Can someone with tactical know-how explain what we were trying to do here?
Can someone with tactical know-how explain what we were trying to do here?
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Reminds me of Sunday League marking, followed by who the fook was marking him as you trudge back to the centre circle 😱Zonal defending ...
Basically you are detailed to defend a zone and ensure that no opposing player enters your zone and has an attempt at goal ....
Oooops ... don't always work apparently 🙂
I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've seen zonal marking at Deepdale and to be fair for the first 10 games or so it was working and stopped one of our biggest worries before the season started, that of the defence being our weak link.
Would be interesting to know if the "zone" each defender occupies are fixed from game to game and set piece to set piece. If they are then it's easy for the opposition to work these out and target certain zones, which Villa may well have done on Wednesday. Would also be interesting to know if Neil will alter the identified threats mid-game, i.e. they put a man on Chester for the rest of the set plays on Wednesday once they'd identified his goal threat, or whether the captain has the authority to change people's positions after spotting such a threat.
To be fair though, it's not just been set plays where we've looked weak in defence in the past half a dozen games or so. The confidence we had in August/September seems to have disappeared which means that silly mistakes all over the pitch our creeping it. Of course it only takes a couple of pieces of good luck for the momentum to swing the other way again but it looks like we might be doing a bit more defending than attacking over the next few games.
DJ picking up his customary no man's land position there. I'm fine with zonal as long as you're well drilled. I think we should be knocking it on the head during this injury crisis though. Too much chop and change to get a good read on this method. Back to basics until we get a settled back line in my view.
Thanks for the feedback. Just looked like we were marking fresh air and not a specific zone. This zonal defending doesn't work well for Liverpool either does it? I can't recall seeing us defend like that this season.
We’ve been zonal marking home/away since Derby away when there was a wrestling match in the box. It’s gone ok with a few scares since then but it seems to have gone a slightly wrong on Weds.
I’ve never been a fan of zonal marking. How does a defender know where his zone ends and the next player starts? It seems to me you’re just marking fresh air? Give me good old fashioned man to man marking at set pieces. Each defender knows who he is picking up and there’s no confusion.