What Does It Do?: What Does It Do? - The Traditional 4-4-2.

By Luke - The Football Manager Addicts and Luke's Stories of An FM Addict

Welcome to the second blog of 'What Does It Do?'! My blog series was set up because I had been getting a growing number of requests to talk about how tactics work on Football Manager and insights into what I'm thinking when I'm making my wacky formations!

Anyway, today I'm going to be running through what the traditional 4-4-2 shape will give you on this years edition of Football Manager!

The 'Traditional' 4-4-2.

At least in my mind, the 'Traditional 4-4-2' features the most mundane role's on the game, the players are also set up in three flat banks and there is usually a big striker and a little striker.

Yep, it's boring but the 4-4-2 can be extremely effective!

As you can see it is pretty obvious how this tactic plays: the team will not through everyone forward or keep them all back, they will look to get the ball wide and put it into the box where one of the strikers will knock it down to the other and they will smash it home (at least that's the idea!).

The Pro's

As you can imagine the tactic above is defensively strong, you wont surrender goal's easily. With this formation your team will also play with a lot of width: you will test both the oppositions full-backs (with one-on-ones) and the centre-halves with your crosses.

Your goalkeeper and centre-halves will look to distribute the ball long up field: hence your two central midfielders may become isolated. However the do seem to see a lot of the ball because of snappy wall passes and 1-2's. This means that you'll need two solid CM's but they will need a stand out first touch and brilliant passing.

Another strong point of this tactic is that it doesn't take long to train up so it is ideal for any quality of team: Bognor Regis or Bayern Munich, it should do the job.

The Con's

Unfortunately when operating with this formation you will have less of the ball then usual. This tactic isn't meant to produce Tik-Taka because there are no triangles on the pitch: therefore it's more geared to latitudinal passes up the pitch.

Another concern people have with this formation is that the full-backs contribute very little (especially in the January update). On Football Manager wing-backs work significantly better but if you used them in this formation it can upset the balance of your team.

Does It Actually Work?

Yes, it does actually work (well most of the time!).

I tend to find this tactic most effective with teams that play at a low level: I regularly use this tactic on my Gibraltar save and any other lower league saves I do. Although I have had success with it at the highest level too!

Here is how I got on with Trojan Horse United against Steve Kean FC!