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horsefly

Man-to-Man v Zonal marking

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Did anyone notice Martin Keown deriding man-to-man marking at corners on yesterday's Football Focus? He was clearly of the view that it leaves a team much more vulnerable than zonal marking. 

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Just now, horsefly said:

Did anyone notice Martin Keown deriding man-to-man marking at corners on yesterday's Football Focus? He was clearly of the view that it leaves a team much more vulnerable than zonal marking. 

A lot of tosh is spoken about zonal marking as if it is somehow a ridiculous tactic/system to use.  As long as it is done well, it is the best way of defending.  Man to man marking inevitably leaves defenders chasing around and losing defensive shape with spaces appearing where you don't want them and the initiative to the attacking side.   I stress zonal marking has to be done well, with defenders moving to attack the ball when it comes in, or track any player that is near them, otherwise they can look foolish if an attacker gets a free run in.

 

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1 minute ago, lake district canary said:

A lot of tosh is spoken about zonal marking as if it is somehow a ridiculous tactic/system to use.  As long as it is done well, it is the best way of defending.  Man to man marking inevitably leaves defenders chasing around and losing defensive shape with spaces appearing where you don't want them and the initiative to the attacking side.   I stress zonal marking has to be done well, with defenders moving to attack the ball when it comes in, or track any player that is near them, otherwise they can look foolish if an attacker gets a free run in.

if three players are near him, how does the latter work ?

contradictory nonsense trying to defend nonsense

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1 minute ago, Bill said:

if three players are near him, how does the latter work ?

contradictory nonsense trying to defend nonsense

Ah, yes. Because Bill knows better than Pep Guardiola 

Edited by hogesar
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4 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Oh dear, I woke Bill up.....

Shhhh everybody! He might nod off again.

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There’s definitely advantages and disadvantages to both systems but by and large the initiative remains with the defending team when zonal marking is used. Man to man marking allows the attacking team to use runners to dictate where the defenders are positioned when the ball comes in.

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27 minutes ago, Bill said:

if three players are near him, how does the latter work ?

contradictory nonsense trying to defend nonsense

Do you not wonder how Hanley has been winning nearly every single defensive header from set pieces this season?

Surely you can see that if he was man marking he could easily be pulled away from the danger zone?

The system deserved ridicule last season, but a mixture of man marking and allowing our best aerial players to attack the danger spots has generally been done very well this season.

Surprisingly enough, zonal marking is not nonsense. But that would've been rather odd considering the majority of top-level clubs now do it...

Why don't you ask Leeds how their man-marking system is doing? Did really good for them against West Ham the other night...

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don't see why it has to be either or. If the opposition have an obvious threat then surely you at least make sure he is marked even if zonal is a better way on the whole.

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2 hours ago, Tetteys Jig said:

don't see why it has to be either or. If the opposition have an obvious threat then surely you at least make sure he is marked even if zonal is a better way on the whole.

I think pretty much any team who adopts zonal marking tends to make exceptions for opposition threats. We typically have done.

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Zonal marking is the best true defensive way of defending corners but only works if the players are drilled and know their jobs. 

One aspect I personally don't like about it is that the defending can be static so a run to the ball is harder to defend from a standing position. 

The key thing is everyone knowing their jobs and being drilled. 

I'd prefer a 7ft goalkeeper and centre half then it doesn't matter as they should never lose a header or catch 😂 

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7 hours ago, hogesar said:

I think pretty much any team who adopts zonal marking tends to make exceptions for opposition threats. We typically have done.

this always seems to be the main complaint I see brought up about zonal marking when you have someone like Virgil Van Dijk given a free header or up against Max Aarons. To me, when you see that, its nothing to do with Zonal vs Man marking and just basic common sense.

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15 hours ago, Bill said:

if three players are near him, how does the latter work ?

contradictory nonsense trying to defend nonsense

I am fairly certain that every team is restricted to eleven players. I player facing three opponents means two of his team mates are free to pick up the slack. 

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There's a fundamental point to this debate. The clubs do a tremendous amount of work and analysis on set piece defending. They have access to data on a vast level and look to tailor a defensive set up to provide the maximum protection to their goal. 

The vast majority of fans do not have that level of information or education on defensive set up and base most of their opinions on knee jerk reaction to goals conceded and 'gut feel'. 

You can decide for yourselves whose opinion you prefer. 

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Data can be meaningless. I believe there is as much in favour of the hoof ball scoring as 50 passes doing so.

Set pieces contribute a good few goals as well.

And why does virtually every manager, when losing 1-0 with ten minutes to go, throw on another striker and play it longer than the previous 80.

DF prefers zonal and we have to accept that but until he decides to try man for man, we will never know.

I would identify our main problem is we do not defend set pieces particularly well. A lot of clearances are not particularly decisive. And I think our poor record at attacking set pieces indicates we are not good at heading either.

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On 14/12/2020 at 16:59, keelansgrandad said:

Data can be meaningless. I believe there is as much in favour of the hoof ball scoring as 50 passes doing so.

Set pieces contribute a good few goals as well.

And why does virtually every manager, when losing 1-0 with ten minutes to go, throw on another striker and play it longer than the previous 80.

DF prefers zonal and we have to accept that but until he decides to try man for man, we will never know.

I would identify our main problem is we do not defend set pieces particularly well. A lot of clearances are not particularly decisive. And I think our poor record at attacking set pieces indicates we are not good at heading either.

and yet, all of the best sides in the world play passing football and defend zonally. 

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22 minutes ago, Beefy is a legend said:

and yet, all of the best sides in the world play passing football and defend zonally. 

What a coincidence! Nothing to do with data, obviously.

For those who still think man-to-man is a better system, what would you do in this hypothetical:

You are playing a team with 6 "aerially dominant (AD)" players. You have 4 AD players.

Do you..

A) go man-to-man, accepting that 2 of your players will be hugely outmatched

B) go zonal, and position your 4 AD players in the areas of the box where the opposition is most likely to score (red zones)

C) go hybrid, where you're matching up your best ADs with the oppositions biggest set piece threats, with the remainder picking up the red zones

Edited by kirku
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29 minutes ago, Beefy is a legend said:

and yet, all of the best sides in the world play passing football and defend zonally. 

Well did you see that tippy tappy nonsense that Man City played against West Brom last night? They would have done far better to just get ut forwaaarrrdddd..........

In my opinion Man City have never been the same side since they got rid of Niall Quinn. 

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9 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Well did you see that tippy tappy nonsense that Man City played against West Brom last night? They would have done far better to just get ut forwaaarrrdddd..........

In my opinion Man City have never been the same side since they got rid of Niall Quinn. 

I think we can all agree that their peak tactical nous was when Stuart Pearce put David James upfront.

Really made a mockery of all this new fangled possession nonsense and statistical probability malarkey 

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7 hours ago, kirku said:

I think we can all agree that their peak tactical nous was when Stuart Pearce put David James upfront.

Really made a mockery of all this new fangled possession nonsense and statistical probability malarkey 

Exactly..... need a bit more of this type of attitude...

 

Stuart Pearce.jpg

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8 hours ago, Beefy is a legend said:

and yet, all of the best sides in the world play passing football and defend zonally. 

I don't believe I advocated not playing passing football as some of the other sarcastic remarks joined in with. I am delighted with our style of play. I, and I doubt I'm alone, am not happy with set pieces either attacking or defending.

I was just pointing out some facts about our team. If some of you are blind to it then fair enough.

And I would think it quite silly to use Stuart Pearce as an example. I don't think many would agree with the analogy. Whether he was a good coach is debatable but don't ever dis his attitude. Nothing wrong with passion as well as skill. I suppose Brian Clough was a useless coach as well.

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5 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I don't believe I advocated not playing passing football as some of the other sarcastic remarks joined in with. I am delighted with our style of play. I, and I doubt I'm alone, am not happy with set pieces either attacking or defending.

I was just pointing out some facts about our team. If some of you are blind to it then fair enough.

And I would think it quite silly to use Stuart Pearce as an example. I don't think many would agree with the analogy. Whether he was a good coach is debatable but don't ever dis his attitude. Nothing wrong with passion as well as skill. I suppose Brian Clough was a useless coach as well.

Lighten up KG. The Stuart Pearce thing is just me and Kirku messing about.

As for defending/attacking from corners. Overall we've got a small team who aren't particularly good in the air - we more than make up for that with our skill in playing the ball on the floor. Fine by me. 

Edited by Thirsty Lizard
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1 hour ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Lighten up KG. The Stuart Pearce thing is just me and Kirku messing about.

As for defending/attacking from corners. Overall we've got a small team who aren't particularly good in the air - we more than make up for that with out skill in playing the ball on the floor. Fine by me. 

Precisely.

The fact is that we can't play the brilliantly intricate football that we've been treated to since Farke came in and be physically dominant in both boxes for one simple reason: we can't afford the players who have both aspects to their game.

 

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Our main issue last year with zonal was simply that our squad as a whole wasn't good enough or strong enough to stop the opposition runners- our zonal defender were redundant most of the time.

Literally game 1 had Jamal Lewis, built like twig, trying to stop Virgil van Dijk. It didn't work. Simply put, the delivery, strength and power offered by Prem teams blew our dinky technical team away at set pieces.

This year, Hanley could probably take a sitting start at corners and still get a forehead on the ball.

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6 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

I don't believe I advocated not playing passing football as some of the other sarcastic remarks joined in with. I am delighted with our style of play. I, and I doubt I'm alone, am not happy with set pieces either attacking or defending.

I was just pointing out some facts about our team. If some of you are blind to it then fair enough.

And I would think it quite silly to use Stuart Pearce as an example. I don't think many would agree with the analogy. Whether he was a good coach is debatable but don't ever dis his attitude. Nothing wrong with passion as well as skill. I suppose Brian Clough was a useless coach as well.

How many set piece goals have we conceded?

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9 hours ago, hogesar said:

How many set piece goals have we conceded?

No idea but over 4 seasons I would guess a good amount. Personally, I shudder every time the opposition gets corner.

And equally how many have we scored from them?

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