefer my team to play in this formation and I'm loath to change to a 4-5-1 or 4-3-2-1 etc. I know in the modern game most teams don't play with 2 upfront but I find it so difficult to drop a quality forward back into a position I consider as an attacking midfielder.

I just want to have success playing with 2 out and out wingers and 1 advanced forward with 1 DLF. If I change to a flat 4-4-2 it still doesn't work. If I play with an anchor man/regista, a ball winning midfielder, and a box to box midfielder, with 2 inside forwards and 1 DLF or advanced forward then the tactic I've created can face roll everything.

Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember manchester united sides from the early 1990's when they played with 2 out and out wingers ( Kanchelskis and giggs/sharpe ) and 2 strong central midfielders. For me this is the most pure way of playing. I understand the game has moved on and teams need to adapt, but I still want to create a tactic that is successful, plays with width and has players "zipping around", overlapping and generally being nearly impossible to defend against, as I believe that particular United were.

I don't want someone to link an already "known" successful tactic, I'd just like to know if anyone has used the formation and had success with it, and if so then a few tips....especially those stupid 5.5 ratings my fullbacks get every game.

Also seems that SI in this version don't believe that any player can simply be a central midfielder......he has to be a DLP/BBM/BWM. I'd rather not give my central midfielders such direct instructions and allow them to use their brain. I don't think I've come across a single top player whose best position is a straight forward no-nonsense Central Midfielder. I feel I'm being restricted by a players "best position and star rating".

Don't be restricted by whatever "best role" the game tells you to use a player in, it's fairly meaningless, most good central midfield players should be fine as generic central midfielders. It's usually recommended to try "fluid" to use generic roles such as central midfielder, are you using that or going more rigid?

4-2-4 isn't a very stable tactic or indeed a tactic utilized by many sides in real life in current modern football, so I wouldn't expect it to work other than at home vs smaller sides as it's a good formation for attacking when you're expected to win. If I really really had to play it I'd have 2 very static roles in CM (ex a CM/D and a DLP/S), play one forward that drops deep and roams, and play counter/direct away from home in hope the ball reaches those 4 guys upfront quickly, but you'll have little defensive stability regardless. Unfortunately I feel in the current match engine it's difficult to play the ball long in behind the opposing defence, so there goes away most of the benefit of having 4 advanced guys.

4-2-4 is my 2nd fave formation behind 3-4-3.

With the current match engine (ignoring the FB problem) I'm starting to favour one of the strikers in a deeper role with 2 attack minded wingers. Either a defensive forward or a Target man support. The central midfielders I'm going for a BWM defending and an AP (attacking or support). The OP is correct though, sometimes you just want to say to a player "go out there and play it your way".

I was 2-0 down went overload 4-2-4 with 20 minutes to go and won 3-2

@ El Presidente. That is exactly how I've set up my 4-2-4. flat back 4, with the left back ( Alaba ) playing complete wingback (attacking), central midfielders are Carrick as DLP support, and Fellaini as BBM/BWM . I managed to sign Bernard as an out and out winger on the left with support and Valencia on the right as support. The two forwards are Lewandowski as AF and Rooney as DLF support. I think that is pretty realistic. Playing a forward as a poacher simply isn't working for me, no matter what I try.

I have the wingers set to cross often and stay wide in the "Attacking midfield position, ie the line between the 2 forwards and 2 midfielders". When I watch the match engine, all my goals seem to be from corners or from outside the area. Very few come from inside the area and I'm constantly frustrated at how often the two forwards shoot from 30 yards. It's almost like the entire tactic according to the match engine refuses to try and work the ball into better scoring positions ( ie inside the area ). It just results in save after save by the oppositions keeper which bumps his rating up, when all he is doing is saving really crap shots. This in turn makes it more likely he will continue to save shots because he is deemed to be playing really well.

I've played some games over and over and watched the match engine very closely and no matter what I change, the large majority of my shots come from way outside the are. I've changed the fullbacks, I've changed the wingers "cross from instruction", I've tried the wingers as inside forwards who cut inside and play short passes etc. I've tried the fullbacks to cross from deep, as support, as automatic and as attack. It's not like the players I have aren't good enough. I'm just thinking the only way of winning appears to be playing 1 up front, and I really don't want to do that. Liverpool are after all having some success this year playing Suarez and Sturridge.

I've just finished the 2025/26 season with Bolton Wanderers so my players are well... top class. Still having trouble with the Champions' League and keep getting Brentford in the FA Cup Final.

Getting it to work consistently will be tough as most modern tactics stack the midfield, which is a battle a 424 will have loads of trouble winning.

Best place to get advice on making it work would be in the Tactics Forum.

This was my primary formation in FM12.

My AML/R would be IF or W with Support role and one of the forwards a DLF with Support.

Getting it to work consistently will be tough as most modern tactics stack the midfield, which is a battle a 424 will have loads of trouble winning.

Best place to get advice on making it work would be in the Tactics Forum.

This is my point. In the early 90's ( other than AC Milan who played a flat 4-4-2 ), most European teams played a 5-3-2, with the wingbacks essentially acting as the width. Effectively the formation was more like a 3-5-2 because the feeling was that the fullbacks were wingbacks. Most European teams ( Ajax, Bayern, Barca, Juve, Real, Inter ) all played the same formation. In terms of defence, it was essentially 2 regular centre halfs with a libero. The libero could be either a sweeper ( behind the 2 central defenders ) or could sit just in front ( like Sammer did for Inter and Lothar Matthaus did for Bayern / Germany ). West Germany at the time had Andy Brehme and Stefan Reuter, bombing forward. Even so, that allowed a straight forward 4-4-2 exploit the space behind the attacking fullbacks and quite often pulled the left or right centre half away.

That is why Arrigo Sachhi made AC Milan into a flat 4-4-2, even though he had Franco Baresi ( possibly the best natural Libero ever ), and made Baresi into a centre half. Ultimately I understand football has moved on and so has FM 2014 to accomodate new formations. I'd just dearly love to get my team to play like that United team in the early 90's. I won't give in I'll keep tinkering until I make it work

Footy goes through "trendy" formations and coaching styles.

We all remember wingbacks 3-5-2. Nowadays it's the 4-2-3-1 and futsal.

The basics of footy still remain the same and ANY formation (within reason) can work as long as players know what they are doing.

Agreed. My favourite of all time remains the Ajax "Total football", where it didn't matter what position you were picked in, you were good in every position. Every player could flip and change between any position and instinctively know what the role they were expected to perform.

Think this thread has turned into a fondness for great teams of the past. For me that's West Germany and the Dutch in the late 80's, AC milan and Inter and Ajax in the early 90's and Manchester United from the early to late 90's. I should buy a few more DVD's and start looking at Liverpool in the mid to late 70's and early 80's

yes I made this work but with england national team though.

there seam to be a fair few ppl using this formation with manchester united and doing quite well, so maybe you should have a look at this thread, op

I was making it work in 2013, but it's been a disaster in fm14. I was playing it with the fullbacks kicked up to wingbacks, but that ended badly, and even pulling them back to a flat four results in frustration. So, I went back to FM13 until January or whenever the game is fixed.

Been using 4-2-4 as a primary tactic for many editions of FM with Man Utd. It will work if you have a strong squad which dominates over the other teams.

For similar strength teams or close rivals, may have to sacrifice one striker for an AMC/MC/DM depending on how you want to play.

The "Work Ball Into Box" team instruction works quite well at limiting those 30 yard shots.

Also, the main problem with your formation is probably that you're being overrun in midfield. To counter that, you could set your deepest lying forward to man mark their deepest lying midfielder - which would free up your own midfielders more when defending.

It's exactly as Ackter said. When I first started playing FM, I used 442 exclusively. I played with 442 long enough to come to an understanding as to the tactical instructions that best suit this formation. That means I also played 442 for so long that, over time, I naturally began to notice the minor, but existent, flaws that this formation does have. Those flaws are what led me to eventually tinker with new formations enough to create 6 different formations that I use depending on the team I'm playing against, each formation designed to address a flaw that some other formation has or to address a specific situation happening in a match. What I am trying to say is that I still use a 442, but only sometimes. You cannot use a 442 exclusively and win every single time. If you want to use a 442, you will need to accept that. Yes, like Liquid Cool mentioned, there are some things you can do to make the flaws less noticeable, but you can't eliminate them completely. But you can still win sometimes, even most of the time if you have great players and a good understanding of how to counter the strength of other formations.

Play both the DLF and AF on Attack, change one winger to an inside forward on support (the one on the opposite side to the DLF), play the other winger on support. Play one centre mid as a BWM on Defend, the other Centre Mid as an AP on Support, both CBs on Defend, and both FBs on Defend.

Easy / normal opposition set mentality to Attacking, tough / better opposition set mentality to counter attacking. Really tough opposition (like Barca away) set to Counter Attack, and give the team talk "Good Luck" assertively.

Im Liverpool, and have won the league three times on the trot after finishing second my first season, as well as winning the champions league three times in a row. So yeah, if played right it can work.

Yes. And without putting any real effort into it (admittedly with a top side in the first season of the game), though obviously going with a "defensive" mentality and dropping all deep or encouraging your side to play a possession game then completely contradicts the entire idea of going with a bank of four forwards and no midfield to speak of. You want that ball to get up and attack. From memory though, if you field four players all up there, two of them would still somewhat track back reasonably enough when defending, though. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/384210-The-problem-with-FM?p=9419074&viewfull=1#post9419074

Not sure if it's that easy with lesser players in those attacking positions though. On FM 2012 I once build an entire squad pretty much around all physical players that I encouraged to be fed with long balls and crosses from everywhere in a similar shape. It was effective. But on the league level I was competing in there was little competition for those physical stats I explicitly scouted for. Barely a defender was big enough (or rather had the jumping reach) of my forwards.

Whilst this shouldn't be that effective on top levels where teams are skilled enough to play keep-ball, as it's essentially doing a 1980s Watford, it is worth remembering that AI managers aren't as clever as they're always made out to be. A real manager (or rather a human player) may recognize your style and adapt, the AI can only do so much.

I play a flat back four tactic like you say and good.

I used the 4-4-2 but played the wide men as wingers, making a 4-2-4 in attacking sense, the main issue with 4-2-4 in the current game I had was the space left behind the wingers, hence dropping them back

Don't be restricted by whatever "best role" the game tells you to use a player in, it's fairly meaningless, most good central midfield players should be fine as generic central midfielders.

it was the description that says something like "generally lacks the vision, determination and drive to perform more than one role simultaneously" that stopped me from realizing the truth of this earlier, as it simply put me off trying.