. . . . " space never scores, but players do . . . . ."

[Gentleman Jim 0]

So said Ian Crook to the players after they failed to cut out Soton''s equaliser.

That''s what we want plain, good old fashion , easy to understand common sense.

Good on yer mate !

 

 

 

 

[chicken 0]

Ahhh the good old anti-European style zonal marking thing!Totally agree. I often listen to five live on Sundays etc when we are not playing and try and take in a taste of the game whilst doing chores around the house - decorating being the latest one! Oh the fun of having our first house!Anyway - last weekend Lawro was co-comentating on a game (can''t remember which) where a team zonally marked a corner - player got a free header but failed to score, they attacked the ball where as the defenders were trying to protect a space and were caught flat footed or having to catch up with the momentum of the attackers.Zonal play only works if your opposition is also playing the same way and if the pace is not so fast. It''s why it suits the Italian / Spanish game and why it doesn''t suit the pace of the English game. Ofcourse you need some zonal marking but the most important thing must be where the player with the ball is etc.

[Shack Attack 0]

''Common'' sense, old fashioned or otherwise, is vastly overrated. It''s far better to rely on ''good'' sense. Common sense once dictated that the earth was flat or that witches should be burned at the stake [;)]

The argument that ''space never scores'' which is used against zonal marking is overly simplistic in my opinion. What it doesn''t take into account is the main benefit of zonal marking which is that it cuts out opportunities for the attacking players to block off defenders. For instance, imagine a corner about to be taken with six attacking players being marked man-to-man in the middle of the penalty area. If the attacking side are clever enough with their movement then one of their players can peel away from that group of twelve players whilst his marker is blocked off. It''s a tactic that Chelsea used very successfully under Jose Mourinho (check out John Terry''s goalscoring stats in the early part of Mourinho''s reign) and which led to a lot of Premiership teams going zonal. This tactic was used against Chelsea in their recent match against Man Utd when Berbatov scored after a Chelsea defender was blocked off.

The main problem with zonal marking is that it requires a higher level of concentration. Defenders need to be aware of the flight of the ball as well as the movement of the attacker which involves looking in two different directions. It often leads to players being caught ''under the ball'' as I believe was the case with Grounds for the second goal yesterday. In my opinion a zonal marking system can only work with defenders who have a) high concentration levels and b) who are settled and have played together for a decent amount of time. Teams with defenders who have low concentration levels (Otsemebor and Grounds?) and who are regularly changing personnel (NCFC?) probably shouldn''t try it.

Thanks for bringing up a tactical question though Jim and Chicken..........makes a change from the rantings of the usual suspects [:D]

[nutty nigel 7,509]

There''s a great article about it here http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/rules_and_equipment/4685580.stm Liverpool played it for years not sure if they still do? But Shack''s point about it suiting the players is the best reason I can think of why we shouldn''t go down the zonal route. We used it for a time with mixed success when Martin Hunter was coach. Etuhu had the area on the near post and often got the ball clear. But if the ball cleared him it seemed to catch our other defenders by surprise.

Moving on from that a bit, and even though I''m not a fan of lumping it up to a big man, I do feel that the lack of a big centre forward effects us defensively at set plays. Just think back to the amount of clearing headers won by Iwan and later Dion Dublin when the other team had defenders forward for corners and free kicks.

 

[Robert N. LiM 4,241]

Shack, I think that''s one of the best things I''ve ever read on here. Really interesting. It''s going to take a while to recover from reading about football on this board, though....

[Shack Attack 0]

Cheers for the link Nutty, can''t believe that is the same Alan Hansen who provides absolutely no tactical insight week in week out on MOTD. If they had more of that sort of chat in their ''analysis'' I wouldn''t Sky Plus it and start watching twenty minutes late so I can skip it all [:D]

The point that we have both made is probably summed up quite nicely by this statement from the article.

"It is a collective responsibility whereas man-for-man marking is based on personal responsibility."

That''s why I think you need a settled defence who know each others game and trust each others actions.

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

Moving on from that a bit, and even though I''m not a fan of lumping it up to a big man, I do feel that the lack of a big centre forward effects us defensively at set plays. Just think back to the amount of clearing headers won by Iwan and later Dion Dublin when the other team had defenders forward for corners and free kicks.

[/quote]

Although I see your point here I think we need to worry more about what a centre forward can offer us from an attacking point of view and how much a ''big man'' would affect our style of play. I''ve long been of the opinion that what we really need is a centre forward with genuine pace and movement who can stretch defences rather than a traditional ''big man''. Lita showed the benefit of this type of striker on occasions when he was here but Roeder kept chopping and changing the attacking players behind him.

I still quite like the idea of a striker with good pace and movement being backed up with three attacking midfielders (Hoolahan, Bell and Croft?) making the most of the space the lone striker can generate. It''s often seen as a defensive system (us English seem to have a deep mistrust of any team who doesn''t play ''two up'') but if you have the right players it can be much more attacking.

One of footballs most basic premises is that you should try and make the pitch as large as you can whilst attacking and as small as you can when defending. I just feel that with the team we have now a traditional target man in the Iwan/Dion mould would shrink the pitch when we are attacking and make us even more predictable.

[Gentleman Jim 0]

Shack, thanks for the informative response to my post, as you say it makes a refreshing change to the usual one-line put downs that usually come my way.

The main idea of my post was  to neither praise nor criticize this particular piece of strategy as I don''t have the technical expertise to value it either way.

Whilst you do not favour "simplistic" I think it is better to feed the average footballer at our current level with simple uncomplicated instructions. I feel the previous two managers/coaches have bewilldered the players to the extent that they were often lost and unaware of their particular role in many game situations. 

IMHO

 

[nutty nigel 7,509]

Good points Shack. While I believe we need more height in the side for set plays at both ends I don''t advocate getting such a player in order for us to just hoof the ball forwards at the expense of a more patient build up. People often talk about a big striker who can hold the ball up and yet forget that no striker can hold the ball up with their head. The best a tall striker can do with a ball hoofed up to him is jump, win it in the air, and hope that one of his team mates reads and gets control of the resultant header. I would like to see a more mobile striker with the strength to hold the ball up and play with his back to the goal linking with another striker or Hoolahan just behind, wide players and even midfielders breaking through. It would be an advantage if this player gave us an aerial threat too.

 

 

[nutty nigel 7,509]

[quote user="Gentleman Jim"]

Whilst you do not favour "simplistic" I think it is better to feed the average footballer at our current level with simple uncomplicated instructions. I feel the previous two managers/coaches have bewilldered the players to the extent that they were often lost and unaware of their particular role in many game situations. 

IMHO

 

[/quote]

I agree totally with that Jim. There was too much fear in our players under the last two managers and it did seem like a dark cloud had been lifted since Roeder went.

 

[Shack Attack 0]

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Shack, I think that''s one of the best things I''ve ever read on here. Really interesting. It''s going to take a while to recover from reading about football on this board, though....[/quote]

Cheers Robert, that''s very decent of you. The link that Nutty provided explains things pretty well and is certainly worth a read.

If like me you get fed up with the way football is reported in the press (the constant attempts to build tension where there is none, blowing smoke up the ass of every half decent Premiership ''star'' and a complete lack of any tactical analysis) you could do a lot worse than read these articles by Jonathan Wilson from The Guardians website.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/jan/22/the-question-jonathan-wilson-goalpoachers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2008/dec/18/4231-442-tactics-jonathan-wilson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/19/argentina-napoli

And if you like those he''s got a very good book out at the moment that looks at the history of tactics

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/0752889958/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233180385&sr=8-1

I''m not his agent I promise [:$]

[Shack Attack 0]

[quote user="Gentleman Jim"]

Shack, thanks for the informative response to my post, as you say it makes a refreshing change to the usual one-line put downs that usually come my way.

The main idea of my post was  to neither praise nor criticize this particular piece of strategy as I don''t have the technical expertise to value it either way.

Whilst you do not favour "simplistic" I think it is better to feed the average footballer at our current level with simple uncomplicated instructions. I feel the previous two managers/coaches have bewilldered the players to the extent that they were often lost and unaware of their particular role in many game situations. 

IMHO

[/quote]

I agree that our last manager may have overcomplicated things to a certain extent and Peter Grant often seemed to be trying to micro manage every tiny detail of the teams play. Short term I think there''s probably something to be said for just letting the players get on with things, witness the transformation of Wes Hoolahan since Roeders departure, but with our lack of funds and small squad we may need some tactical innovation in the long run.

[Dr. Ink 0]

[quote user="Shack Attack"]

''Common'' sense, old fashioned or otherwise, is vastly overrated. It''s far better to rely on ''good'' sense. Common sense once dictated that the earth was flat or that witches should be burned at the stake [;)]

The argument that ''space never scores'' which is used against zonal marking is overly simplistic in my opinion. What it doesn''t take into account is the main benefit of zonal marking which is that it cuts out opportunities for the attacking players to block off defenders. For instance, imagine a corner about to be taken with six attacking players being marked man-to-man in the middle of the penalty area. If the attacking side are clever enough with their movement then one of their players can peel away from that group of twelve players whilst his marker is blocked off. It''s a tactic that Chelsea used very successfully under Jose Mourinho (check out John Terry''s goalscoring stats in the early part of Mourinho''s reign) and which led to a lot of Premiership teams going zonal. This tactic was used against Chelsea in their recent match against Man Utd when Berbatov scored after a Chelsea defender was blocked off.

The main problem with zonal marking is that it requires a higher level of concentration. Defenders need to be aware of the flight of the ball as well as the movement of the attacker which involves looking in two different directions. It often leads to players being caught ''under the ball'' as I believe was the case with Grounds for the second goal yesterday. In my opinion a zonal marking system can only work with defenders who have a) high concentration levels and b) who are settled and have played together for a decent amount of time. Teams with defenders who have low concentration levels (Otsemebor and Grounds?) and who are regularly changing personnel (NCFC?) probably shouldn''t try it.

Thanks for bringing up a tactical question though Jim and Chicken..........makes a change from the rantings of the usual suspects [:D]

[/quote]

I''m sorry but I missed your tenure as England Manager![;)]

[Badger 0]

Thanks for this, a very interesting thread.

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

A very good debate, but it might be improved a little IMHO with the recognition that long ball does not necessarily equal hoof ball.

I would also suggest that if you mix up the ''football intelligence'' of your 4/5 defenders too much you''re asking for trouble. They need to be able to operate more or less on the same wavelength - especially the CDs.

OTBC

 

[Badger 0]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

A very good debate, but it might be improved a little IMHO with the recognition that long ball does not necessarily equal hoof ball.

OTBC

[/quote]Judiciously used, I agree. However, I can remember Graham Taylor getting slaughtered for saying something like this when he was England manager - after a defeat by Sweden?

[Shack Attack 0]

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

A very good debate, but it might be improved a little IMHO with the recognition that long ball does not necessarily equal hoof ball.

[/quote]

You''re right of course Bly, there is nothing wrong with an accurate long pass designed to stretch the opposition defence. It''s for that very reason that I feel we require a striker with pace and movement ahead of a traditional ''big man''. We played some decent looking football under Glenn Roeder but all too often we found ourselves keeping possession but going sideways and backwards. In my opinion this was often caused by our lack of pace in attacking areas which allowed opposition defences to push up, safe in the knowledge that we had nobody really capable of getting in behind them. A striker with pace will often cause the oppositions defence to retreat and leave our more creative players with more space to play in. Most of Hoolahan and Bells better performances this season came when Lita was playing as a lone striker.

[quote user="BlyBlyBabes"]

I would also suggest that if you mix up the ''football intelligence'' of your 4/5 defenders too much you''re asking for trouble. They need to be able to operate more or less on the same wavelength - especially the CDs.

OTBC

[/quote]

I agree. We need to find a settled central defensive partnership and stick with it. It''s no coincidence that the last time we had one (Mackay and Fleming) was also the last time we had any real success. Get it settled and you''ll often find that they come to operate on the same wavelength over a period of time. Keep chopping and changing and it''s very difficult to build up any kind of understanding.

[nutty nigel 7,509]

Of course long ball does not mean hoof ball. I view hoofball as a continual aerial bombardment where a strong tall striker wins the ball in the air hoping that others can win the second ball in dangerous areas. There are many other types of long ball. Mixing it up is good. Marshall uses a type of hoofball when he sees a potential one on one if he clears the ball quickly. This ball will always put defenders under pressure especially if it''s allowed to bounce and is a very different hoof to the one where defences are grouped and ready. A long ball into space for a mobile forward or a wide player isn''t hoofball either. The Doc is fond of that diagonal ball to our wide players and it worked especially well with Hucks even though some of the crowd would insist on shouting "HOOF"! But very often, especially away from home, the long ball that''s needed is the one into the body of a target man. This is what I meant by the target man not having to be tall. Don''t hoof the ball to his head because you still have to win the second ball and most times the ball comes straight back and puts the defence back under pressure straight away. But into his body and a strong player can hold the ball up playing with his back to goal. He can see the options open up for him and may choose to bring a wide man into play or a player breaking from midfield. This way we retain possession, build an attack of our own, and give our defence a break.