Defending corners - a question

[Pedro]

If I think back it was in part the dropping of Rocha which finally convinced me that Jol needed to go.

He was dropped for the Arse game at home after playing well and looking our most competent defender in the games leading up to it, including an excellent performance at Old Trafford.

Then after the game Jol when interviewed bemoaned the fact that he had 2 inexperienced central defenders playing when he quite clearly didn't have to. In fact Rocha sat on the bench for the entire 90 minutes.

Anyway that is another story, I reckon we will see King alongside Rocha on Saturday, I certainly hope so.

I think you may be right after gus comments. I expected rocha back before leds - where is he? I expected him on the bench.

It kinda helps having a defender on the bench, o'hara for kaboul was a strange sub, If we had rocha coming on I don't think we would have conceeded.

Rocha seems pretty good in the air and set pieces to me considering he isn't that tall - he tends to get something on it, even if it isn't always a perfect clearance - at least he wins the ball! I really can't understand why he hasn't played - today was a good oppertunity since leds was rested and the known fact that kaboul and daws cant play together.

 

[thfcsteff]

I
The main thing all these manuals offer is different types of drills for coaches to use on the training ground, so teams are prepared for all situations. But these are all ultimately flawed as no matter what you do on the training ground, it can't account for the oppositions teams random approach to set piece systems. You can try randon delivery in training, but the players are never the same as the opposition players and match environment can never be reproduced. At the end of the day, once a player has reached premiership level, he should be very well versed in set peice organisation. But, a players natural ability to stay alert and concentrate is something that is virtually impossible to coach.

This is why a coach known for his set peice defending (ie Sam Allardayce), can move clubs (Bolton to Newcastle) and suddenly his new team can't defend set pieces. Sam's approach on the training ground will be just the same at Newcastle as at Bolton, but the key thing is that the players are different. In our case players like Chimbonda, Dawson and Gardner could play for 100 years and they'd still lose concentration at key moments. Kaboul is still young, so maybe his mistakes are down to a lack of experience and leadership alongside him. Even Leds have never been the most alert. The key is to bring in new players. Some people were scathing about Jol's coaching of our set pieces, but now Ramos has equalled him for goals conceded (from set pieces played into the box) this season and in one less game. It has little to do with either of them. We need leaderhip and oragnisation at the back and not necessarily just for on the pitch. A player like Naybet can be equally as useful on the training ground and take Ramos and Poyet aside and point things out to them.

A fine post with many decent points...first off though, Jol has no excuse as these were HIS players (the players he'd worked with for over 2 years)...Ramos and Poyet get a free pass from me on that score as it's painfully obvious these will NOT be their chosen players in the back half of the green rectangle, thus they're working with another man's tools.

But yes, I agree...systems and tactics still require 100% concentration. And pyschological confidence. Which for me starts with your number 1. If your number 1 is clear, confident, bossy, assertive and dominant in HIS area, it sets the tempo AND template for the entire defence.

The basics for set-piece defending see the obvious 'height-for-height' match-ups, your forwards (providing they're not Defoe of course) will match-up with defenders coming forward and there is usually one person guarding the front-post and one person guarding the back post. IF there are adjustments to be made in the box, it SHOULD fall to the goalkeeper (given that hopefully your keeper OWNS his penalty area a la Schmeichel) or SENIOR central defender. If you have neither on the field, then a SENIOR PRO needs to take responsibility for organizing, thus a leader...that's a simple text-book break down, but of course, application is the key. And frankly, I don't think we have the players back there of a quality which Ramos and Gus want...

 

[Kurtzen]

legend : ....'..It's alarming how many times our defenders take the wrong body shape, I'm talking about they get themselves in a position whereby they can see the ball but not who they are marking or they can see tha player and not the ball.

Good defenders get themselves in a position where they can see both.'

eViL: ....
"Christ guys, are you totally missing the fact that regardless of how good/bad the marking is at the moment, not ONE of our defenders is actually CHALLENGING to clear these set-pieces in the first place?

If our players were actually out there attemting to WIN the high balls instead of trying to have some bum-fun with their opposing number the ball wouldn't actually make it onto anyone's head/foot/arse to concede anyway!!

We need a BIG ball winner."

Agreed fellas. Although i'd call it an absence of anyone attacking the ball; 'flappers flapping' doesn't qualify.

Some questions:

'Zonal vs MM'?....i'm not sure, but hasn't JR moved to 'MM chaos' from BMJ's 'zonal confusion'?

If you paired off our selected players who can head a ball against opponents selected players who can head a ball, the remainder would favour opponents by how much? Which is a polite way of saying to have a squad in which only one striker(who is reluctant to attack a header) and no midfielders who can contribute to aerial defence is suicide.

 

[Gilzeanking]

Yay Russyid and Jurgen . Yes the first goal conceded was headed in from the edge of the goal area .

ROBBO'S AREA OF CONTROL .

More than anything being said about our defence , a new goalie must be the NO 1 priority .

Yeh and I forgot to make one other point .

When an attacking team gets a corner against a normal Prem team , they're pleased yes , but its pretty much part of the normal events in the game .

When they get a corner against us....they become very stimulated and excited , more in the way you'd expect if they had a free kick on the edge of our area . They know that with our defending and disastrous goalie they really have a chance to score . They've been told by their coaches how bad we are at corners/set pieces so are well motivated to make the extra small percentage effort needed to make this positive vision of their's a reality .

It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy . They visualize a goal scored and our players visualize a goal conceded .

Only drastic changes can break this cycle .Shifting a man here and there , front post /back post whatever is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic .

 

[sheringmann]

Just run into the man you are supposed to be marking 1 second after the corner is taken...then he loses his balance.....and do NOT go ballwatching....its no big deal really.....

 

[SpursManChris]

Well all I know, is that yesterdays fatal error to gift Villa their winning goal was perhaps the most worrying thing I've seen from our sad and sorry excuse for a defense so far this season. YOU DO NOT MARK A 6'2" MAN WHO IS A KNOWN THREAT FROM SET PIECES WITH A 5'10" MAN WHO'S NOT EVEN A NATURAL DEFENDER! How do they NOT know this? As soon as I saw O'hara marking Laursen I knew straight away that we would concede and that Laursen would be the goal scorer, predicted it a mile off, the whole situation didn't look good. I actually sat there in astonishment when the goal went in at how a "professional" top flight defense could get this sort of thing wrong. Now I know it wasn't really the height difference that Laursen took advantage of, it was his sheer pace to move and dummy and he really did make a fool out of O'hara, he left him for dead, he's not a defender by any means. BUT the fact that this was the lay out of the defense from the corner, it just goes to show that we were totally unorganised and totally unprofessional yesterday, it really was a complete disgrace, what a shambles! I mean seriously, this is Conference grade stuff.

 

[DC_Boy]

I've always been a big defender of Lee (who isn't a big defender and that's my point - aha! seriously we need more decent in the air players on the pitch and if Rocha/Gardner get fit fit soon & if there's no room for them at CB - i'd honestly consider playing them LB - they may not be as good but we're in crisis mode at present

 

[ladi100]

In hindsight, Robbo has not been comanding enough in his area of the past season. But to declare him as a bad keeper is a bit far fetched IMO.

I vividly remember 2 seasons ago watching Robbo, and thinking......"he's actually playing as a 5th defender" which really helped the team. He got caught out a couple of times, but he was making up for a defender's error.

Nowadays he just 'goal tends' which is obviously the important part of the job, but if that's all you do (and your not the bees knees at it) then u may as well have me in goal.

I personally dont think we'll see a confident Robbo again. Perhaps if the back 4 is more solid he might gain more confidence, but its a long shot.

 

[BigRed]

As has been said by others, but is worth repeating, the problem is a lack of leadership on the pitch. Ramos cannot personally assign each player who they are marking at each corner so someone on the pitch has to be responsible for it.

 

[SpursManChris]

As has been said by others, but is worth repeating, the problem is a lack of leadership on the pitch. Ramos cannot personally assign each player who they are marking at each corner so someone on the pitch has to be responsible for it.

It shouldn't really take Ramos to make them realise basic rules like height matching. Although we are dealing with amateurs... I still can't believe it... fancy putting a 5'10" man on a 6'2" man. Not good enough.

 

[BigRed]

It shouldn't really take Ramos to make them realise basic rules like height matching. Although we are dealing with amateurs... I still can't believe it... fancy putting a 5'10" man on a 6'2" man. Not good enough.

Yes. So the question is who is responsible for that? Was it Dawson? As the senior defender in the side he probably should have been. But perhaps Robinson should also shoulder some of the blame as he must take some responsibility for organising the defence.

 

[Juande_Ramos]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/r...ent/4685580.stm

 

[Stoof]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/r...ent/4685580.stm

"The other thing of course was having a goalkeeper (Bruce Grobbelaar) who we knew was going to come for crosses."

:doh:

 

[BigRed]

"The other thing of course was having a goalkeeper (Bruce Grobbelaar) who we knew was going to come for crosses."

:doh:

That's a bit obvious. If you're zone marking the goalkeeper is responsible for one of the zones!

 

[TonyWant]

Blocking defenders

Some great points made in this thread about set pieces - Robbo is not commanding his 6 yard box - Dawson is not street smart as a defender - we have no leader in these situations - all true

But no one has mentioned the opposing team tactic of having one attacker block the key defender so that the other attacker can run in to get a free header at a corner.

Classic example was Hud who was supposed to be marking Bendtner for the second goal conceded v Arsenal - he could not follow Bendtner's run because he was blocked by another Arsenal player - same happened to him v Reading - same thing happened to us at Bolton for Miete's second goal last season - but there are probably lots of other examples
Yesterday the block was done, not by a Villa player, but by the hapless Prince who got in Dawson's way for the Mellberg goal
Smart strong sreetwise defenders will not let this happen - we need to know how to deal with this
Any thoughts ?

 

[jurgenthegerman18]

Blocking defenders
Some great points made in this thread about set pieces - Robbo is not commanding his 6 yard box - Dawson is not street smart as a defender - we have no leader in these situations - all true

But no one has mentioned the opposing team tactic of having one attacker block the key defender so that the other attacker can run in to get a free header at a corner.

Classic example was Hud who was supposed to be marking Bendtner for the second goal conceded v Arsenal - he could not follow Bendtner's run because he was blocked by another Arsenal player - same happened to him v Reading - same thing happened to us at Bolton for Miete's second goal last season - but there are probably lots of other examples
Yesterday the block was done, not by a Villa player, but by the hapless Prince who got in Dawson's way for the Mellberg goal
Smart strong sreetwise defenders will not let this happen - we need to know how to deal with this
Any thoughts ?

I'm not sure it's payers being blocked, I think it's just clever movement from the attackers. The Bentner goal for example, he made a clever run past his own man who was unaware of where the Hudd was, the Hudd just got caught out by the movement, ran into Adebayor(sp) and fell over 'cos he knew he'd fucked up. If the Hudd had been Materazi or whoever he would have got ball side of Bentner and eased him away from the danger area without fouling him, defensive naivety same as the rest mainly due to defenders playing without confidence. It all comes bback to Robbo's doorstep I'm afraid, Schmeichel would have never let any defenders get away with what ours get away with.

 

[BigRed]

I'm not sure it's payers being blocked, I think it's just clever movement from the attackers. The Bentner goal for example, he made a clever run past his own man who was unaware of where the Hudd was, the Hudd just got caught out by the movement, ran into Adebayor(sp) and fell over 'cos he knew he'd fucked up. If the Hudd had been Materazi or whoever he would have got ball side of Bentner and eased him away from the danger area without fouling him, defensive naivety same as the rest mainly due to defenders playing without confidence. It all comes bback to Robbo's doorstep I'm afraid, Schmeichel would have never let any defenders get away with what ours get away with.

This is very true. You don't have to be a professional footballer to experience this problem, I face it every week playing five-a-side.

You get tight marking a man for a set piece and then you look around and while you're looking around he suddenly makes a run and you get half a step behind him. If he then runs past someone else you're screwed because you've totally lost him. The solution is to be in front of him to begin with so that he can't make that run without running into you and you can gently shove him in the other direction.

Our players are meak and puny and don't do this enough. Tom Huddlestone is one of those classic big guys who is afraid of his own strength and needs to be taught to be more ruthless.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Do we need a nasty bastard in the team?

 

[Stoof]

Do we need a nasty beardy bastard in the team?

Yes.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Nasty and bearded......:think:

Not Captain Birdseye then.........