Comments on: Four Six and “Zero”?

By: Football Manager Live Portal | Podcasts | Episode 34 – FML v1.3 Rapid Fire Overview

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:03:19 +0000

[...] http://footloopsfc.tumblr.com Football Manager Live Online Manual Gareth Millward’s article Four-Six and Zero? as well as Combating the 4-6-0 – Lessons From [...]

By: Gareth Millward

Gareth Millward — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:50:39 +0000

You can also try this: http://www.gameworldone.com/2009/09/24/combating-the-4-6-0-lessons-from-history/

And another article will be out in the next couple of weeks about using a libero formation.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:29:46 +0000

I’ve been using it for about a season now, having not wanted to play it because I think it is totally unrealistic. My hand was forced when both my Strikers suffered long term injuries – I got the hump, left my team in a 4-5-1-0 and logged out for 3 days near the end of last season. Despite injuries to two other key players, when i logged back in I was 5th in the GW and had won my first senior fed trophy. I’ve since developed to play a ”true 4-6-0 with AML and AMR and am 2nd or 3rd in the GW and top of my fed (for the 1st time ever) I will play it for this season, then play “properly” again I think. It works, but I can’t get away from the feeling it’s wrong.

BTW to counter it man mark the AMC with a DMC or DC and leave the DC(s) on zonal with low closing down – not a solution to the problem but probably your best hope of countering this overpowered formation.

By: Lone Striker Formations

Lone Striker Formations — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:03:04 +0000

[...] in the 1930s when the Austrians decided to “only” play four up front) had reached its zenith. Or had it? Whatever – what is most important is the different ways in which each team solved the conundrum [...]

By: Gareth Millward

Gareth Millward — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:37:37 +0000

Depending on the style, I use the d-line shouts, i.e. “push up” or “drop deeper” and then aim to either play around them “push wide” or through them “play narrower”. Beyond that, I use opposition instructions on the players who make the most attempted passes on their team.

I will be looking at providing more “how do you counter…” articles over the coming weeks. I think this is definitely a part of the game which needs looking at.

By: Carey D

Carey D — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:00:24 +0000

So, how do you stop this? I’m most successful stopping it by playing a defensive 4-2-1-3. i play narrow with both DMs playing defensively, and my WBs attacking aggressively, giving me some semblence of width; a CM with good passing to spray the ball around, and an AMC and two FCs causing problems ahead. It leaves me exposed a bit, as I have pretty bad WBs, but it works pretty well. Also, i play with Get the ball forward on the whole time, and with the ‘counter’ strategy.

By: Gareth Millward

Gareth Millward — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:11:41 +0000

Excellent analysis, James, I completely agree. The Austrians also did a similar thing, although in both cases the deep-lying forward had an inside forward and two wing forwards at least playing with them.

I think we all know that most of the people who use “4-6-0″ without any FCs have seen something that works in the ME and have then gone on to try and justify their choice by linking to the two articles I mentioned above.

A couple (literally a couple – Devil69 and Frootloops, my apologies to everyone else if they get offended) have engaged critically with this. And while I appreciate that there is a debate over how much of an FC or an AMC Totti was in the Roma formation, the fact remains that every 4-6-0 I have played or come across in the Fowler gameworld has a) looked nothing like a “real” 4-6-0 and b) played nothing like a “real” 4-6-0.

Now, I can cope with people using this formation, and I don’t think it’s cheating. It would be nice, however, if people were a little bit more honest about why they’re playing it and that they have no real clue how a “4-6-0″ is supposed to look like and behave like.

Is that too harsh?

By: James E

James E — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:11:45 +0000

No problem with 4-6-0…

Just the lack of FCs or FC positional players that some managers are (or arther aren’t using) when they deploy this formation.

Even when Hungary used it in the early part of last century they used a deep lying centre forward.

So its just lack of realism in the team selection, rather than the team layout that is problematic for me as it represents a schism between reality and game.

By: zeusbheld

zeusbheld — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:14:22 +0000

very interesting post. seems to me that it should be possible to design very similar tactics using very different formations in the FM/FML tactical system.

for example, the 4-3-3-0 460 that’s popular in FML, with 3 amcs and side mids rather than wingers, can be thought of as being basically either a 4-3-2-1 with one deep FC, or a 4-3-1-2 with a playmaker AMC and two deep fcs.

i am very curious as to whether these slightly different formations could be coaxed into producing similar football in FML… but i’m not tactically adept enough to succeed at this experiment.

By: Alan Paterson

Alan Paterson — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:09:41 +0000

this is an incredible post. I agree completely, finally, someone who realises th truth of 4-6-0. Thank you. I hope the rest of the FML’ers read this and understand how its supposed to look. awesome guys !