The official zonal marking thread

Was quite surprised to see Arsenal using zonal marking on Saturday.  Is that a new thing for this season?

It was always used by pundits as a stick to beat Rafa with in that it is an ineffective system despite the stats suggesting it works better than man to man marking (and Rafa did actually use a combination of the two systems).  But now Wenger seems to be using it, will the pundits and press start to get on his back?  Sometimes, pundits can be very old fashioned in their views and dismissive of anything 'new' like that.

I'm not that familiar with which other teams in the premiership use it (Citeh?), so feel free to enlighten me.  I have a feeling Barca may use it too.

Liverpool have used zonal defense as long as I can remember (back to Shankly). The difference was that Rafa used zonal defence at set pieces also whereas in the old days they would go to man marking at setpieces. This brought with it the obvious problem of transition from the set piece man marking back to the zonal defence of open play. Depends imo on the players available as to which is better. Although from a fans point of view with man marking it's easier to see which player was at fault for the goal than with zonal.

This thread is only about five years too late!!

Sky (and large swathes of the British media) had an obsession with getting Rafa the sack. He was the best story in English football - bar Mourinho - that there was. They even managed to break our unified support by getting some of the morons to agree with their "line".

Benitez hated them, so they hated Benitez. Just a shame that so few fans outside our club are on to the hypocrisy of it all.

Whats refreshing this season is having a manager who is untouchable. The story that plagued us has now shifted to Arsenal, and the media won't rest until they drive Wenger out as apart from the demise of a club like Everton or Villa there would be no bigger story this season.

The media in football in this country is obsessed with failure and they couldn't give a F**k about perceived success.

This thread is only about five years too late!!

Sky (and large swathes of the British media) had an obsession with getting Rafa the sack. He was the best story in English football - bar Mourinho - that there was. They even managed to break our unified support by getting some of the morons to agree with their "line".

Benitez hated them, so they hated Benitez. Just a shame that so few fans outside our club are on to the hypocrisy of it all.

Whats refreshing this season is having a manager who is untouchable. The story that plagued us has now shifted to Arsenal, and the media won't rest until they drive Wenger out as apart from the demise of a club like Everton or Villa there would be no bigger story this season.

The media in football in this country is obsessed with failure and they couldn't give a F**k about perceived success.

I concur. 

I never had a problem with Rafa using zonal marking at set pieces, my problem was that he never had men on the effing posts!

We have used a mixture of zonal and man2man for about 40 years.

It's only when Rafa did it that it became an issue.

I never had a problem with Rafa using zonal marking at set pieces, my problem was that he never had men on the effing posts!

I would agree with that statement entirely! It was one of the things I never understood. In fact, that should have been one of the questions put to him when we had the chance.

It's only when Rafa did it that it became an issue with Sky.

Changed it for you!!