How to Press in Football Manager

Football in real life in risk vs reward. It's why I believe there are no bad tactics in FM. It depends on how well you train your strengths and minimise your weaknesses. You can find how to do this in this article. The same goes for pressing.

FM 24 is big on pressing. Stopping the opposition from playing is a key aspect of the game if not THE most key aspect of the game and a lot of people have tried it. TheDeeplyingPlaymaker has an interesting take on this and I recommend checking his idea out.

But without further ado, let’s get into why you’re here today.

Pressing Structures in Real Life

I’m not well versed in all the pressing structures that exist but we can all agree that FM mostly uses the roles and duties to influence the pressing shapes that exist.

Anyone that uses a 4231 would more likely see a 442 pressing structure more in the game than any other. But for a 433, getting that 442 structure isn’t a consistent theme, unless from goal kicks.

What if I told you can change that? And even give your team, the 424 High block pressing shape with whatever roles you use?

A consistent pressing structure from Arsenal last season in real life was having their striker split the centre back and forcing play to one side and the team adjusting accordingly eventually leading to a 1v1 battle across the pitch. Like so…


I was able to recreate this in FM 24 and that led to so many high turnovers, and restricting opposition to far less chances, xG, shots, and shots on target.

Granted, player attributes, especially teamwork and work rate was crucial to this being successful (if I had had aggression in my team, it could’ve been more deadly).

Creating this, opened a whole new world in this game for me but before we go into it, I have to warn you, it requires work and constantly watching the opposition's next tactical / substitutional change.

FM 24 Pressing

Have you ever seen a situation where you put a press on a centre back but instead of you forward leading that press, they end up sitting with the opposition’s holding midfielder forcing your wide men to begin the press?

This usually happens when you’re using a 433 formation and the opposition has a single pivot. Whether you mark the holding midfielder or not, your forward always tends to want to sit on them rather than press the centre back, unless you’re using a pressing forward.

What if I tell you you can get them to press the centre back regardless of the role?

The secret to pressing, my fellow managers on FM 24, is man-making. Shocker, I know!

All jokes aside. It is based on strategy and a combination of man-marking, position marking, and opposition instruction. How, you say?

Well, you need to first decide if you want to move players to the wide areas or central (Admittedly, centrally has worked far better for me than out wide. Something I’d look into as to why another time). Mind you, I don’t mean using Out-Of-Possession Team Instruction for it.

Then, you need to know how the opposition sets up. In FM 24, almost every team, even smaller teams play a variation of the 325. Identify how they do theirs, something that can be somewhat seen in the opposition formation. Missing this could break the press.



In the image above, it doesn’t seem bad, right? But the truth is you must identify the players that make up that back three and man-mark them. Since we’re man-marking, it takes a while for the players to break into their defensive shape.

Yes, in FM24, your first line press is different from your defensive shape when it's broken, just like in real life. This is what happens when you don’t.





In the image above (the last one) you can see the flaws of not man-marking the three centre backs.

I usually use positional marking to deal with double pivots systems but man-marking them could mitigate the flaw displayed in the image but I am yet to take that risk because of the need to get back into our defensive shape.

See what I mean about it requiring much work? But it is rewarding though.

You also need to know how roles interact in order to know which player is contributing to the opposition’s 325 shape and how.

Here’s what I mean. A half-back can move between (in a single or double pivot system) or wide (in a double pivot system) of the centre backs to make a three. Yes, Half-back told to stay wide is the Toni Kroos role in FM24.



In the second image, you can see how disjointed the press is because I failed to recognise the roles and duties of the opposition team.

It takes 20 in-game mins for my coaching staff to tell me what role is implemented. Their duties can be sorted by how high or low they are in comparison with the rest of the players in their unit.



Next you want to use man-marking against the three-centre backs, positional marking against the opposition’s midfield and front players in a way that makes your team match against them in man-to-man.

This also includes, just as displayed in the tactical board above, use your fullback to mark the free fullback positionally. You can increase your fullback pressing in the player instruction to aid that while also pressing them in opposition instruction.

Sometimes, your players can be late to the press because of their starting position on the tactical screen but also due to players' attributes. If you find your player constantly being late to back up the press especially in midfield, switch from a positional marking to a man-marking.

One final thing is showing the opposition player to the right foot. What I mean is showing them on the foot that suits how you want to press them regardless of if it's their favourite foot as this helps them angle the press preventing the opposition player from taking the game to a direction that ruins the setup.

When done right, here’s what it looks like.





























The images above are from a sequence of play. You can see how the back three is constantly being pressed. This is not a fluke.

Here’s another image of the backline being pressed.





Again. Risk vs Reward.

A big advantage of this is that since you’re marking them, if you lose the ball higher up in the opposition half, your counter press is almost instant as players are closer to their designated targets.

This makes it easier to force a turnover or make the opposition go long.



















See what I mean?

There is no one way to do this. Play around with the idea and figure out what works for you. Good teams would be able to break it from time to time. Pay attention to how and plug that hole as quickly as possible.

Side note, you will also need players with good teamwork and work rate to pull this off and training. Remember, it’s RISK vs REWARD.

And that’s football.