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Author Topic: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious  (Read 14251 times)

Offline Mister E

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Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« on: December 19, 2011, 07:05:52 PM »
Apologies if this has already be posted. Makes you want to weep, this zonal marking bollocks.
Taken from today's "5 things we learned at the weekend" on the - appropriately-named - Guardian website:

Aston Villa's defence is still mismanagedOn the last day of the summer 2009 transfer window Aston Villa signed Richard Dunne and James Collins   from Manchester City and West Ham United respectively, assembling in a day a central defensive partnership that, apart from Carlos Cuéllar helping out a bit for a while, has remained unbroken since.
It is worth remembering, at this point, how good they once looked. In their first season at the club Villa kept 15 clean sheets and had the fourth best defensive record in the division, despite conceding four at home to Blackburn Rovers and seven at Chelsea – two games that between them accounted for 28% of the goals they shipped all season. Martin O'Neill smilingly acknowledged the "bit of luck" that had allowed them to steal Dunne from Manchester for £6m, "incredible value", as the Irishman strolled into the PFA team   of the season.

Villa conceded an average of 1.03 goals per game in O'Neill's last season and finished in sixth place but, when the   Irishman left, their defensive solidity went with him [Ed: nothing to do with MON; Steve Walford's the man]. The following season, under Gérard Houllier, they kept less than half as many clean sheets (seven). Where they had been notably strong when defending set pieces, they suddenly had the Premier League's worst record. The players blamed the quality of coaching and in March Dunne and Collins were punished after they got drunk during a "team bonding" weekend and decided to tell the coaching staff exactly what they thought of them.

Houllier, bizarrely given the statistics, blamed this defensive uncertainty on his predecessor. "They had their habits for four years and I am not going to change it in the middle of the season," he said. "Next year it is obviously something I'll address."

He did not get the chance. Instead Alex McLeish, a former defender, was chosen to right the ship. "It could help that he used to be a defender but he could also pinpoint our faults more easily," Dunne said   in July, welcoming the appointment. "I think as a team we'll be defensively tighter. I think that's where you should start from and   that's the basis."

In that same interview, back in July, Dunne spoke about the problems the team was experiencing from set pieces.   "We've flitted between man marking and zonal marking in the past few seasons and never really pinpointed which one we should be doing," he said. "But I'm sure over the coming weeks, before the league starts, the manager will have it nailed down and he'll tell us exactly what we're doing, who we're marking and what way we're doing it."

Er, nope. Once again this season Villa have conceded more goals from corners than anyone else and they looked comically hapless in letting Liverpool convert two in the opening 20 minutes on Sunday. Martin Skrtel's goal could be used as a three-second demonstration of the failings of a zonal marking system: he starts beyond the back post, where nobody is watching him, runs unmolested past Dunne, who was minding the far post, and Collins, likewise picking up   space, nips in front of Emile Heskey (who was marking Jonjo Shelvey) and   gets a free header.
Dunne particularly had a poor game and was embarrassed by Luis Suárez twice in as many seconds before the Uruguayan hit the bar in the second half but Villa's defensive record from set pieces this season and last cannot be blamed on their centre-halves. Set pieces, particularly in defence, are the clearest test of a coach's mettle and it is one Houllier flunked and McLeish is flunking.

 :'( :'(
« Last Edit: December 19, 2011, 07:11:24 PM by EffDee »

Offline Chris Smith

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2011, 07:17:02 PM »
The annoying thing is at the start of the season we looked to have sorted it out. Then after about half a dozen games we went to pot only to appear to have got back to good habits with three good defensive performances before yesterday. It makes no sense.

Offline ozzjim

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2011, 07:19:03 PM »
I just don't get zonal marking at all. It always seems to be a mess at any club that try it, man to man is fine. Desire and muscle, get there first, get it out.

Offline TheSandman

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2011, 07:27:19 PM »
The article misses an obvious point. When our defence had that great run it was with a back four of Cuellar, Dunne, Collins and Warnock. Now whatever his deficiencies as a right back going forward (he was pretty crap TBF) having Carlos in there meant that we had an additional centre half and tall man covering for the other two at set pieces. The other two (especially Collins) are not as good as some think and need the additional cover. Now we lack that and manage to combine two not wonderfully brilliant, sometime error prone centre halves with two completely braindead full backs with the positional sense of a dead halibut. When we just had one of those (who Collins frequently had to be sucked out of position to cover for) we got away with it. Now, we have two shit fullbacks and an out of form Collins we tend to suffer more.

Offline Matt Collins

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2011, 07:50:52 PM »
Despite all the other huge failings with our side, sorting this out has to be the top priority. It is costing us 1 or 2 goals in every single game at the moment. We're not good enough to cope with that.

The keeper position doesn't help - neither option are good enough at coming for the ball. But there's not much we can do about that. We can improve our organisation. Surely Blues were much better than us at this?

I dread to think what's going to happen at Stoke. It'll be mayhem!

Offline Mr Diggles

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2011, 08:00:26 PM »
Also, if you give the ball away as much as Collins and Dunne do, it is inevitable that you will be defending for longer periods of the game than other teams. I wonder if any context to the Guardian's statistics would change the result, ie goals conceded as a percetnage of the amount of chances Villa have to defend or opposition corners. But then its a wider question of defending as a team and ball retention, which, I dare say, Villa are the worst in the league at presently. Fook it, the sooner any one of the following happens the better: a) McLeish leaves, b) Dunne and Collins leave, c) Dare i say it, Lerner sells up, d) all of the above. I probably don't really mean all that (well some of it) but it feels that way at the moment.

Offline Steve R

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2011, 08:13:26 PM »
The thing that got me about the first goal on Sunday was that we more than anyone should know that downing never gets a corner past the first man.

We didn't have a first man.


Offline Phil from the upper holte

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2011, 08:28:09 PM »
I've been banging on about zonal marking all season, quite frankly its fucking shit. We need to sort it out! Everyone said mcshit would sort out the defence and he hasn't. Either he can't or they are fuck wits? Which is it?

Offline old man villa fan

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2011, 08:32:55 PM »
The article misses an obvious point. When our defence had that great run it was with a back four of Cuellar, Dunne, Collins and Warnock. Now whatever his deficiencies as a right back going forward (he was pretty crap TBF) having Carlos in there meant that we had an additional centre half and tall man covering for the other two at set pieces. The other two (especially Collins) are not as good as some think and need the additional cover. Now we lack that and manage to combine two not wonderfully brilliant, sometime error prone centre halves with two completely braindead full backs with the positional sense of a dead halibut. When we just had one of those (who Collins frequently had to be sucked out of position to cover for) we got away with it. Now, we have two shit fullbacks and an out of form Collins we tend to suffer more.

My thoughts, too.

Regardless as to whether you play man-for-man or zonal, the ball that is put in there still has to be won.  We play man-for-man and our defender gets left flat-footed and beaten by the player he should be marking.  We play zonal and our defenders get left flat-footed and get beaten by players moving into the zone that they are covering.

Why is it?  Lack of concentration, lack of communication or lack of commitment.  We concede a goal and there seems to be a lack of reaction between the players which to me feels like the last of the shortcomings.

Offline Eigentor

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2011, 08:35:07 PM »
I just don't get zonal marking at all. It always seems to be a mess at any club that try it, man to man is fine. Desire and muscle, get there first, get it out.

Trouble is that there is no evidence to back up the claim that zonal marking is less effective than man-to-man. The main difference is that when a defender fails to pick up the goal scorer, the system is to blame if the team is using zonal marking. If he fails to do it when the team is playing man-to-man, the defender is to blame.

Barcelona use zonal marking, Valencia did it under Benitez, and Villa did it under MON. Neither team was/is a mess at defensive set-pieces.

Offline nuninho

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2011, 08:45:24 PM »
The thing that got me about the first goal on Sunday was that we more than anyone should know that downing never gets a corner past the first man.

We didn't have a first man.



Brilliant observation that any of the muppets in the coaching staff should have picked up. 


Offline Pete3206

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2011, 08:57:40 PM »
The thing that got me about the first goal on Sunday was that we more than anyone should know that downing never gets a corner past the first man.
We didn't have a first man.

Brilliant observation that any of the muppets in the coaching staff should have picked up. 

We have coaches?

Offline TheSandman

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2011, 09:00:53 PM »
Yes, they take us to away games, but that is not important right now.

(I'll get my coat)

Offline frankmosswasmyuncle

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2011, 09:12:55 PM »
Also, if you give the ball away as much as Collins and Dunne do, it is inevitable that you will be defending for longer periods of the game than other teams. I wonder if any context to the Guardian's statistics would change the result, ie goals conceded as a percetnage of the amount of chances Villa have to defend or opposition corners. But then its a wider question of defending as a team and ball retention, which, I dare say, Villa are the worst in the league at presently. Fook it, the sooner any one of the following happens the better: a) McLeish leaves, b) Dunne and Collins leave, c) Dare i say it, Lerner sells up, d) all of the above. I probably don't really mean all that (well some of it) but it feels that way at the moment.

Trouble is, it's not just Dunne and Collins giving the ball away!How many times did Delph, Bannan and Albrighton give the ball away yesterday, usually under no pressure!
As you say Mr D, our ball retention is shite! That's got to be down to what's happening on the training ground, as has defending from set pieces and a basic plan of moving towards the opposition goal and trying to put the round thing somewhere near the white posty things!
I am still gobsmacked at our players' united lack of desire to want the ball, keep the ball and play it in a forward direction. Kids in the playground do it all the time.
It's called football!

Offline Dante Lavelli

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Re: Guardian highlights the bleedin' obvious
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2011, 09:27:58 PM »
A good article that, nice to see a journalist doing some actual research.

 


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