It does not just come down to formations!, you have to take into account so many variables!, quality of the team, condition, orders , arrows, players watching the game, injuries, suspensions etc!, yes everyone on here can tell you a different version of what to play but at the end of the day ANY FORMATION can beat ANY FORMATION!, the reason I wrote my thread was to highlight that it is what you do decides the outcome!, as RJSLOW has pointed out, you need to look at your formation and you opponents and try to identify yours and his weakness!, then set up your team to how you think will play best!, It will not always go well so you have to be ready to adapt to any given situation that arises!.
For me I set my team to play a flank formation as I like to cover all aspects of the pitch! e.g I play 3w-1-4-2, (DL,DC,DR,DMC,ML,MC,MC,MR,ST,ST), I think this formation covers both the flanks and the middle because the DL DR ML MR cover the flanks and the DCs, DMC,MCs, cover the middle!, this to me looks nice and balanced!, I play mixed passing on both focus and style to give me an alround game!, my flank players exploit the narrow diamond formation, or and narrow defence formation (dc,dc,dc) and my DMC, and MCs act as protection against the narrow diamond! there lies my counter hidden!, ok so now my orders, I will attack no matter what!, I never use blues on any player!, I play reds on my DMC, ALL MIDFIELD & STs,, my strength to this lies in my orders!, attacking, mixed passing ( as said before giving me a wide range of passes) hard tackiling( in my eyes a must as I want to have most control of the ball), close down own half ( as this save some energy of the players as they are not running full length of the pitch to win the ball back), zonal marking ( whoever is nearest the ball goes to it), playing offsides (another must for me).
Ok things are not going so well?, because of the versatility of 3w-1-4-2 I have many things I can do!, what I do the most is change to 3-4-3 or 4-3-3 and change my order to force counter attacks!, this is why I said pick a formation and stick to it because you can build your team around it to merge into other formations needed to counter other formations you come across!, as you try new things you will get better at choosing the right combination!.
Dont think Im saying 3W-1-4-2 is the holy grail lol!, that is just what works for me!, other managers playing different formations will have there own perfectly good stratagy! and as long as it works for you thats all that matters.