The 4-4-2 Examined

[salt&pepper]

1.- Introduction

1.1- why does this exist?

I am making this post as a guide to the different ways of playing Football Manager with a 4-4-2 formation. As my first time posting in an online forum it is also an attempt at comparing my ideas about football and FM with those of others. This Topic intends to be (as the name implies) a place where one can consult informed opinions and guidance about the formation and roles employed in it.

1.2- Who will provide this information?

I will make all my knowledge available to the readers in what I hope is an easy to understand style, because this is my first time doing anything of the sort I apologise in advance for any hard to understand parts that could appear an any information I forget to mention out of either ignorance or negligence.

I invite any users who believe they have important information to share about the topic to post it so as to make this thread a proper compendium of all knowledge surrounding the formation.

2.- The 4-4-2 in history

2.1- A brief history

According to Jonathan Wilson the russian player and then coach ViKtor Maslov invented the 442 formation back in the 50's and employed it to great success in eastern Europe. It is possible that the great Lobanovsky learned his trade from Maslov since they both worked at Dinamo Kiev for a year. In england the 4-4-2 was dominant during the 80's with Liverpool refining it into a short passing flowing movement machine that dominated both the isle and the continent. During the early 90's it was most famously used by AC Milan under Arrigo Sacchi. in 1999 Man Utd would win a treble using a classical 4-4-2 formation after having experimented with a 4-4-1-1 (or 4-2-3-1 depending on who you ask) to accommodate Eric Cantona. in the early 2000's Arsenal managed to win the premier league with an unbeaten run based on the 4-4-2. During the late part of last decade and early part of this one the 4-4-2 lost prominence with three man formations overtaking it in popularity and apparently leaving it outdated but the efforts of Ancelotti at madrid, Simeone at Atlético, Raineri at Leicester and Jardim at Monaco amongst others showed that there is still place in modern football for the 4-4-2.

2.2- My personal story with the 4-4-2

When I started growing an interest in football I disliked the 4-4-2. I lived in Spain at the time and the 4-4-2 was used by underdog teams against giants Madrid and Barcelona and it often lost, I therefore saw the 4-4-2 as a formation for losers. My father had a big collection of documentaries and films about different football clubs and I once decided to watch them all to understand the history of the sport. I was amazed by the english sides of the early premier league but most of all I fell in love with the Milan of Arrigo sacchi and I started to look at the 4-4-2 with different eyes.

In 2014 I was able to experience Simeone's wonderful title win, I recall I saw at least 30 of the matches played by Atlético that season and the year later I started playing football manager. At the time I used other people's tactics since I was unable to make my own tactics work and most of them did not employ the 4-4-2. By the time fm17 came out I had read enough post in this and other forums to employ my own tactics and I started using different 4-4-2s.

3.- Partnerships

3.1- What is a partnership?

A partnership is a combination of roles that compliment each other by allowing one player to focus on a part of his game while the other takes care of those duties neglected by the first. The 4-4-2 is dependent on this partnerships to function as a unit. I believe the correct way to think of a 4-4-2 is as a set of five partnerships that must work well as independent units but also as a group. This five partnerships are: the front 2, the midfield duo, the defensive pair, the left flank and the right flank.

3.2- The front two

The front two is perhaps the most important part of the 4-4-2 in terms of attacking. Most lone striker tactics rely on the midfield support to create chances to score but in a 4-4-2 the strikers don't run the risk of becoming as Isolated as in say a 4-3-3. The main striker partnerships all consist of a Goalscorer and a Chance creator. A nº9 and a nº10: There are many ways of setting up this system:

  

These are not the  only possible combinations but they are some of the most common partnerships you could see. The creator is almost always deeper than the goalscorer so it is important to create the space necessary for them two play at their best. There is no perfect way to set up this combination as you can have a short man big man combination, a striker dropping deeper, a striker making space for the other to run into...etc...etc.

3.3- The midfield duo

Because there are only two midfielders it is important that one of them be a holding midfielder and the other a mobile midfielder. it is also important that one of them plays a defensive role and the other a chance creating role. Again there is no by the book way of setting up these duo:

  

Most of the times the holding midfielder is the one taking care of the defensive duties but as Raineri showed with his Leicester side there is nothing stopping a team from working with a mobile defensive midfielder. This is perhaps the most difficult part of any 4-4-2 tactic, these two will either end up being two adventurous and concede space behind them or too conservative and not help in the attack. When it comes to choosing players they should both be good all rounders despite sharing different responsibilities since they lack a third partner that can focus completely on defensive duties.

3.4- The defensive pair.

Like with all four at the back formations there are two main ways to set up this partnership in terms of roles. You can either go for the flat double pivot or a stopper and cover combination:

 

To me their one key difference is that because of the vertical space created between the stopper and cover pair they are ill suited to play with an offside trap. This is the most limited area in terms of choice as we can not have marauding centre-backs as of today. The players in this position can be either fast or tall, technically gifted or hardcore defenders, in the end the players' attributes and traits end up becoming more important than the roles themselves.

3.5- the flanks

The flanks can be divided into overlapping and non overlapping flanks. in an overlapping flank the wide midfielder plays narrower, covers for the fullback when he runs high up the pitch and links up with him when he attacks while in a non overlapping partnership the wide midfielder provides the attacking width andthe full back provides the cover.

 

When choosing the roles for you flanks I found that it falls down to the choice of wide players amongst your squad, depending on how they play you then choose to have an overlapping or non overlapping partnership. Overlapping partnerships can prove vulnerable in defence so I like having the more defensive midfielder play next to them to provide defensive cover.

4.- The 4-4-2 as a unit

4.1- 5 partnerships working together

As said in point 3.1 the five partnerships must work well together. Allow me to take an example from real life: Man Utd 99, which I am choosing because of how simple it is to set it up:

We have a flat defensive pair, an overlapping right flank, a non overlapping left flank, a defensive holding midfielder with a roaming playmaker and a poacher + creator striker partnership. With one or two team instruction per category you have a fully functioning replication of the 1999 side. This is just an example of a 4-4-2, if I wanted to replicate the 99 red devils I would have to scout for different players with the right attributes and traits since those along with roles are for me the most important things in a tactic. There is no "play like Man Utd" instruction to choose, how a player behaves comes down to role+traits.

Next post will be a 4-4-2 I intend to use on my next save and will include further discussion on role+traits determining how a players works.

 

[sovy666]

Great start for a topic! As a personal preference I would switch the central midfielder pair to take advantage of the space created by attacking winger and poacher for th roaming playmaker and to have the CM - De on the same flank of FB - At to cover but it all depends by the other instructions of the system. I'm waiting for the next post as I'm a 4-4-2 hardcore fan. Keep it up!

[Experienced Defender]

A very interesting read so far 

I can agree for the most part, except for a couple of things. But generally speaking, I like your logic.

[w1nstar]

Can't wait to read the next post. I've spent countless hours trying to play a 442, and I can't make it work. No matter how good my players are, no matter the "concept" of the 442, it won't work. I find specially hard to counter in FM19, so here's hoping you'll going to counter in your next save!

[Bluebird123]

I'm running a 4-4-2 now with my Atleti side and come a little stuck. Hoping this thread can give me a new direction and some fresh ideas. Great opening post

[salt&pepper]

1.- Low block or high block?

1.1- High block

When I think of a high block in a 4-4-2 I always think of George Graham's (in)famous backline of Adams, Dixon, Winterburn and Bould and their use of an aggressive offside trap to stop their opponents attack. The high block, if properly implemented is a great way of dealing with the direct, long ball football typical of Graham's era. However to implement this form of defending your defenders need good positioning, anticipation, concentration and the quickness to compete with the strikers. Another advantage of the high block is that it goes along nicely with the high press so on paper both "pass and move" football and "longball" football are accounted for. This of course only works if you have a well drilled backline and the players up front are willing to play their part so only big teams tend to go for this option. when smaller teams have tried there are other circumstances to take into consideration. A real life example was Rayo Vallecano which under Paco Jémez played a high defensive line with an intense pressing game despite being clear underdogs against almost all teams in the spanish first division. They did this because their field was very small anyways so there wasn't so much backtracking to do anyways. If memory serves me right they overachieved under Paco Jémez during his first year but got relegated the next one.

1.2- Low block

There are many teams which have employed a low block when fielding a 4-4-2. Like I said in my opening post when teams found themselves as underdogs in Spain they gave up possession and formed two tight banks of four to minimise space and attempted to hit their opponent with fast transitions. Diego Simeone won a league title in 2014 by this very method and recently Valencia had much to celebrate in their centenary when their 4-4-2 strategy of fast transitions and tight defending earned them a shot at winning the champions league and a Copa del Rey against Barcelona.

Reducing the spaces available for the opposition is not the only thing that you can achieve with a low block, it is also a good way to lure the opponent further forwards and exploit the space they leave behind them.

2.- Wolverhampton Wanderers

2.1- My story with the wolves

Three years ago I knew absolutely nothing about the wolves. I didn't even realise that wolverhampton is a real place because it had such an impossibly cool name. Then one day a friend came to me: "You know the guy you told me about, he is going to play in the championship" "The champions league? With whom?" "the championship, with wolversomething". Ruben Neves was going to play in the english second division, I didn't understand, he was perhaps the most promising playmaker in Europe along with Tielemans, why would he go to a "second rate" team like Wolverhampton? Wolverhampton entered the Premier League the following year and signed Rui Patricio, Joao Moutinho and Adama Traoré. I always found rui Patricio underrated, I liked Moutinho quite a lot a few years back and knew Traoré as a Barcelona youth player with great speed but little else going for him. This were three players I liked quite a lot, between that and their cool name it was as if the Wolves were going out of their way to make me a supporter.

So I opened a new save and made the following 4-4-2:

3.- The tactic

3.1- the pure 4-4-2

Whenever I make a tactic I load up a formation and set all the roles into what I call "pure" roles, that is the roles with the most flexibility:

This is what I call the pure 4-4-2, under this roles how your players behave is all up to their traits, except for the strikers, there is no "pure" striker in FM since all the roles have predetermined instructions. I have never played a match with these roles and I never will but I like building my tactics step by step so I always go to the "pure" formations before doing any changes.

3.2- the strikers

So next I take a look at the strikers and decide what partnership I want, because I am playing Wolverhampton and they are not a team full with world class players I decide to go for arguably the simplest partnership of all the tried and tested:

3.3- the wings

Next I focus on the wings, Adama is a very one dimensional player and can only play as a winger so the W(a) was my first decision regarding the wing, next I went for a FB(s) to accompany him, I could have gone for a Irwin like role and chose the FB(d) but while I like solidity in my tactics I think that is a bit too much. I don't like having both wings with the same partnership so I decide to go for a FB(a) on the left. Finally it was time to choose an appropriate ML, he had to allow overlapping, be a passing option for my central midfielders and make his presence felt in the final third despite playing deeper so I gave the WM(s) the instructions to "sit narrower", "cross from deep" and "cross more often" hello mr Beckham.

3.4- the midfield duo

I initially went for a CM(d) and CM(s) combo, which just means I told one of my midfielders to hold. That way I could look at my wings and my Strikers and later decide what I needed from my midfield. My first change was to turn the CM(s) into a BBM so he could join link up with the attackers in zone 14, just outside the opponents area but I was still using a CM(d). Because all a CM(d) is told to do is hold his position he is not a specialist ball winner (he will win balls but he won't focus on defending as much as other roles) but I was not sure about using a different more mobile role. Our Team instructions were the answer to that, I finally decided to use a BWM(d).

Isn't the BWM a very mobile role? yes and no, while he will leave his position to chase the balls we play a narrow and compact defence so while he will chase down the ball like a dog, it is a dog on a leash we are talking about. I made no changes to the keeper or defenders so as of now my 4-4-2 looks like this:

note that because I did not instruct my WM(s) to "cut inside" but rather "sit narrower" he will not bump against my BBM. It is easy to see what I expect each player to do and how they play as a team. This is not a set of roles meant for possession football but a rather more direct approach. 

At this point I play my first games in the pre season with no instructions and choose them as I see how the tactic is working.

3.5- instructions

The numbers indicate the in which order I chose which instructions:

3.5.1.1- Defend narrower: Like I said a low block is about negating space. With defend narrower horizontal space amongst my two banks of four is reduced helping us defend.

3.5.1.2- Much lower LOE: By keeping a standard defensive line but deepening our line of engagement we both lure the teams upwards, making more space for us and defend in a more compact manner, that means our two banks of four are as solid as they could be in structure. These two instructions are the reason I decided on the BWM since the is not that much space he can roam into, like I said he is a dog on a leash.

3.5.1.3- Mark Tighter: We need to make it harder fo our opponent when he has the ball in our own half, this could be done by either marking or pressing. The problem with pressing is that it would shatter our two banks of four (as a general rule pressing works badly with a low block) and make us create a lot of spaces between our players which is exactly the opposite of what we want.

3.5.2.1- throw it long: Rui Patricio is better t distributing with his hands, that is the only reason, If I had a goalkeeper that was better with his feet I would choose take long kicks but this is not the case with the wolves.

3.5.2.2- distribute quicky: I want my goalkeeper to start the counter attacks if he has the ball, just like Schmeichel or Yashin.

3.5.3.1- pass into space: My reasoning was the following. Player A passes the ball to player B, player B receives the ball in position A, Player B moves the ball from position A to position B. 3 steps. While with pass into space I want. Player A passes the ball into position  B, Player B receives the ball in position B. 2 steps. Passing into space is not easy and some balls will be missed but I think this is a way to make our time play more efficiently.

3.5.3.2- Slightly higher tempo: I don't think I need this instruction at all, I am experimenting with options for now, when performing a counter players already go as fast as they can so this is more of an instruction for our non counter attacks and I haven't seen a big change in the way we play.

The question marks are things that are liable to change, for example I chose Cautious mentality in my first match against Liverpool but switched to balance against newcastle and will be tempted to go as far as positive against lower cup opposition.

There is certainly room for improvement especially in terms of squad building. This is not a plug and play tactic, this is simply the earliest steps of a counter attacking tactic, and almost nothing in my tactic is fixed but instead works in a match per match basis.

thank you for the wait, when enough games have been played I will try to go deeper into how we play.

In the meantime I will try to answer all possible questions to the best of my ability.

[salt&pepper]

On 30/05/2019 at 17:23, Experienced Defender said:

A very interesting read so far 

I can agree for the most part, except for a couple of things. But generally speaking, I like your logic.

Could you spare some time to comment on that couple of things?

[Experienced Defender]

27 minutes ago, salt&pepper said:

Could you spare some time to comment on that couple of things?

Of course  

On 30/05/2019 at 08:09, salt&pepper said:

The first thing where I basically disagree is a striker combo of two CFs, because my theory is that in a 2-striker systems one should have a creator role (CF, DLF, F9, TQ), and the other a runner/scorer (PO, AF, PF, TM). So speaking specifically of a CF role, my preferred combos include: CFsu/PO, CFat/TMsu, CFsu/TMat, CFat/PFsu, CFsu/PFat. However, given that I have never tried to play with two CFs at the same time, I allow the possibility that I might be wrong  

And I really cannot remember atm if there was something else in your OP that I may have disagreed about. But again, I really liked it and hope that the second post will be at least as good (I am just about to start reading it).

[Experienced Defender]

I've just read through your second post and I can say you are really on the right track 

You established a good foundation to build upon and make tweaks accordingly.

[carloshcorbalan]

Hola ..... Muy interesante el desarrollo.

Cual seria tu 442 atlético madrid del cholo en este momento ????

[sovy666]

19 ore fa, salt&pepper ha scritto:

3.5.3.1- pass into space: My reasoning was the following. Player A passes the ball to player B, player B receives the ball in position A, Player B moves the ball from position A to position B. 3 steps. While with pass into space I want. Player A passes the ball into position  B, Player B receives the ball in position B. 2 steps. Passing into space is not easy and some balls will be missed but I think this is a way to make our time play more efficiently.

This step is not very clear to me even if using Pass into space as Team instruction is definitely appropriate for the direct style you want to use. Could you explain better maybe with drawings what you meant?