Zonal Marking

Ricster

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Last night was another prime example of the failure within the 'zonal marking' system at corners. I cant understand how you can mark the 6 yard box and anticipate the flight of the ball. Below is a diagram of the way City have set out their stall in recent games via the 'Zonal Marking' at corners.

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Now to me this diagram shows a clear flaw as the players who are the best headers of the ball mark the 6 yard box. Gareth Barry was where the x is, middle by pen spot, in the diagram and Dunne out jumped him twice scoring one and coming close with the 2nd. The reason Dunne out jumped Barry is because Dunne was running onto the ball. Science will always prove a player running and jumping will always jump further off the ground than a player jumping from a standing position.

Also, since last week, we have taken one of our better defenders at set pieces out of the team which has put more pressure on us defensively. Step forward Micah Richards. While he can be caught out of position on occasions his presence when defending set pieces is huge, and something i feel we have missed in the last 2 games.

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Above is a 'man marking' diagram, and while i agree it does look slightly more chaotic, it already looks a lot stronger defensively. While there is a large gap to run into, these players have 2 obsticles.

The 1st obsticle is to get past their marker into that space. As im sure you can see or many of you have experienced in the past, this is more difficult than it sounds.

The 2nd obsticle, if you get past the first is out jumping your marker. With the defender running onto the ball it gives him a better chance of being able to get the height required to get the ball cleared or be able to put the attacking player under a lot more pressure.
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I have to admit, im not a fan of the zonal marking system and in recent weeks i think its flaws have been shown, especially within our team. I have tried to understand why Hughes goes with the zonal sysem but just cant fathom it.

Back to man marking for me.
 
A very good, insightful post.

I'll get straight to the point though; I think zonal marking is a load of bollocks. City and Liverpool have quite clearly proven that it isn't the best way to defend corners. The percentage of goals both teams have conceded from corners must be pretty large.
 
Dubai Blue said:
A very good, insightful post.

I'll get straight to the point though; I think zonal marking is a load of bollocks. City and Liverpool have quite clearly proven that it isn't the best way to defend corners. The percentage of goals both teams have conceded from corners must be pretty large.

pool have concceded 10 goals, 9 from set pieces
 
It'd be a good post if we actually zonally marked.

Last night Barry was man-marking Dunne on the corners (until after Dunne won the second header).
 
PMSL we play zonal and man marking like every other team in the league. Adebayor front post and swp/de jong back post are zonal the rest are man to man.
 
masterwig said:
It'd be a good post if we actually zonally marked.

Last night Barry was man-marking Dunne on the corners (until after Dunne won the second header).

Have a look at how the players set up at the corners from last nights game. If you can say a 4-5 yard gap is man marking the i'll flash my arse on the pitch at City vs Fulham.
 
If we were zonally marking then why for example did Barry follow Dunne on that corner in the second half? If it was zonal surely once Dunney left Barry's 'zone' then he would have stopped tracking his run.

We have a few zonal players such as the man on the post and usually Ade near the front post too but on the whole we man-mark the key men.

To be honest I think the reason players have been so far from their man has been sloppy marking.
 
Last night Ade should have been marking Carew, JL marking Dunnie etc, I thought last night we only looked in trouble at set pieces, we will learn we are still coming together as a team and its ok to try and find the best system
 

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