In my (simplistic) mind, there are two ways to view tactics and your team. You either shape your tactics around your squad. Or, alternatively, you shape your squad around your tactics. Historically I've always tended towards the latter. There may be tweaking as I go, but pretty much I tend to decide on a formation for my team at the start of a season and then bring in players to fill the slots. It might not be ideal, and it does tend to lead to large player turn-over each summer, especially at the beginning of a save, but it is the way I play.
With FM, of course, we then have roles within positions and FM18 adds four new ones to the ever-expanding list. I might tweak those as I go, or play with player duties, but for the mostpart, I stick with a formation for a season. I like to have a happy squad (don't we all?) and the idea, for example, of bringing in a DM to cover that slot when we only play with a formation containing a DM one in every five or six games seems a recipe for disharmony to me. Better to have one 'general' formation that I tweak, than two or three very different ones that require different players.
As a Grimsby Town fan I have inherited a love of 4-4-2. Our most successful years were achieved with this most basic of formations. Two up top, two flying wingers, a battler alongside a creator in the middle and a flat back four keeping it tight. No messing. In FM, however, I struggle with the idea of playing AML/R players in the ML/R slots. Philosophically it seems wrong to me. I just can't do it. Therefore I can't bring myself to play 4-4-2.
Having said that, I did play it for a few seasons in my Cleethorpes save on FM16. Ish. It was sort of a doctored 4-4-2. It was my starting formation, in fact. Looking at formation 1 below (which looks like a number 2, I just realised!), you can see what I did. I dropped one of the CMs back to a DM to provide a bit of assymetrical cover for the top-heavy formation. The formation worked for me as I had superior players. I don't know if it would have worked otherwise.
As if to prove that point, as I moved up the leagues it became less effective. There seemed to be a disconnect between my forwards and my midfield. To try to deal with that I pulled one of my strikers back to become an AMC, while playing with two CMs as in formation 2 above. Again, decent scouting meant players playing well below their actual level and I muscled through my promotions. So many goals were scored by one winger crossing to the other to tap in at the far post. My two wingers often outscored my targetman.
A few years later I stumbled across the Strikerless website. As the name suggests it is predominantly focussed on formations that play without a striker. And yet they seemed to work, for Guido at least. I was intrigued and decided to give it a go. I binned all my strikers and wingers one summer, invested funds in AMCs and held my breath. Formation 3 was the formation I purloined. I have to say, it was successful and some of the football my team played was beautiful. I won promotions and cups. But something was missing. Philosophy hit hard. I missed my wingers and playing without a striker was a struggle for me. I was a striker when I played. I couldn't condone abandoning my fellow goal-getters!
By now, Cleethorpes Town were in the Premiership and I could pick up some real quality players. I reverted to widemen and one up top, as in formation 4. Instead of the AMC we'd had in formation 2 I dropped him back to the DMC slot. I decide to branch out a little though, the AML/R became Raumdeuters while the DMC was a Regista. Something a little different. A little continental. And it brought some success, Champions League football and a loss in the 2026/27 CL final (3-2 to Benfica, the buggers!). The football was nice too. But after three seasons, and getting ready for FM18, I fancy a change.
Now I've always been intrigued by the Libero role. The idea of some Beckenbauer type mopping up at the back before striding forward with the ball, releasing someone wide on the wing and then arriving late into the box to slot home. What's not to love? I really want to get a formation like that working. As mentioned before, my indoctrination with 4-4-2 means I am predisposed to two up top. Not wanting to leave the middle empty means a three-man midfield, each with different duties to give me some depth and then the width will come from my fullbacks. Formation 6 is what I have dreamed up. This is what I need to get to work. I toyed with WBs rather than FBs, but I hate the idea of opposition wingers getting down the sides and behind my team so I maintain the flat back four with the libero behind.
"But wait!" I can hear you cry. "You're going to be playing with Blyth in the National League North, right? You might struggle a little to find the definitive Beckenbauer". Don't worry, my friends. I am hearing you. I am going to have to abandon the Libero-experiment until later in my save, I think. I understand I might have been asking too much of players at level 6.
And that's where formation 5 above comes in. It takes my successful formation 4, keeps it 4-3-3-ish, but then removes the complications of Raumdeuters and Registas. Simplification is the name of the game with an Anchorman, two CMs, IFs cutting in to hit the channels and fullbacks overlapping outside. And that's where I intend to start in FM18.
However, having said all of that however, perhaps a Mezzala - Carrilero partnership might dominate the middle of Croft Park. Something to dwell on, I think. 10th November isn't too long away...
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