Football Manager 2022 Tactics: 10 Formations To Guarantee Success

4. 5-2-3 WB

Football Manager 2022 5-2-3
Sega

The simplest way to describe this 5-2-3 tactic is Chris Wilder's Sheffield United.

Wilder wasn't the first person to play with Wide Centre-Backs, but he is the person who popularised this concept in recent years. Similarly, Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini is another who likes to follow this model.

Ahead of the release of Football Manager 2022, one of the new features that most caught the intrigue of FM fans was the option to employ Wide Centre-Backs. As anyone who watched that Sheff Utd team or Gasperini's current Atalanta side will attest, the end result is that these WCBs will bomb forward and join your attack, either overlapping or underlapping those in front of them and helping to overwhelm the opposition.

This requires your WCBs to have strong work rate and fitness stats, and the same attributes will be needed for your Complete Wing-Backs and your Box To Box Midfielder. For your middle Central Defender, they need to be a strong leader who can be utilised either as a Libero or a Ball Playing Defender.

So much of this formation comes down to pressure, pressure, pressure, and so fitness is king here.

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