Zonal Vs Man-to-man Marking

[a_fourteen]

With every set piece we concede this argument surfaces. What's right for us? Why? Where is it going wrong? And can a team where the majority of the starting 11 are way below 6 feet even think of man to many marking or is zonal the safer option?

 

[Monstar-Gunn4r]

Did we do so bad last year in set pieces defensively?

EDIT: By this I meant we are doing the exact same thigns as last year, I think we've just been a bit rusty. We done extremely well on set pieces last year.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Zonal marking is the ONLY way. This shouldn't even be in Arsenal Talk because there's ZERO possibility of us ever switching to man to man marking. I think it was more a lack of concentration than anything that's cost us goals, it's easy to blame the system or approach it happens everytime. Always the first thing to be blame, zonal marking is wrong, 4-3-3 is wrong, we should be a counter attacking team, we need a plan b. It's always been the first thing that people look too.

Zonal marking is fine but our players need to be more alert. The negatives of man to man is that one individual error or just one person being out muscled will cost us. Man to man is a series of 1 on 1 battles and for it to be successful the defending team must win all those mini-battles. For zonal marking we have Mertesacker defending the central area and he usually commands just around the 6 yard box to the 12 yard spot in the central position. We'll have Debuchy back post and Koscielny in there too and then we'll either have Welbeck/Giroud front post. The goal we conceded shouldn't have happened, however it's down to the players and not zonal marking as a whole. Last year we did it well because everyone knew their jobs, we had Flamini in there at times, we had Mertesacker commanding, Sagna at the far post able to header away and Giroud at the near post who often did well on set pieces. Perhaps it'll take some time for guys like Welbeck, Debuchy or Chambers to learn their precise role in our zonal marking but it's up to them to sort it out.

 

[Rex Stone]

I think it was Dixon who talked about it a bit in the World Cup after there were loads of goals conceded by teams with Zonal and he said that at Arsenal with Tony Adams they'd have a mix of both, a couple of players would stick with the main opposition threats but they'd still have the zone waiting for them. He said that way they could get two men on the opposition's biggest threats. Yesterday's goal looked to my untrained eye like static zonal, Demichelis just ran in untracked.

The obvious problem with man to man is that all you need is one clever run by an opposing player and the system's redundant, defenders can get blocked off far more easily as well.

 

[Jury]

It looks like we need to do a mix of both, and we can and have done in the past to great effect. So ,no, zonal marking isn't the ONLY way to go :roll: It's the ONLY way to go if you're sat on Wenger balls 24/7 and have no opinion of your own.

 

[Pies]

I think it was Dixon who talked about it a bit in the World Cup after there were loads of goals conceded by teams with Zonal and he said that at Arsenal with Tony Adams they'd have a mix of both, a couple of players would stick with the main opposition threats but they'd still have the zone waiting for them. He said that way they could get two men on the opposition's biggest threats. Yesterday's goal looked to my untrained eye like static zonal, Demichelis just ran in untracked.

Agreed.

 

[Dokaka]

Zonal marking is the ONLY way. This shouldn't even be in Arsenal Talk because there's ZERO possibility of us ever switching to man to man marking. I think it was more a lack of concentration than anything that's cost us goals, it's easy to blame the system or approach it happens everytime. Always the first thing to be blame, zonal marking is wrong, 4-3-3 is wrong, we should be a counter attacking team, we need a plan b. It's always been the first thing that people look too.

Zonal marking is fine but our players need to be more alert. The negatives of man to man is that one individual error or just one person being out muscled will cost us. Man to man is a series of 1 on 1 battles and for it to be successful the defending team must win all those mini-battles. For zonal marking we have Mertesacker defending the central area and he usually commands just around the 6 yard box to the 12 yard spot in the central position. We'll have Debuchy back post and Koscielny in there too and then we'll either have Welbeck/Giroud front post. The goal we conceded shouldn't have happened, however it's down to the players and not zonal marking as a whole. Last year we did it well because everyone knew their jobs, we had Flamini in there at times, we had Mertesacker commanding, Sagna at the far post able to header away and Giroud at the near post who often did well on set pieces. Perhaps it'll take some time for guys like Welbeck, Debuchy or Chambers to learn their precise role in our zonal marking but it's up to them to sort it out.

Doing man marking doesn't exclude players taking up zones. Look at the picture from yesterday, there were literally 4 players standing in areas with absolute no threat nearby.

The problem with doing zones exclusively is mismatches that happen all to often. It's fairly easy for a team who focus a bit on set-pieces to simply avoid Mertesacker and Koscielny on corners, due to how rigid the whole system is.

Personally I'd have Mertesacker covering the zone around the 6 yard box, and 2 on the posts, but having everyone covering ONE zone is just a recipe for conceding when going up against a premade set-piece.

With man coverage you're at least guaranteed to hastle and annoy an attacker. Zone covering gives you nothing if they play around it.

 

[Floating]

The goal we conceded yesterday wasn't because of zonal marking, it was because of a lack of focus and responsibility. It seemed like a mental thing, not tactical.

 

[Hunta]

Also due to our goalkeeper ignoring Flamini on the line and not keeping it out when he should have after he'd gone for it.

 

[Jury]

What ever happened to tracking the flight of the ball and attacking it at it's highest point? You know, defending? Doing your best to deny the initiative.

 

[Floating]

What ever happened to tracking the flight of the ball and attacking it at it's highest point? You know, defending? Doing your best to deny the initiative.

Exactly, that's not down to the system we were playing, it was just poor defending.

 

[blrgooner]

Agree with most people here.. It is not Zonal marking which is the problem, Yesterday`s goal was just pathetic defending.
Also don`t quite understand how we can play man to man marking considering the team we are likely to have on the pitch. We usually have only 3-4 players who are capable of winning headers and zonal marking is probably the only way we can get the maximum out of those 3-4 players.

 

[Jury]

I'm not sure you can say it has nothing to do with zonal marking. After all, it's what they're trying to execute, isn't it? It's akin to the 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' thing, isn't it?

"Zonal doesn't make us concede goals, people defending poorly makes us concede goals" or sumin

If they were instructed to defend how they thought best at the time, by looking at the likely suspects, blocking runs and attacking the ball, we wouldn't have conceded that goal. Just defending with common sense would have prevented. Zonal is an ideal that is difficult to do well IMO.

 

[eye4goal]

Ultimately its down to the aerial ability of your players. If you can avoid Giroud/Welbeck and Mertesacker you're usually up against Koscielny or Debuchy and the two are beatable in the air(man marking or zonal)

I think Chambers should have taken over Koscielny's zone for the City goal with the latter moving to the back-post, but with Chambers coming on for Debuchy you could see why he was defending the same zone.

I think you need 4-5 aerially strong players to play a combination of zonal and man marking. If Per is man marking and Giroud/Welbeck are near post-as is standard- we'd struggle even more in my opinion. A team like Chelsea can have Matic and Cahill man marking with Costa, Terry and Ivanovic maintaining a strong presence in the zones. We just don't have the numbers for it.

 

[blrgooner]

Ultimately its down to the aerial ability of your players. If you can avoid Giroud/Welbeck and Mertesacker you're usually up against Koscielny or Debuchy and the two are beatable in the air(man marking or zonal)

I think Chambers should have taken over Koscielny's zone for the City goal with the latter moving to the back-post, but with Chambers coming on for Debuchy you could see why he was defending the same zone.

I think you need 4-5 aerially strong players to play a combination of zonal and man marking. If Per is man marking and Giroud/Welbeck are near post-as is standard- we'd struggle even more in my opinion. A team like Chelsea can have Matic and Cahill man marking with Costa, Terry and Ivanovic maintaining a strong presence in the zones. We just don't have the numbers for it.

Exactly my point. Agree completely.

 

[AnthonyG]

I don't know which is better, or which will work best for us, but it's not been good or working so far. I guess Sagna and now Giroud were two pretty good players on set pieces/corners. Maybe it'll just take some time. Hope so.

 

[Wouterus]

Whenever a goal is scored from a set-piece against a team that uses zonal marking, commentators, pundits and fans usually blame the manager for setting his team up like that, but you rarely see people blame man-to-man. Probably because man-to-man marking makes it easy to see which players makes the mistake, so he gets all the blame instead of the defensive set-up.

Both depend on the execution but zonal marking is the most proactive of the two. Obviously doesn't mean it is necessarily the best for any team.

 

[DOUBLE-YOU]

Agree with most people here.. It is not Zonal marking which is the problem, Yesterday`s goal was just pathetic defending.
Also don`t quite understand how we can play man to man marking considering the team we are likely to have on the pitch. We usually have only 3-4 players who are capable of winning headers and zonal marking is probably the only way we can get the maximum out of those 3-4 players.

THIS!!!!

To be honest, it really doesn't matter what system you play, if the team doesn't have players who are strong in the air and who enjoy attacking the ball, then goals will always be conceded from set pieces.

 

[say yes]

The one thing I have noticed with our set pieces is how often we struggle against the 'big' sides. (Big as in Liverpool, City, United - not Stoke, Crystal Palace etc).

 

[Anzac]

Primarily it's an issue of resources rather than system.
We are the shortest team in the PL - only BFG & Giroud have any real height. Kos is the next tallest at only 186cm, and whilst he's decent in the air his strength as a CB is in his man marking on the ground. Essentially we lack the height and numbers to execute one system or the other effectively.

The next issue is that we are far too static in that we look to wait for the ball to feet in open play, and after years of doing so it has become second nature in everything we do. Consequently we are static in our zones, we have no one attacking the ball, and we're little more than chicanes.