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Zonal Marking


Saint Charlie
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Suprised nobody mentioned this after the Liebherr Cup but we marked zonally on corners.

 

Adkins mentioned this again last night saying that had practised it.

 

Not sure what people's thoughts are but it seems every team who has tried it has messed it up, im sure it can work well at times but i felt we defended corners very well last season on the whole and seems little point changing (not saying we will) from man to man marking.

 

Thoughts?

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I don't agree that every team who's tried it has messed it up Charlie. I think the media make a scapegoat out of it. They don't like it for some reason, so when a goal is conceded through ZM they go to town on it. A lot of that comes from a lot of the older pundits who played when ZM didn't exist and can't change their mindset from man marking. Old people set in their ways.

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I don't agree that every team who's tried it has messed it up Charlie. I think the media make a scapegoat out of it. They don't like it for some reason, so when a goal is conceded through ZM they go to town on it. A lot of that comes from a lot of the older pundits who played when ZM didn't exist and can't change their mindset from man marking. Old people set in their ways.

 

I was thinking this and Alan Hansen came into my mind and has probably biased my opinion!

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of course it's not a new concept at all....can think it was around 30 years ago, but also agree that it doesn't work well ...so often

as it requires well-drilled players with good spacial awareness (of the pitch) and vision, but having said that it could work as our brand of passing football seems to do well - most of the time.

 

why not ?...it's worth a go.

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It's just as effective as man marking. You're always going to concede at some point whichever way you choose to defend them. I'd guess the majority of teams mark man to man and goals come from corners every week. I think if you've got the right players who can stick to what they're told then it's potentially better, but you're always going to get the odd perfect ball in, or lucky deflection.

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Agree, most traditional fans and commentators don't like it.

 

If we go with this next year expect to see lots of "you don't mark a zone, you mark a man ffs" type comments when we concede.

 

I think in general a lot continental teams employ this approach, but not seen many British teams do it successfully.

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If we go with this next year expect to see lots of "you don't mark a zone, you mark a man ffs" type comments when we concede.

But only from those of us over the age of 16 because we are set in our ways and cannot cope with new concepts such as zonal marking, electric light, the internal combustion engine or FM. :rolleyes:

As long as we have someone on the post I don't really care whether we ZM or MM, as long as we do our job properly. Best way is not to concede corners in the first place.

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No perfect systems, but they're never as simple as people like to make out. However it's played, it's cutting out individual errors that's most important and making sure everyone knows their role/zone/man etc.

 

Agree with all your post and the above sums it up nicely. Just like with players, or managers, or clubs as a whole, judging anything or anyone on one incident, one goal, one match, or anything less than, arguably, at least 20-30 games, is not going to provide you with a balanced judgement.

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Exactly. man to man you just trust your players to do their job individually. Zonal reduces individual responsibility.

 

I disagree. At a very basic level, it's all the same: If the ball comes towards you, you have a responsibility to get to it first to clear it. That doesn't change in zonal or man-marking.

 

If two attackers enter your zone, you still have the same responsibility to get to the ball first. I'm there's plenty more to it than that, but it's just a system to try and negate a threat as best as possible... defenders still have the same responsibilities.

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Zonal marking requires footballers to take responsibility and have a little intelligence. As we all know footballers in general never take responsibility and have limited intelligence making Zonal marking a recipe for disaster. HTH

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Footballers tend to have quite a bit of footballing intelligence.

 

Plus it's their job, they have time to learn these systems.

 

 

Intelligence !.....I'm sure we'd all like to think so......maybe Joey Barton missed taking the test?

 

........it may be their job, but clearly some of them have limited learning abilities!

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The problem with man-marking is off course that attacking teams are far more sophisticated in their runs off the ball. Y'know - its basketball style - he runs across this way meaning that he can screen him and he'll run into this screen etc.

 

Done well you can drag your defenders all over the place and hopefully get your big centre-forward up against the little full-back. With zonal marking this can ideally be avoided.

 

I mean both obviously have their strengths and weaknesses, the main one with zonal being that if players are just marking space then the attackers can get far more momentum charging through the gaps between the defenders if the defenders switch off for one second and let them get across them. Its really up the manager which he feels suits the team best I guess.

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Suprised nobody mentioned this after the Liebherr Cup but we marked zonally on corners.

 

Adkins mentioned this again last night saying that had practised it.

 

Not sure what people's thoughts are but it seems every team who has tried it has messed it up, im sure it can work well at times but i felt we defended corners very well last season on the whole and seems little point changing (not saying we will) from man to man marking.

 

Thoughts?

Well I think lets give it a go. I'm not as sure that we did defend corners that well last season. Off course we have a goalie who likes to stay on his line so this does put a lot of pressure on the defenders at corners......Corners are tough for us so yes it could be a good idea.....

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