Zonal marking is the right way to defend set pieces. You have 4-6 players in their zones, then another 2-3 track the running players.
If the ball comes in your zone you attack the f'ucker and clear it.
Where we go wrong, well firstly we never cover either post. When the ball comes into the box that fast it only needs a touch from somebody and its past Reina. We always need to keep two players on the posts. Benyaoun and mascherano would be my two for this job. It makes the goal so much smaller when you suddenly have 2 extra men on the goal line.
Secondly, i watch the way the team lines up when defending set pieces, and the back 4 all stand on the six yard box. Dont no why rafa does this. He should have the 4 biggest players standing there. So tell Insua to do 1 and replace him with Gerrard. Skrtel, Agger, Johnson im happy with.
Players tracking the runners should be Carragher and kuyt. Because there the two most likely players in the team who will throw themselves into any tackle etc.
Put lucas as far away from our goal as possible.
That leaves Nando. i hate it when rafa brings every player back to defend a set piece, so basically there is 20 players now in our box. Were just asking for s'hit. If he leaves 2-3 players on the half way line, then the other team are going to have to leave atleast 3 as well but most likely 4. So it would be so much easier to defend if theres less bodies in the box.
we can't do man to man marking, we just can't. we haven't got a big enough team to do it. Insua, aurelio, lucas, mascherano, benayoun etc would struggle and we'd get caught out more.
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