our defence

[Charly]

I still canot believe that guy had a free header yesterday for the goal. Nothing to do with zonal marking was just ****e defending.

Just because the system is zonal doesnt mean you can't be aware of the opposing players in your zone. .

What happens if you have two players in your zone? Thats what is heppening. Our players have become confused and indecisive, and no loger have any confidence at defending set pieces.

We have been very poor at this since Rafa arrived. The players just dont get it. And they rae pretty good defenders otherwise.

[Charly]

anyone who says that zonal marking is the reason for us conceding goals is with the greatest respect speaking out of their arse.

We are not the only team who play zonal in the PL. and rafa is not the first manager of lfc to use zonal marking either.

Who else used it?

No one I can remember.

WE are just talking set-pieces. All defenders play zonal in free play. I am oretty sure the 19 other teams revert to man-to-man when defending set pieces.

[BrianF80]

For those of you claiming all these goals are down to zonal marking and not just because our players can't jump very high could you please explain:

Where the zones are?
Which players mark zonally and which players mark man 2 man?
For the players who don't mark either zonally or man 2 man; what is their role?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Adebayor goal?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Carlton Cole goal?

If like Andy Gray you don't know the answers to these questions, you are really not in a position to be distinguishing between the "system" being a problem and a player just not being able to elevate as well as the opposition or just plain bad luck.

[BrianF80]

With the predictability of zonal defending its not long before teams can exploit it as we are seeing more and more this season.

The way we mark zonally this season is different to the way we did it last season, so I don't think that's very likely.

[BrianF80]

I still canot believe that guy had a free header yesterday for the goal. Nothing to do with zonal marking was just ****e defending.

Just because the system is zonal doesnt mean you can't be aware of the opposing players in your zone. Zonal marking done correctly eliminates all danger. Skrtel should have read the flight of the corner, taken a nice run-up from the goal line and headed it from here to Wisconsin. He was half asleep and Reina knew it.

Alas this time it actually was zonal marking's fault, well at least the fault of the players getting confused about their roles in the system. One of Kuyt or the Greek should have attacked the ball along with Skrtel.

It's partially understandable this time because both Kuyt and the Greek were playing different roles than they are used to so it was a case of beginners' mistakes.

[Exiled_red]

For those of you claiming all these goals are down to zonal marking and not just because our players can't jump very high could you please explain:

Where the zones are?
Which players mark zonally and which players mark man 2 man?
For the players who don't mark either zonally or man 2 man; what is their role?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Adebayor goal?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Carlton Cole goal?

If like Andy Gray you don't know the answers to these questions, you are really not in a position to be distinguishing between the "system" being a problem and a player just not being able to elevate as well as the opposition or just plain bad luck.

[dww]

For those of you claiming all these goals are down to zonal marking and not just because our players can't jump very high could you please explain:

Where the zones are?
Which players mark zonally and which players mark man 2 man?
For the players who don't mark either zonally or man 2 man; what is their role?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Adebayor goal?
Under our version of zonal marking what should have happened for the Carlton Cole goal?

If like Andy Gray you don't know the answers to these questions, you are really not in a position to be distinguishing between the "system" being a problem and a player just not being able to elevate as well as the opposition or just plain bad luck.

I do agree with your point but there is a definite problem and something has to be done about it. While everything we say on here is speculation, or partially informed debate at best, I think it a reasonable enquiry to make.

This season we have hardly had a settled team so it is very difficult to distinguish between for example faults of the zonal system and the fact that as we found when Rafa first came it is a system that takes more time for players to get into the groove of and to work together to perfect.

Whatever the case there is one criticism which has to be true - both collectively and as individuals no one took the responsibility of ensuring players were in either a/ the zone in the middle of the goal attacking the ball or b/ close to the oppositions biggest aerial threat. It's for my money the biggest problem with Agger and Skrtel - neither of them do this at all.

[Exiled_red]

I do agree with your point but there is a definite problem and something has to be done about it. While everything we say on here is speculation, or partially informed debate at best, I think it a reasonable enquiry to make.

This season we have hardly had a settled team so it is very difficult to distinguish between for example faults of the zonal system and the fact that as we found when Rafa first came it is a system that takes more time for players to get into the groove of and to work together to perfect.

Whatever the case there is one criticism which has to be true - both collectively and as individuals no one took the responsibility of ensuring players were in either a/ the zone in the middle of the goal attacking the ball or b/ close to the oppositions biggest aerial threat. It's for my money the biggest problem with Agger and Skrtel - neither of them do this at all.

[BrianF80]

I do agree with your point but there is a definite problem and something has to be done about it. While everything we say on here is speculation, or partially informed debate at best, I think it a reasonable enquiry to make.

This season we have hardly had a settled team so it is very difficult to distinguish between for example faults of the zonal system and the fact that as we found when Rafa first came it is a system that takes more time for players to get into the groove of and to work together to perfect.

Whatever the case there is one criticism which has to be true - both collectively and as individuals no one took the responsibility of ensuring players were in either a/ the zone in the middle of the goal attacking the ball or b/ close to the oppositions biggest aerial threat. It's for my money the biggest problem with Agger and Skrtel - neither of them do this at all.

The way we do zonal marking most times this season is based on a bank of 4 Insua/Carra/Agger/Johnson with a free player behind usually Torres but against City the Greek was the free man and because Johnson was out Kuyt took Johnsons usual place.

The 4 are usually evenly spaced but compress towards the ball. Once a ball enters a zone containing a player who can attack the ball a minimum of 2 players should jump with him. The Zonal defender and the free player. For the goal Kuyt and the Greek got confused about who was zonal and who was free because Kuyt arrived late and the Greek had temporarily covered Kuyts zone. When the ball was played both reacted as though they were zonal i.e. defended the zone instead of one of them attacking the ball regardless of the zone. and as Adebayor had dropped off he was outside Skrtel's zone the gap was too big for him to make-up.

So it wasn't IMO about players not taking responsibility it was about two players getting confused about roles they were playing for the first time. Remember Johnson dropped out before the match so Kuyt would have been training to play as a man marker and the Greek wasn't even down to play so in training he was probably part of the attacking unit. Zonal marking is complicated so when you constantly switch roles mistakes will be made.

Let's get our first choice zonal line-up back and then we can concentrate on the goals we concede because Carragher is crap in the air and Agger and Skrtel are just average. With the right delivery just about any team's center backs can outjump ours. That's the core problem.

BTW A picture.



Z = Zonal
F = Free Running jump at whichever zone ball becomes playable in
M = Man Markers / Blockers positioning taken from opposition runners
C = Counter Attack / Charge Long Shots
S = Second Ball / Disrupt Short Corners

[dww]

So it wasn't IMO about players not taking responsibility it was about two players getting confused about roles they were playing for the first time. Remember Johnson dropped out before the match so Kuyt would have been training to play as a man marker and the Greek wasn't even down to play so in training he was probably part of the attacking unit. Zonal marking is complicated so when you constantly switch roles mistakes will be made.

Cheers for the explanation.

I think the problem you identify is quite likely to be what I mean by not taking responsibility. If anyone is unsure then someone has to make decisions and make sure people do know what they are doing. It can't always just be Carra doing this either in my opinion which I feel too often is what we rely on.

I agree that zonal marking has a longer lag time in terms of players learning their roles and perhaps suffers more with player change - however during an injury crisis I think that (along with our selection of midgets and lack of aerial specialists) should be a factor when looking at how to defend set pieces.

[Pablo]

Nice post Brian, quite an interesting read

[BrianF80]

Cheers for the explanation.

I think the problem you identify is quite likely to be what I mean by not taking responsibility. If anyone is unsure then someone has to make decisions and make sure people do know what they are doing. It can't always just be Carra doing this either in my opinion which I feel too often is what we rely on.

I agree that zonal marking has a longer lag time in terms of players learning their roles and perhaps suffers more with player change - however during an injury crisis I think that (along with our selection of midgets and lack of aerial specialists) should be a factor when looking at how to defend set pieces.

I think that's why we've introduced the free man this year.

If I was the defensive organizer, I'd shout "Who is free?" before every set piece. Two replies or no replies means revert to pre-match instructions. Everyone else's role can be determined by eyeballing them but even though we have this great "organizer", we're actually not all that organized.

[Exiled_red]

Great post Brian

[BrianF80]

Nice post Brian, quite an interesting read

Cheers. Here's an additional insight you might like.

This is how we lined up for corners against city.



For some reason Rafa has added another zonal marker N'Gog next to Insua at the near post. I don't know why, but that now means we only have two man markers. Gerrard and Lucas. If you remember back to the goal. Gerrard was run-off (by Ireland I think) and Lucas was blocked off. Would N'Gog have gotten to Adebayor if he was a man marker like he would usually be?

[dww]

Why if we have two man markers is one of them not assigned to Adebayor would be my first question - or are you saying Lucas is but was blocked off?