4-4-2 2016

The 4-4-2 formation, despite its limitations, is still one of the most popular formations used in world football – and therefore is extremely popular with players on FM2016. The popularity emanates from, amongst other things; the wide usage in the lower regions of English football so is therefore at the forefront of peoples minds when it comes to setting a team up. Many football fans will also recall the ‘golden age’ of English football, where the majority of teams such as the treble winning Man Utd side of 1999 or the Arsenal invincibles used such a formation. The formation has also been used widely by the English national team – it is very much an ‘English’ footballing formation, however it did make a strong impact in Italy throughout the 1980’s.

There is however a lot of criticism about the flexibility of the 4-4-2 in the modern game, and whether it can stand up to modern day adaptions of the 4-5-1 which provide different styles of defensive cover whilst still providing the usual attacking flair necessary to score goals. This criticism came to a head after England’s defeat at the hands of Germany in the World Cup in South Africa – where they were comprehensively outplayed by a modern, forward thinking coach and young players that bought into his way of playing.

With all of this being said – I am aiming to create a 4-4-2 for the modern day on FM2016 – one that will stand up against the might of Pep Guardiola’s free flowing possession heavy 4-3-3 and Jose Mourinho’s impenetrable 4-2-3-1. It will be heavily reliant on possession and playing the ball from the back, and won’t feature ‘wingers’ in the traditional sense – however my plan at the minute is to keep the ‘little and large’ strikeforce that was so prevalent throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s in British football – to what extent I’m unsure yet. Readers of my threads in the past can probably guess what team I plan on using to create this – Newcastle United. I’m thinking my lineup will go something as follows, but I haven’t actually opened Football Manager yet, so it could be subject to change.


More to follow!