And another thing!!!!

Why, oh why, oh bloody why do we insist on keeping all 10 outfield players back defending set pieces??? There were times yesterday, while we were losing, where Cambridge had a corner or long throw and we had everyone inside the area. Not a single player upfront for the release ball, even when the opposition had kept four players back near the centre circle. Absolute fu¢king insanity.

 

This drives me mad too; makes no sense and doesn’t give us a chance to break.

 

10 players and the keeper and their man still had a free header

 

It’s called zonal marking. It’s worked a treat all season. It’s in Collins’ training manual though so he’s sticking with it no matter what….

 

Got to admit. The tactic at corners in our box. Is Bizzare. 1-0 down. 11 men in the box defending. Total cambridge players inside our box was 4.

 

Apparently it's from the stats manual, less goals conceded when ya pack the box at set plays...

 

I really, really hate zonal marking, far prefer man to man marking, size for size.

 

Me too mate but there's a reason for it. This very same thing got asked last week and there were a lot of details on it all iirc on that thread. It's thousands & thousands of hours worth of analytics what go into all this stuff - though it does annoy me at times.

 

Man to man works well if you have the players with the ability, zonal works better when you don’t statistically speaking, like Tyke the tree frog says.
That also goes a long way to explain the rationale of packing the box, although I have to agree it’s frustrating when you are 1-0 down and even more so when so many of the opposition players don’t go into the box, logic would dictate push your faster players out would make a team like Cambridge more wary of the break.

 

Pep and Arteta will be doing the same thing later.

 

He answered this question on football heaven.

apparently the stats back him up on it.

 

You're right Fonz, but they'll be doing it with premiership players who accurately pass to their own players most of the time.

 

When was the last time a zone scored a goal?
Man to man marking, man on each post and leave at least 1 up front so the opposition has to keep at least 2 players back to deal with him.
Simples!!!

 

Yes but when you look at the statistics of different clubs with different players who have different attributes those different clubs concede less goals when doing it their way so we have to copy them

 

And they can break from their own box and get to the opposition box in 5 seconds. It takes us 2 weeks.

 

They stopped putting a man on the post because it plays everyone onside if there's a second phase - all them new offside rules etc.

 

First free kick and corner - all 10 men back in box for arsenal.

 

Doesn't mean its a good idea even if it's Arsenal

 

But it will have been analysed over thousands and thousands of set pieces and run through their full analytic team.

They don't just wake up and think, let's bring all the men back.

It obviously works.

 

The purpose is that there is loads of space up front for a quick break and it’s harder to pick runners up than someone stood on the centre spot. The problem is none of our team have any pace so we never counter effectively.