Tactical Mentatlity vs Formation

[wazza]

When setting up your 3 tactics for training is it best to stick to 1 formation with variants of team instructions for attacking, balanced and defensive situations ie training your mentality or is it best if your team suits to change the formation also.

I have a couple of options with my new team to go 442, 4141 DM Wide or 4231 wide formations as the players I have inherited could suit all 3, however I cannot decide weather to have 1 formation trained  with an attacking and defensive mentality along with a third option of another formation in a more attacking mentality to change things around if needed.

In the past I have trained 3 formations but sometimes in a match never used all 3, so cant decide weather its best to stick with 1 or 2 formations

What do you generally do as there are so many options you can do

[Jorge666]

Depends on your squad really if you have the players to pull off several formations then it's ok I suppose, but I'd imagine team training being specific it would be beneficial to have similar sets of team instructions, I usually just change my mentality to suit the calibre of opposition and make minor tweaks to instructions against very strong teams (either play a fast counter attacking game or a possession based defensive game using the same formation)

[AytchMan]

I'm inclined to think that training multiple formations works best.  While one can certainly switch mentalities on the same formation to suit different match situations, changing to an entirely different formation can bring added benefits.  For example, if we're using a 4-3-3 attacking tactic and we go ahead by two goals on 70 minutes, I'd rather change to a 5-3-2 and substitute in a defensive center-back than keep the 4-3-3 and merely change the mentality to defensive.  Obviously, more defensive-minded players should play defense better than attack-minded players.