4-5-1 Wingers High (or, 4-2DM-1-2-1: An Antidote to Opposition 4-2-3-1)

[iFortunatus]

I think the file currently has the Left-Back set to support duty and a conventional attacking winger ahead of him. But you can swap to Left-Back_Attack and Inside Forward_Support in-game if you have the players to play those roles in that way.

4-5-1 Wingers High
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fj4q9ep1j3aqd7z/4-5-1%20Wingers%20High.zip

I think it's updated left back is attack + inside forward, giving it a go with Ipswich currently lying 20th not playing FM in a while and my old tactics don't seem to work with new patch

 

[iFortunatus]

Also, training and OI?

 

[rocheyb]

Also, training and OI?

View attachment 343568 View attachment 343567 View attachment 343566

The screenshots show:
- My First Team coaches who are each designated a specific area of expertise (I use the smart phone app FMCoachCalculator when assessing potential new signings for backroom staff to ensure they are an improvement on what I already have)
- General Training instructions (ignore the reference to 3-5-2 in the top right)
- Team Instructions for 4-5-1 Wingers High

For Opposition Instructions, I don't set any for goalkeepers or defenders*, but for midfielders and forwards I set:
- Closing Down: ALWAYS
- Tackling: NORMAL
- Show Onto: WEAKER FOOT

*For teams that play 5 at the back and/or advanced wing-backs, I set these instructions for those wide men, too. Defending a lead against Everton, for example, might also include setting these instructions for Leighton Baines.

 

[rocheyb]

FOOTBALL MANAGER IS BETTER THAN REAL LIFE: No.347

View attachment 343296 View attachment 343295 View attachment 343294 View attachment 343293

I mentioned, didn't I, that this formation is not as defensive as it may first appear if you have good players in key positions. Liverpool are a mid-table team by this point in my save, but this is still a solid beating to dish out to them.

 

[rocheyb]

REVENGE IS SWEET

View attachment 341119 View attachment 341118 View attachment 341117 View attachment 341116

An Alberto Cerri inspired Porto destroyed my European Champions League dream with a 1-3 defeat in the Final of 2023. So it's pretty sweet revenge to smash them in the 1st leg of our 2025 quarter-final tie - playing my 4-5-1 Wingers High formation.

Again, the opposition's 4-2-3-1 got bogged down among the sheer weight of bodies of my hard tackling midfield. And with central midfielders playing direct passes and Stangoni pulling the strings as the Advanced Playmaker in the M_C position, we were able to attack and counter-attack at pace - down the flanks, through the middle and in the channels.

- The first goal was a worldy from Stangoni, striking a half-cleared corner from 25-yards, from the left side of the area into the top right corner.
- Stangoni also scored goal No.2 which was a classic counter-attack; Kaminski heads away a Porto corner at the back post and Powell picked it up in midfield, carried it out to the right-hand side and went past the full-back on the inside. With three defenders converging on Powell, he picked out Stangoni unmarked on the penalty spot and he placed his shot into the far left corner.
- The 3rd was a high left-wing corner from Sercan Calik that Rutten headed towards the near post. The ball hit Mangala on the shoulder and dropped to Jason Saville for a close range finish.
- Luke Shaw completed the rout with a 30-yard free-kick, flashing the ball past the Porto keeper into the top left corner.

Having already won the Capital One Cup for the 7th consecutive season, we're up against mid-table Championship outfit Huddersfield Town next in the FA Cup Semi-Final. And we're sitting 4pts behind Chelsea in the Premier League but with two matches in-hand; so the Quadruple is on... thanks in no small part to my ability to switch formations from match-to-match and rotate players in-and-out according to their individual strengths, preferred positions and best roles.

 

[rocheyb]

CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE

I created this thread as a thinking-out-loud exercise in tackling the top teams in FM who play the 4-2-3-1 system, and no other team epitomises that description more than Chelsea. As successful as I have been during the course of my Southampton save, The Blues are the most dominant team in England and the one that I am still trying to overhaul. They are still managed by Jose Mourinho (I'm now up to pre-season 2025/26) and have won the Premier League 6 times during the course of my save and lifted the European Champions League on 4 occasions. Inevitably then, whenever I get to the latter stages of any competition, Chelsea are usually standing between me and a bright, shiny trophy.

And so it transpired in 2024/25 that it was Chelsea who were matching me win-for-win in the Premier League, Chelsea who won through to face us in the FA Cup Final and Chelsea who stood between me and my first ever European Champions League title in FM.

Obviously form, fitness and the odd suspension meant that I couldn't field the same team in every match, but in all five of my encounters with Jose Mourinho and his men I played this 4-5-1 Wingers High formation... and these are the results, including those matches that I have already detailed earlier in this thread:

SOUTHAMPTON 3-0 CHELSEA Capital One Cup - 4th Round; St. Mary's Stadium
CHELSEA 0-0 SOUTHAMPTON Premier League - Matchday 10; Cole Stadium
SOUTHAMPTON 0-0 CHELSEA Premier League - Matchday 27; St. Mary's Stadium
CHELSEA 0-2 SOUTHAMPTON FA Cup Final; Wembley Stadium
SOUTHAMPTON 2-0 CHELSEA European Champions League Final; Estadio da Luz

FA Cup Final:

View attachment 340595 View attachment 340594 View attachment 340593 View attachment 340592

European Champions League Final:

View attachment 340590 View attachment 340589 View attachment 340588 View attachment 340587

So in 450 minutes of football, Chelsea - the most successful team in England - did not manage to score a single goal. They had a total of 13 shots on target across the five matches; we had 14 in just one match and 36 in total. They still pipped me to the Premier League, though, to make it three titles in-a-row for them. With fixtures and injuries piling up during the last three weeks of the season, my patched-up side lost 0-2 at relegation threatened Coventry in the penultimate match of the league campaign - playing my alternative 3-5-2 formation - and handed the initiative back to Mourinho. But we finished the season on 93pts, which would have been more than enough to win the title in every season of my save except the last two, in both of which Chelsea have amassed 94pts.

But we beat them to win the FA Cup for the 6th time (5 times in FM) and I achieved my ultimate FM ambition of winning the European Champions League with a dominant display in Lisbon. I also won the Capital One Cup for the 7th consecutive season, so another treble isn't bad (to add to the Premier League, Capital One, Europa League successes of 2019).

Manchester United were 3rd in the Premier League and they, still under David Moyes, also play 4-2-3-1. So using my system against them, the results were:

SOUTHAMPTON 3-0 MANCHESTER UNITED Capital One Cup - Qtr Final; St. Mary's Stadium
MANCHESTER UNITED 1-0 SOUTHAMPTON Premier League - Matchday 19; Old Trafford
MANCHESTER UNITED 0-0 SOUTHAMPTON FA Cup - 6th Round; Old Trafford
SOUTHAMPTON 3-1 MANCHESTER UNITED FA Cup - 6th Round Replay; St. Mary's Stadium
SOUTHAMPTON 2-0 MANCHESTER UNITED Premier League - Matchday 36; St. Mary's Stadium

Laying the results out like this causes me to notice that the best results I got away from home against United and Chelsea were all 0-0, while we dominated at home and at neutral venues. That doesn't cause me any concern though; we're consistently getting the better of the top teams and I know that the slips came at home to Fulham on the opening day of the season and in that defeat to Coventry when my entire squad was dead on its feet in the midst of a run of 7 matches in 18 days.

To conclude this thread then, although I don't use it for every match, I think I have proved my point that this 4-5-1 Wingers High tactic works for its intended purpose.

View attachment 340583​

 

[iFortunatus]

What's your training instructions and opposition

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[rocheyb]

What's your training instructions and opposition

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

Asked (by YOU!) and answered four posts up... ^^^

 

[RichB17]

I've been impressed with the detail you go into on these threads and the success you've had with Southampton. It's actually ironic that this specific formation is the one Jose Mourinho used the most to win the treble with Inter Milan, although playing style is different. I do have a few questions though.

1. Do you still use you're preset instructions for this formation that you also use in your 4-4-1-1 (Clear Favourites, Slight Favourites etc.)?
2. Do you use the 2D or 3D viewer and at what speed? Does one or the other help you understand the game more?
3. What triggers you into changing the tactics/instructions during a game? Is it based on statistics, what you see or both?
4. Do you have much success with the 3-5-2 you use? It would seem difficult to me to have a squad built that can have players seamlessly fit into a back three and four which is why I ask this question.

 

[rocheyb]

I've been impressed with the detail you go into on these threads and the success you've had with Southampton. It's actually ironic that this specific formation is the one Jose Mourinho used the most to win the treble with Inter Milan, although playing style is different. I do have a few questions though.

1. Do you still use you're preset instructions for this formation that you also use in your 4-4-1-1 (Clear Favourites, Slight Favourites etc.)?
2. Do you use the 2D or 3D viewer and at what speed? Does one or the other help you understand the game more?
3. What triggers you into changing the tactics/instructions during a game? Is it based on statistics, what you see or both?
4. Do you have much success with the 3-5-2 you use? It would seem difficult to me to have a squad built that can have players seamlessly fit into a back three and four which is why I ask this question.

RichB17 - good questions one-and-all; let's hope my answers do them justice:

1. Do you still use you're preset instructions for this formation that you also use in your 4-4-1-1 (Clear Favourites, Slight Favourites etc.)?
No, not anymore - and not even in the 4-4-1-1. My team is favourite for almost every match now - we won the European Cup last season - and I use this 4-5-1 Wingers High formation for the really good teams who play 4-2-3-1. But I don't think it hurts to think in those terms if you are earlier on in your save than me (I'm in season 2025/26). It was kind of a phase that helped me to gain understanding of how this game works.

You have to appreciate that when I wrote each thread, it represented my "current thinking" in FM, but as I progress through the game and continue to experiment and learn from other Forum posters etc, my thinking develops in different directions over time. But everything that I have written is knowledge that I have and can call upon during my save. The purpose of writing it is to just encourage other FMers to approach the game in a similar way - not necessarily to adopt the same tactics as me or attempt to plot the same tactical development - so I still paste links to my threads in answer to people's questions if I think it will help them to read it.

2. Do you use the 2D or 3D viewer and at what speed? Does one or the other help you understand the game more?
I use the 3D animation view, set on Comprehensive highlights. I don't know the speed setting but it's slow enough that I can commentate in my head, as though I was Jonathan Pearce! I like to watch the match and see how my players are playing - passing, tackling, running off-the-ball - and how the opposition is stopping us. If crosses are consistently getting headed out, then I know I need to start drilling crosses or playing into the channels. If the crosses are getting blocked at source, that's an indication that I need to up the tempo and get us playing one-and-two touch football. It's also a more realistic way to watch football and you feel the weight of every goal, for-and-against. Takes ages, though.

I enjoy watching my team play the way I like to see football played; possession-based short passes with key players trusted to play more direct to spread the play and exploit the wings for crosses and clever passing moves into the box; attacking at pace; midfield pressing high to win the ball back early and recycle into another attack by switching the play and attacking the space; full-backs getting up in support etc etc. It also helps that the 3D view for St. Mary's is actually pretty accurate and quite close to the view I had from the Kingsland Stand when I had a season ticket a few years ago.

3. What triggers you into changing the tactics/instructions during a game? Is it based on statistics, what you see or both?
It's pretty much based on what I see, but I do check over the Match Stats at half-time as a way of ensuring that my interpretation of the game is accurate. I do get surprised sometimes. Occasionally, I just pick the wrong tactics to start with and when we go behind and I can see that we're not getting back into it as things are, I try to figure out how best to rescue the situation. Last season, I began with 3-5-2 at West Brom and was 0-2 down at half-time. Then I switched to 4-4-1-1 and won the match 3-2 with an injury time winner. Just now, though, I opted for my new 5-3-2 with Regista for a trip to Fulham; 0-1 down at half-time and nowhere in the match; switched to 4-5-1 Wingers High and was 0-2 down 46 seconds into the second-half. Tried some more changes but never got anywhere near getting into the game. That's my fault - I rested too many players in preparation for the European Super Cup against Manchester City.

As I mentioned before, if crosses are getting blocked that means you need to up the tempo so for that I also switch off Retain Possession to get them moving the ball quicker and taking a few more risks. We're usually good in the air but sometimes you need to get a fast attacker down the side of the centre-back to shoot on-goal. Occasionally I might use a DM to man-mark a pesky oppo No.10 who keeps getting free, or if I think that will strangle the supply to their forwards.

4. Do you have much success with the 3-5-2 you use? It would seem difficult to me to have a squad built that can have players seamlessly fit into a back three and four which is why I ask this question.
I did for a while, particularly in winning matches by big scorelines; several 4-0s, 6-0s and 6-1s. I never quite worked out the defensive aspect of it but going forward the combination of my Advanced Playmaker running at defences and opening them up, with a False-9 ready to shoot from distance on his right and an Advanced Forward ready to be played in was very potent. The wingers were Wide Midfielder_Support and they were pushed out to the flanks to provide more angles of attack, and they scored plenty of goals themselves. Then it stopped being so effective. I don't know whether other teams worked us out or I made too many changes to the squad - but changing my tactics as I progress through the game is part of my strategy!

In terms of squad building, you need a mix of specialists and versatile players and then you rotate throughout the season. I try to get academy players into my first team and retrain them, and any young players that I sign, to play alternative positions. I always have one player or other grumbling about lack of first team opportunities but you need a big squad, particularly towards the end of the season when the fixtures pile up and at least three of them get injured for the title run-in. I can think of a few players that I have sold who were surplus to requirements at the time but who would be very well suited to tactics I'm using now - but I made good money on those players and I have since recruited younger, potentially better ones.

I just can't stop losing to ****** Fulham, though! That's twice in two seasons...