Zonal Marking

[D.boy]

Whatever they are doing in defence it clearly isn't working.

[Breezeblock]

I played american football for a number of years to quite a high level in this country.  In the late '80s zonal marking came in as the way forward and the greatest thing since sliced bread.  During training we discovered it was crap, relied on the opposition playing your game and didn't work so  we reverted to man-to-man marking  before getting stuffed in a live game. Seems nothings changed and marking systems in football are pretty similar to american football.

[KevinGage]

  During training we discovered it was crap, relied on the opposition playing your game...

That's pretty much what I envisaged.

And why we have defenders looking confused when someone comes in behind them with a free header to score a soft goal.  "Oh he wasn't supposed to be there, this isn't how it looked in training," and so on.

Whereas man for man? No such dilema. Tail your bloke- whatever position he tries to take up- and just make sure you do everything you can to either get in ahead of him or put him off. Seems more flexible, more practical. And adjusts to what is actually going on on the pitch, rather than a pre-meditated idea based on what might/should happen.

But we definitely do that anyway apparently, so now I'm the one who is confused.

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't really care if you call it zonal marking, but whatever it is, it hasn't worked for a very large chunk of the season

[Percy McCarthy]

  During training we discovered it was crap, relied on the opposition playing your game...

That's pretty much what I envisaged.

And why we have defenders looking confused when someone comes in behind them with a free header to score a soft goal.  "Oh he wasn't supposed to be there, this isn't how it looked in training," and so on.

Whereas man for man? No such dilema. Tail your bloke- whatever position he tries to take up- and just make sure you do everything you can to either get in ahead of him or put him off. Seems more flexible, more practical. And adjusts to what is actually going on on the pitch, rather than a pre-meditated idea based on what might/should happen.

But we definitely do that anyway apparently, so now I'm the one who is confused.

There are no pre-meditated ideas about what might/should happen. Or any other abstract ideas. It's quite simple. You have your four best headers/biggest blokes lined up along the six-yard line, therefore it has to be a fucking brilliant cross. Just high enough to beat the first one, not quite so high that the attacking player can't get a head on it.

Theory aside, and from a pragmatic point of view, our players were good at zonal marking, and are absolutely shite at man-marking. Why anyone would rather we man-mark when this is so obvious is beyond me. Get some videos of last season Gerard, FFS. Or just ask the players.

[Percy McCarthy]

I don't really care if you call it zonal marking, but whatever it is, it hasn't worked for a very large chunk of the season

...and it's not zonal marking.

You might as well say "the turning point was when the Bolton keeper saved Ashley's throw-in"?

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't really care if you call it zonal marking, but whatever it is, it hasn't worked for a very large chunk of the season

...and it's not zonal marking.

You might as well say "the turning point was when the Bolton keeper saved Ashley's throw-in"?

Errr, yeah, whatever.

Like I said, it doesn't work. Beyond that, I don't care if it is zonal marking or anal marking, it just isn't happening for us.

[DeKuip]

Surely the main reason we're not very good at defending corners is because in training we're defending against our forwards - who aren't very good at attacking corners. I imagine the ball just bounces a few times, rolls along the ground a few yards, then Gary Mac picks it up and throws it back to the corner taker. This goes on for 20 mins or so then they all go and have tea and biscuits followed by a lie down.

[BannedUserIAT]

Pinched from another thread:

Andy Gray with his machines last season was adamant we were one of the better sides at defending set pieces because we were man-for-man and Liverpool struggled because they were going the fancy, continental zonal route.

Yet a few weeks back Laursen said we used to be zonal when he was at the club, but it looks like we've now gone man-to-man. Whether the OS got the wrong end of the stick I'm not sure, but I don't see how man-to-man marking can leave so many opponents unmarked - as it has done and countless times this season.

A different sport I grant you but the zonal system was banned in US basketball (not sure if this is still the case) as it's too hard to break down and makes for dull viewing. Man on man marking is harder to do when you have a well drilled opposition who know how to lose a marker. And let's face it, with so many people in the penalty box, it's a piece of piss to lose your marker. Look at how Tim Cahill uses the big fellas around him to essentially mask his runs and protect him until the point where he pops up and heads one home.

Zonal marking should be very effective and should be hard to break down. Knocking the ball just outside the six yard box is one way - you're putting the ball just beyond the reach of the blokes on that line but if you have a player on each post, that should help out. The players outside the 6 yard zone should be man marking anyway. But we're not doing that properly and, at such short range it leaves a keeper an awful lot of goal to protect.

Zonal, done well, is the way to go IMO. At present we have players running into each other, players double or sometimes tripling up on opposition. It's a fucking shambles!!

Just for clarity, I'm a shit defender. Fucking awful. But I'm first pick in my team as centre half as I organise everything so well and we rarely if ever concede from set pieces. Villa's organisation is woeful beyond words.

[Archie]

Can people please stop blaming zonal marking for our defensive woes. MON used it, with success, GH ditched it for some reason. I'm fed up of pointing this out every five minutes to people who keep going on about it.

Thank you.

The problem is not the zonal marking, generally speaking it works very well, BUT on the set-pieces every defender must have an opponent to mark. 

[Percy McCarthy]

Fuck me I might as well try and explain it to the missus.

We don't do zonal marking on set-pieces. We used to. It worked for us.

We do man-marking on set-pieces. It doesn't work for us.

[VillaZogmariner]

Surely the main reason we're not very good at defending corners is because in training we're defending against our forwards - who aren't very good at attacking corners. I imagine the ball just bounces a few times, rolls along the ground a few yards, then Gary Mac picks it up and throws it back to the corner taker. This goes on for 20 mins or so then they all go and have tea and biscuits followed by a lie down.

More likely because it's Ashley Young who is taking the corners and the balls keep ending up on the M42.

[Pat McMahon]

Unfortunately at set pieces we now look like prisoners on break shuffling around the exercise yard with no purpose other than trying not to get picked on by the big bastards from D Wing.

This Shawshank Redemption school of defending just isn't working. I like the old fashioned Italian style of defence - man for man marking that just about borders on sexual harrassment leaving the free defenders to attack the ball and clear your lines (for reference see Juventus and Sergio Brio for their performance at Villa Park in 1983). And a man on each post please.

[Percy McCarthy]

I don't really care if you call it zonal marking, but whatever it is, it hasn't worked for a very large chunk of the season

...and it's not zonal marking.

You might as well say "the turning point was when the Bolton keeper saved Ashley's throw-in"?

Errr, yeah, whatever.

Like I said, it doesn't work. Beyond that, I don't care if it is zonal marking or anal marking, it just isn't happening for us.

Of course, but still, the correct terminology would be nice. It's just annoying when I read 'we must ditch this zonal marking bollocks', when, in fact, we have ditched it and that's the problem.

It's like reading Oliver Holt articles over and over again.

[VillaZogmariner]

Unfortunately at set pieces we now look like prisoners on break shuffling around the exercise yard with no purpose other than trying not to get picked on by the big bastards from D Wing.

This Shawshank Redemption school of defending just isn't working. I like the old fashioned Italian style of defence - man for man marking that just about borders on sexual harrassment leaving the free defenders to attack the ball and clear your lines (for reference see Juventus and Sergio Brio for their performance at Villa Park in 1983). And a man on each post please.

What I've highlighted there is the main point that I think has been overlooked.

Under MoN we defended corners with all XI players back in the 18 yard box and a player on each post (usually Ashley and Milner).

Now though we seem to keep 1 player up the field and no long mark the posts either.