Football Manager 2020 Tactics: How To Play 4–4–2  The Burnley Way

That’s horizontal compactness taken care of, let’s move onto vertical compactness.

Defend Narrow will help clog up the middle but it also lures teams into a trap out wide. Those fancy teams from London will usually play with Inside Forwards or Inverted Wingers who cut in and run your full backs ragged one on one. Here our aim is to have our full backs closer to our centre backs reducing the space. If we have our wide midfielders sitting narrower and tracking back we will also have double coverage. If they go down the flank and cross, that's when our 6'0"+ centre backs with good Jumping Reach and Heading clear their lines.

Leaving our flanks open also gives us a chance to counter attack into the space left by their attacking wing back or wide forward. Stick Focus Play Down The Right and/or Left on to try and play the ball into those wide areas on the counter.