A strikerless 4-1-3-2

I’m back, and I have a new strikerless abomination™* for you to check out. When I started messing with tactics for FM17, I decided I wanted to try something different. For the last few versions of FM, my tactical setups have been very similar. My teams always had a base of:

  • Control mentality
  • Very fluid team shape
  • Close down much more (or at the very least close down more)
  • A high defensive line
  • Roam from positions
  • Shorter passing

Basically the sort of thing you’ll see in most of Guido’s tactics on this site, they had been an enormous influence on my tactical thinking ever since I found this blog a few years ago.

This formation started life with strikers, it was one of the tactics that I used over the course of my beta test save.  Due to a series of injuries, I was forced into fielding it as a strikerless system. This didn’t last long, a few matches at most, but when my test save finished, and I couldn’t decide on my long term save I thought I’d investigate it further, the team I chose to do this were Sporting CP.

I chose Sporting as they’re one of the better sides in their league, I wanted to test it out with good players but not elite level. Also, they’re in Europe, The Champions League to be precise and I thought that the counter-attacking nature of this tactic would be well tested against the bigger clubs in the competition.

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Liberotastic

I’ve been meaning to write this up for ages but never really found the time until now. This is my take on a strikerless formation featuring a libero, something I wanted to try for a while but had to wait until I found a suitable player to retrain as a sweeper. This came towards the end of my tenure as C.D. Torrevieja boss, I had some of the world’s best players at my disposal and it seemed the perfect time to give this a try.

Before I get into the tactic I have to say I would have never been able to get this to work without the sterling work of Guido on this site, particularly Project Arrowhead and The Four Horsemen, and another tactical write-up I borrowed/learned from As Cunning As A Box With A Tail On It Calling Itself A Box over at the higher tempo press. If you haven’t read the articles I’ve linked here you should do yourself a favour and check them out.

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The evolution of my 4-4-2-0

I will try to keep my introduction short and sweet, because boy, have I got a treat for you. I am really into interacting with the people who read my inane ramblings and sometimes, these interactions result in a thing of beauty. People giving their own unique perspective on my ideas. They add their own specific flavour to the exisiting ideas and damn, it’s lovely. This time, I am proud to showcase work by Edward (@edwardbomb) and his strikerless and semi-strikerless 4-4-2. Give it a read, give it a go and don’t be afraid to comment.

Guido (more…)