Secondly, I wanted the tactic to be effective at all levels and for all teams. For example it uses only the most common player roles. I have trialled the tactic on a wide variety of teams, from the top of the Premier League to the bottom of League 2. Using the tactic, great teams become invincible, average teams become great and even extremely poor teams become very good.
As an example, rather than show you a screen full of ‘green dot’ wins – easy to achieve with this tactic using for example any of the top five or six premier league sides - I went to Norwich at the start of the 2019/20 season and loaded the tactic before their half dozen or so pre-season friendlies.
Norwich were the FM favourite to finish 20th in the Premier League. At the time of writing (March 2020), in real life they languish in 20th place with a mere 21 points from 29 games.
During my season with Norwich I neither bought nor loaned a single player; I hired no staff. I spent most of the time on holiday, returning only once a month to resolve any player tantrums. All training and all player selection for all matches was done by the staff I inherited. Moral was never better than average due mainly to zero playing time for most of the squad, the complete lack of contract renewals and the very poor training regime.
On 21/01/2020 Norwich beat Chelsea 1-0 with a measly average player rating of less than 6.7. That is the measure of this truly great tactic. Norwich went on to finish the season in 9th place with 57 points, only five points off a Euro cup qualifying place.
It makes you wonder how well they might have done with a decent manager at the helm?
Tip; Wingers generally do very well in the inverted attack roles whether or not on their wrong foot. Even when playing badly they are fundamental to the success of this tactic.
Discussion: FM 2020 Tactic: Play the beautiful 4-1-4-1 attacking game
7 comments have been posted so far.
FBS would be far more realistic as would WMA as opposed to IWA.
The roles of BDP & HB are also heavily reliant on certain skilled players. I doubt you would find suitable players to achieve this at lower levels.
In the 3rd season I was in 3rd place in the league, lost the cup final against Benfica and was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the euro cup 2 by Inter.
It's a very consistent tactic at the defensive level, I don't usually concede a lot of goals, even against the top team. In few opportunities I manage to score and I'm enjoying the results.
Just look at those results...
Defensively against a 433, FBs marking wingers and LM/RM marking FBs, DM marking ST in case he wants to drop deep to support midfield, in which both CMs marking CMs and my ST pressing DM which means the opposing CBs will be forced to handle the ball and either push and make a risky direct pass or force a long ball (in which that's what I want)
Because of the space behind the striker, I'd use DLF, 2 supporting Mez(s), DM DLP, 2 invert FBs, and 2 defensive wingers to cross on the byline for the width.
WTF