OP 4-2-3-1 Goas Galore & Solid Defense // Won Serie A

Hi guys,

welcome to my last tactic post on Football Manager 2023. My next tactics will be made on FM24.

This 4-2-3-1 is a tactic I used on FM 22, winning a lot of trophies with Milan. I decided to make some changes to adapt it to FM 23 engine, and it worked well as you can see from my results with Juventus.

Despite being a quite attacking tactic, it's also very solid in defense (conceding only 16 goals in 38 games in Serie A.)

I played beautiful football with this tactic, please check my video to see the highlights.


Here is the tactic overview. It's a 4-2-3-1 WIDE



Here we have the tactic in possession. I want my team to build the play patiently, so I used very short passes, narrow width but a slightly higher tempo because I want to dominate the game in an active way.



Here the tactic in transition, I selected counter-press because I want my team to control possession and win the ball back immediately after they lost it, and then counter because I want to launch fast counter-attack instead of wasting time.

Last, the instructions in the defensive phase.
Higher press line and much higher defensive line to reduce the most the space between the lines, this will lead sometimes our team to be weak against long balls played from the defense, but most of the times my defense could stop everything.



Now let's examine players positions and instructions.

Goalkeeper is a sweeper-keeper on attack, no instructions.

My right wing-back is an inverted wing-back (in my fm 22 tactic it was a wing-back on support) because I want to match it with the Segundo volante, the segundo volante on support often runs forward to support the attack, but doing so he leaves spaces behind and that's when my inverted wing-back is useful because he naturally tends to move to the central zones like a midfielder. Inverted wing-back + segundo volante is a great combo in this game.

Here the screenshot of the defensive line.

Inverted wing-back



The two central defenders are both central defenders on defend with the same instructions so I just put one screenshot here.



The left wing-back on support. he helps the attack and also the defense.



Midfield

The segundo volante on support. You can select the get further forward instruction too if you want.



The deep-lying playmaker on the left side, he has only defensive tasks, and he must cover all the left side of the midfield helped by the left wing-back on support.



Attacking midfielders and forward

On the right, an inside forward who can both move wider because the inverted winger will not help a lot on the wider areas and cut inside with the ball



On the left, instead, an inverted winger who has to cut inside and try also to shoot sometimes.



On the center, a shadow striker who can help the central forward to score and posing threats for the defenders who do not know whether to follow him or the central forward. If you have a central forward who plays well as an advanced forward, you can maximise the impact of this attacking combo that on FM 23 works very well, you can try it and change the forward to advanced forward instead of poacher.

But in my FM 22 tactic it worked well with a poacher so I maintained this role.



Last, the poacher: Dusan Vlahovic scored 37 goals in 36 games, it was a great season for him, SERIE A top scorer.



Here some stats, competitions and Serie A.
In Coppa italia I got knocked out by AS Roma.





This is all for my tactic, I hope it works for you too.

A hug from your Arrigo Sacchi.