Is This Zonal Marking Working Out....

[1 True Red]

Myself, the answer has got to be no

Its failed so many times (can't remember what pacific games though but, we are leaking far to many goals for my liking which then means having to play catch up which requires more hard work for our players.

Please, please Rafa go back to man for man marking and make life just a little bit easier for our lads

And before anyone starts slating me!! its only my opinion which i feel strongly about

[Craig_H]

The evidence doesnt back you up though. 3rd best defensive record in the league and only 17 conceded in 25.

[1 True Red]

The evidence doesnt back you up though. 3rd best defensive record in the league and only 17 conceded in 25.

Could be a wee bit better though ie, 1st place would be excellent you must agree with that Craig

How many of the 17 conceded could have been kept out only for poor defending, imo, those games we've drawn in the past few weeks could of been wins imo

[corbylpfc]

it dosent work! The scum are proving that man marking is the only way! For example tim cunt cahill, if you told carra all week he was marking him at set pieces you can be guaranteed the wee cunt wouldn't get away from him! I've never seen space score a goal in my life ! Your marking an area, what if they don't run to the area your standing in????they score that's what happens! Its a terrible system !

[DannyMan2006]

I think you'll find that when a goal is conceded due to zonal marking the commentators will say how it would not have been conceded with man to man marking.

But when a goal is conceded through man to man marking the defender is blamed and no one makes reference that Zonal marking would have prevented this goal...........

I should say that on the continent zonal is much the preferred option, including under the great italian sides of old who used to bore the world with their one nil wins.

If done properly Zonal marking is probably the best system, as proved by LFC down the years under Rafa, a great article done by Tompkins last season on the offal showed that Liverpool had conceded the least goals from set pieces out of all the teams in the Premier League.

So it can't be that bad. It's just highlighted so much when we **** up.

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My personal preference would be for two or three of our players to mark the oppositions best attackers of the ball and for the other seven players to zonal mark.

But the thing to face is to know that what ever we do we will always concede from set pieces. Lower league teams base their whole attacking game on scoring a set piece goal against the big boys as they know they're not capable of breaking them down.

[Craig_H]

Could be a wee bit better though ie, 1st place would be excellent you must agree with that Craig

How many of the 17 conceded could have been kept out only for poor defending, imo, those games we've drawn in the past few weeks could of been wins imo

Pretty much every goal 'could' be kept out, very rarely are goals scored without the help of a mistake from the defensive side.

Of course '1st' best defence would be great, but you'll never be perfect.

It's funny, cos i hear about how our zonal marking doesnt work, despite the fact that we concede less goals than most and then i also hear that dolt Tim sherwood saying how he doesnt think there's any advantages to zonal marking and smugly stating that his Spurs side use man to man because it's so much better. I'd love to have asked him how many they've conceded in comparison to the 17 Liverpool have.

The majority of the games we've drawn have been 0-0 (Stoke x2, West Ham, Fulham, Villa), so i've no idea how man for man marking would've helped us win those instead of draw them. Feel free to explain it to me.

[Craig_H]

it dosent work! The scum are proving that man marking is the only way! For example tim cunt cahill, if you told carra all week he was marking him at set pieces you can be guaranteed the wee cunt wouldn't get away from him! I've never seen space score a goal in my life ! Your marking an area, what if they don't run to the area your standing in????they score that's what happens! Its a terrible system !

What about the teams in the bottom half and their rubbish defensive records? Arent they therefore proving that man for man marking is a bit ****, by your logic?

How does making Carra get on cahill 'guarantee' that he wouldnt score? Has Carra never lost out to anyone in the air?

As for 'space' and the fact that you've never seen it score - it's not space that 'scores' but leaving gaps and allowing your opponent space increases his chance of scoring. If they dont run into the area you're marking, they'll run into another area, where you've got someone covering. It's not rocket science.

Fact is, it's not the system, it's how it's utilised. If you mark man for man and you get it right, you'll concede very little. If you mark zonally and get it right, you'll also not concede much.

If you make a mistake, you'll often concede as a result of it, whether that's man for man or zonal. Your simple dismissal of zonal marking is quite laughable really and shows very little understanding.

I love hearing the pundits going on about how man for man is better, because there's 'responsibility' and that everyone knows who's fault it is if you concede. Last time i checked, knowing who was responsible didnt result in the goal you've conceded being chalked off.

Who gives a **** if you know who's responsible or not? The objective is not to concede the goal. It isnt to concede and know who's fault it is.

It makes me laugh how no-marks like Craig "show us your medals" Burley and Tim 'who?' Sherwood think they can tell Rafa how it's done.

After all, his CL and La Liga winning exploits pale into insignificance compared to that pair of cretins and their ability to sit in comfy studio talking about management, something neither of them has ever done in their lives.

[MrMichael]

Totally agree Craig, as you say "its not the system, its how its utilised"

it dosent work! The scum are proving that man marking is the only way! For example tim cunt cahill, if you told carra all week he was marking him at set pieces you can be guaranteed the wee cunt wouldn't get away from him! I've never seen space score a goal in my life ! Your marking an area, what if they don't run to the area your standing in????they score that's what happens! Its a terrible system !

Oh my, definitely a contender for most ludicrous post I've seen on this forum, so much so that I'm struggling to believe you're actually serious with that!

So, ManU have a good defensive record this season, and that's empirical evidence that zonal marking is terrible is it? How about during the last 4 years under Rafa when our defensive record was better than theirs, or does that not count? How about when Mourinho's Chelsea were dominating the league and were the only team better in defense than us.... oh, and were marking zonally too? Guess that won't count either?

Since Rafa took over pretty much every season we've statistically had the best, or one of the best defences in the league. Reina has broken pretty much every clean sheet record in the book, we've a Europe-wide reputation for being extremely difficult to score against... but none of that matters because your understanding of the game doesn't comprehend the zonal system?

Some people on this site really do spend far too much time listening to the ****e spouted by Sky commentators..... either that or they are just completely bonkers! You can "guarantee" Tim Cahill won't score if someone like Carra's marking him man to man? Amazing Cahill's ever actually found the back of the net against anyone other than us isn't it in that case?

It quite obviously is not a terrible system, and it quite flagrantly does work when applied correctly. Prefering the man marking system is one thing, but completely writing off a system used by most of the rest of Europe, and which has been used very successfully by us for seasons now, just because of a few loose goals conceded, is simply nuts. I get the feeling sometimes that some people on this site expect us never to concede a goal and to score 8 in every game at the other end. That just isn't football though......

[MrMichael]

The majority of the games we've drawn have been 0-0 (Stoke x2, West Ham, Fulham, Villa), so i've no idea how man for man marking would've helped us win those instead of draw them. Feel free to explain it to me.

Its a good question, personally I think we'd have won those games as the opposition would have been on minus goals if we were marking man to man

Slightly interesting look at the zonal system we use (abeit a couple of years old) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/foo...nt/4685580.stm

"With man-to-man marking, attackers can drag defenders all over the place by taking them away from the danger area.

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

[Harv]

I have no problem with it

[MrMichael]

Quite a funny thread I just found via Google from a Chelsea forum debating the same thing - and occasionally complementing our implementation of the zonal system

http://forums.cfcnet.co.uk/lofiversion/index.php?t40999.html

[Crazy-Horse]

The evidence doesnt back you up though. 3rd best defensive record in the league and only 17 conceded in 25.

Not only that, but we have also suffered a string of serious injuries in our defensive line-up (Agger, Skrtel) that have caused forced changes. Despite this we are still 3rd = on the table for least goals conceded.

Works for me

[vlahka]

I believe zonal marking is our problem when it comes to defending set pieces. The players are all standing around in their little areas while the opposition zips and weaves about and always gets a shot off. Zonal with the run of play is fine.

[MrMichael]

I believe zonal marking is our problem when it comes to defending set pieces. The players are all standing around in their little areas while the opposition zips and weaves about and always gets a shot off. Zonal with the run of play is fine.

Maybe, although with man marking, attacking players runs can pull defenders in a way that doesn't happen with zonal. I think zonal makes set pieces appear more dangerous to the watching eye when the ball is delivered, but I believe the stats over the last 5 years actually show that we concede very few from set plays, and a lot less than most teams who play man-to-man. The fact is also that set-plays are dangerous things, there are times when all the systems in the world won't make much difference to the danger a ball in the box can produce.

Now I know Howard Wilkinson isn't exactly the god of tactics, but I'm going to quote him from one of the links I posted above nonetheless to save me paraphrasing, because I do think he's right on this.

The most common opposition to the system is that zones don't score, players do, so mark the player.

But Wilkinson explains there is a further layer to the argument.

He said: "Players score from dangerous zones. What do goalkeepers do on corners anyhow?

"They zone mark because until the ball is kicked they don't know where the ball will go.

"They don't concern themselves with players, they concern themselves with the ball because it's the ball that scores."

And he dismisses the notion that defenders have to compete with attackers who have a run on them.

"Attackers get a run on you whether you are zone defending or man-for-man marking," Wilkinson said.

Personally, I'm generally much more concerned with our attacking set plays than our defensive ones,

[rafiagra]

We have conceded a run of incredibly poorly defended set pieces though recently. Whilst I am sure zonal marking is effective if done properly, its evident that something isnt being done right at the moment and needs addressing quickly.

Also, as you say, the problems with defensive set pieces pale in comparison to our attacking ones. Considering the height we have in the team, only Sami ever seems to be a threat.