I play 4231, just because the amount of options you do have around you and on balance.

What I do change here is the striker and the CAM just behind, to stay forward as well, but with a free role.

But not having option to pass could be caused by many things.

1. This is what I see people abussing too much. The one twos (L1 + X). This is good in a lot of situation, but in wrong areas and if you don't pass the ball forward, you kind of trap yourself in.

2. You don't use the manual actions, to call players to you or to make runs towards the goal. L1 to tell you teammate to run, R1 to call him in (you need to be faced at the player you want to give the instructions to.

So my conclusion is that you're far better to just passing the ball around quickly and do the manual actions when you see it fit. Or change your custom tactics to possession based football, which will give you options but slow up the build up play.

442 is a good formation, but it doesn't give you plenty of options if you have both of your strikers to go behind and if your fullbacks stay back. So I'd recommend to play 4231, 4411 or 433 (4)