Is This Zonal Marking Working Out....

[Mattshark]

Just gone through our games and wrote down how many we've conceded from set plays:

Man City (a) scored direct FK
PSV (a) from a corner
Newcastle (a) from a corner
Everton (h) from a FK
Everton (h) from a corner
Portsmouth (a) from a FK

Direct free kicks you can't do much about, so that's 5 goals we've conceded from set plays.

I wonder how this compares to Manchester United and Chelsea, but I can't be arsed to go through their games!

I'm sure they have both conceded more.
In the league relating to zonal marking though it is only 4 goals (you missed Carra's og at Spurs, though you could argue that we won the ball).

Yep we have the worst set piece defence and zonal marking clearly does not work.

4 goals in the league and 2 cup goals.

I despair at some of our fans.

[TheStig]

I'm sure they have both conceded more.

Chelsea have conceded tonnes more, not sure about Manchester United, but they probably haven't.

[Mattshark]

Chelsea have conceded tonnes more, not sure about Manchester United, but they probably haven't.

3 in 2 less games.
V Newcastle, Chelsea and Hull.

[Neil Young]

Yes.

[Ben_Itez]

Not 100% sure as i try not to watch their matches but i believe the Scum are now using zonal marking to great effect.

[the rev leeroy brown]

zonal marking works. our record over the past couple of years proves it works. one or two mistakes every year and suddenly it's zonal markings fault.

[Marky]

Naw.

[Tatterdemalion]

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

That's actually really useful for an ignoramous like me. Good to see Hansen actually admitting that we used to use it all the time, which must be a really embarassing point for the original poster contend with (not least the fact that he confuses a geographic region for an adjective).

My only question is, given that most of the rest of the league man-marks - how come we don't score more goals from set pieces - particularly corners, as clearly it would imply that if zonal is better we know of more flaws which can be exploited in man-marking corners?

[Charly]

It doesnt work well enough. We had the best defence with Houllier without zonal. The weakness is that it is only as strong if every player does his job, which doesnt happen nearly enough. Our players are just not confident with it.

Doubt Benitez will change it though.

[Mattshark]

It doesnt work well enough. We had the best defence with Houllier without zonal. The weakness is that it is only as strong if every player does his job, which doesnt happen nearly enough. Our players are just not confident with it.

Doubt Benitez will change it though.

Only one team has conceded less from set pieces, we almost always have the lowest rate at the end of the season.
4 set piece goals concede.
Yeah it doesn't work well enough.

fool

[Neil Young]

It doesnt work well enough. We had the best defence with Houllier without zonal. The weakness is that it is only as strong if every player does his job, which doesnt happen nearly enough. Our players are just not confident with it.

Doubt Benitez will change it though.

I don't know how comparing it to five years ago or more is that helpful. Times change and tactics evolve. Just because something might have worked five years ago (or more like eight), it doesn't mean it will today.

Anyway I think the stats show that we had the best defence from set pieces under Rafa at some point since then. Of course maybe it's a question of tactics having evolved again and attacking teams now have better tactics for overcoming zonal marking.

Or maybe there isn't really much of a problem and people are being hypercritical. Of course that's really unlikely.