socks

Gerrard's 4 1 3 2

This formation sets up the Liverpool team around Gerrard and Alonso at its heart. It is attacking orientated, creative, built around a paced, technical passing game which goes through the middle to be laid onto attacking midfielders to set up forwards.

The defense is very solid and will lockout many teams. The attacking setup allows room for some modification and experimentation.

This formation is designed for the current Liverpool squad, I have no idea how it will fare with other teams


History
With the first version of this formation I won the CL and PL with Liverpool in the first season, although I did sell Gerrard for 39m (to chelsea) plus a handful of other reds at christmas and buy a batch of wonderkids - the average age of the squad at the end of the season was 22.

For the leage cup i played my B team and lost in the final to Wigan (who had also qualified for europe)


In a a new game with Liverpool, which I am still playing, I bought no wonderkids and played with the regular team plus just Micah Richards and won both again, although it was tighter.

As a note, i have found the games where i dont buy players that i know will be legends etc is much more interesting, real, and much more of a challenge.

Using this tactic
If you decide to use this tactic, good luck. After you have imported it, play at least 7 games before your team are fully adapted to it, and if you experiences are anything like mine, you should be able to challenge for honours with the current squad.

Customisation
I suggest being very careful with changing certain elements of this fotmation, but encourage experimenting with others.

Team Instructions
I suggest adjusting these with extreme caution - as the whole attack and midfield uses these global sliders. Pay particular attention to passing and tempo - these are linked and should only be moved in unison.

However, the mentality (attk/def) slider can be used effectively in relation to who you are playing next - ie against chelsea you might want to lower it, against watford - say no more

The defensive line arent affected by adjusting the first 5 (tickable) sliders, as they all have fixed settings.

I suggest playing around with width - I have tried a wider style with mixed results.

Player Instructions
Adjust the defensive players at your own risk.

I encourage playing around with the ML MR FC FC in terms of creativite freedom, free roles, mentality, shorter MR ML arrow, individual passing style

Playmakers
The playmaker can sit in the DM position (very effective) or the CM position (effective). So in my examples, the primary playmaker is Alonso in the DM position. Gerrard as the playmaker in the CM position is good, but my personal preference is Alonso playing Gerrard through as it adds another player to the attack (and of course theres noone else you would want at the heart of it). Alonso will regularily hit 60 - 80 passes a game, sometimes more.

With Gerrard as the playmaker, the passes are evenly distributed between the two players, experiment with allowing Gerrard to make more forward runs but bear in mind this will limit you defensive capability.

So replace Sissoko for either Gerrard or Alonso in the event of injury, and let the order of playmakers dictate who gets the nod.Sissoko is a natural in the CM position so it works well if you put Gerrard behind him as the playmaker.

This formation is also very effective without playmakers set up at all, the wingers tend to make more runs inside with the ball.

Remember, if you make changes, give the team a couple pof matches to adapt.

I hope you enjoy this tactic, and thanks for bothering to read this right to the end - :)

socks

Attached Files

gerrards_4_1_3_2.zip (774 Bytes, 395 views)

josh_ehm

sparky65

gonna give it go with Leeds using the FMF data update

socks

Any feedback good or back is welcomed guys.

For screenshots and more user feedback/other formations click here

http://www.fmunderground.net/fmu/index.php?fmu=6_2_21&

This tactic is up to 16,000 downloads at fm underground, I hope it does as well here, great site!

Keav

I'm years into my Liverpool game and I'm going to try. Actually I'll just start a new game with Masch aswell. I saw this on FMUnderground or one of them but I never got around to using it, hopfully I do well.
Just as a matter of interest how did you fair in the domestic cups?

socks

"Just as a matter of interest how did you fair in the domestic cups?"

As a matter of fact, with my game to Liverpool which I took to 2018, the league cup was more often than not a problem even in the early rounds, Aston Villa featuring strongly to about 2010 when they faded to an 8 year battle between me and United, Chelsea always starting bad almost every season for the first 5 or 6 games, when we were both going unbeaten. (Arsenal always a remote threat but all their good players seemed to get snapped up). The European cup I would win two in every three years, Chelsea always did well in Europe and I beat them in the final quite a few times. Spurs got to the semi final one year (knocked out 4 or 5-0 by A C Milan). Even with a lot of success Villa were always hard and West Ham would often get a result.

RussWWFC

I'm gonna give this a whirl with Wycombe in League 2. I played as 4-1-3-2 for ages in my old Football Manager games up until about a couple of years ago. I took Barnsley from 17th in Division 3 (Now League 2) to Champions League Winners, Premiership Winners about 7 consecutive times in FM05

It's been a lot harder the past 2 games, finally settled on 4-4-2 Diamond Attacking but fancy a change so I'll try this out

EDIT

And its going well, dominating every game, even though I should be winning more. So far

Played 10
Won 5
Drawn 4
Lost 1

For 13
Against 7

Pts 19
Pos 5

Its a great tactic and if my strikers scored a few more I'd imagine I'd be a bit higher up

socks

sounds good keep the reports coming, all helps for future work

john2step

just started using this formation

the game before i used this i played man u away and took a 3-1 hammering,really not in the game at all

next game was away at man u again,in the 4th rnd of fa cup and beat them 1-0
but the difference in performance was immense
didnt get to try it again after that cos the missus was frisky ,but so far,loooks a v good formation

Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

socks

if you win the FA cup do we get a pic of the missus :)

Augustus

Not much luck i'm afriad, won all 6 of my pre-season friendlies (bar a 2-2 draw), however only 2-0, 2-1 scorelines against lowly opposition. Lost the charity shield 2-1 (got thumped, scoreline flattered me), struggled to qualify for the CL (won 2-1 at home to Hearts, 3-1 away however with a good performance) and was lucky to get away with a 1-1 home draw to Villa on day one of the season. Shall give it two months and see however.

Update - Given up, just not working, far too inconsistent to be honest. Beat Fulham at home 4-0, drew away to West Ham 1-1, beat Roma away 2-1, Wigan at home 3-0, lost to Arsenal away 2-1 (though again heroics of Reina flattered the scoreline), drew away to Sheff. Utd 1-1. Just no consistency in the formation, though Luis Garcia scores loads at RM. I get lots of shots, just very few on target.