[Albion] Zonal Marking

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Surely a combination of blocking runs, 1 or 2 of our tallest players whose sole job is to attack the ball and the rest zonal would be better. The problem with man marking is that to do it effectively you have to foul attackers (holding them, grabbing shirts etc) which VAR will pick up on.

There was also some very good analysis on MOTD yesterday of our inability to block crosses in open play - there were 2 half arsed efforts by Biss and 1 from March which were highlighted (our goals conceded from crosses stats are crap too). We are not getting tight enough essentially, which should be easily fixed.

It's all causation, if the cross is stopped, the corner may not be conceded and the defending or lack of doesn't happen.

 

[DJ NOBO]

Its not supposed to be static, zonal marking doesnt mean you are glued to the ground. You should still be on your toes. The argument that zonal marking somehow prevented Dunk from jumping last night is just a very poor attempt of whitewashing his performance on the corner, it was a poorly timed jump from him, simple as that. Shit happens, unfortunately this is one of his few weaknesses so shit happens quite a lot.

Most teams today use a mix of zonal and man marking on set pieces. Straight up man marking died with data that said that man marking the players on the edge of the area making runs as the ball goes in is useless: their attacking player will be facing the goal when making his run, the defender will be running backwards and the result is that the attacking player will lose his marker.

The solution that pretty much every half-decent team found is that if you dont "man mark" these players and instead mark the zone where they are running, you have a better chance of getting rid of the ball than if you are running backwards (or have to turn around which loses you 1,5 seconds you cant afford). The players in the zone got a better chance to stop a) the ball and b) the player.

Predominantely man marking only works if your players are athletically superior to the opposition, which is rarely the case with Brighton.

There is nothing wrong the marking. Its fairly standard and doesnt differ from what most teams do in most games on set pieces. The difference is in the execution - the team is inexperienced and physically modest. If you look at Vestergaards goal when Brighton lost to Saints, no one had the physical capacity of stopping or even disturbing him. If you look at the goal yesterday several players could have stopped his running path but didnt, which is a sign of inexperience. This along with Dunks poor timing caused the goal. Not the pretty much obsolete decision between man or zonal marking.

Every podcaster/commentator/writer I’ve read and heard has lazily written off our zonal marking, simply as a madcap system that could never work.
The post above is the easily the most illuminating perspective I’ve read.