Download Kevin’s Football Manager 2011 Wrexham Tactic: A Simple 4-4-2

Hello friends and welcome to this special post about my Wrexham tactic. This is the very first time I’ve done this so I hope there is suitable information. In my pre season report I received a request from Jack to post my tactic so here it is for everyone to view.

The version is called Wrexham 1.3 and is structured around focus passing down the left flank. Before I go any further credit for the development of this tactic goes to our wonderful site host Mr. Johnny Karp and Mr. Darren Smith over at All That is Football Manager even though they may not realize it but their tactical genius certainly provided the foundation.

Aside from Johnny and Darren I’d like to acknowledge the current Tottenham team whom I watched one Sunday and realized how they made use of Gareth Bale down the left flank to good effect not only in creating but also scoring goals.

The first step I took was to print a copy of the squad team sheet (Figure1) and concluded, though not all shown here that my best players were on the left side of the field. Darren Lough is also a LB but I couldn’t get him in the screen shot. The third column from the left is the dribbling attribute and the second from the right is the off ball or run with ball and so that sparked my interest and began circling the attributes whilst watching the Spurs game.

Figure 1

I already knew I wanted to field a 4-4-2 formation (Figure B) so I set up the team using just the standard roles that come with the game.

Figure B

Player Roles

It must be noted that not every single attack happens down the left flank and there are still a lot of chances created by Gilmour and now Hammond my Deep Lying Playmakers and  the right side chips in with some help to now and again.

The team instructions look like this. Nothing special and I very rarely change except that I may go counter or defensive near the end of the match if I’m winning.

You may notice that I have the closing down set as «stand off more» which draws in the opposition and results in more long range efforts. My two central defenders are very defensive so they don’t get caught out that often. Even though I haven’t set instructions to counter attack we still do and usually down the left flank!

The front two men are both set as Poachers but the left one usually Ismael Fofana (or Baheng) is set as the target man to run onto the ball due to his pace and acceleration. The mentality is also set to normal so he drops back as well – picks up the ball and dribbles going past defenders or sometimes finds that through pass to his partner on the right side whose mentality is set slightly more attacking.

So pretty much everything is set to normal as seen below and my corner kicks are set to attack far post. I have the left centre back at the far post and the right centre back lurks outside the area as his long shots attribute is 15. One of the strikers challenges the keeper.This works pretty well but if you do use this tactic I would suggest reviewing player attributes to see the best positions for your players on set pieces.

I find that the DL ML and STL seem to work in good harmony and create lots of good opportunities that are a joy to watch. Aynway that’s about it and the tactic is available for download thanks to Johnny. You can download the file by clicking on the image below:

One final note is I made this tactic for my players so it may not work as well on your own team. In any event you can always start the way I did which is print the team sheet, circle the higher number attributes and go from there!

Thanks for reading and good luck!!