Poyet says 'expect big changes'

[Archibald&Crooks]

Right it's now been just over 17 hours since Poyet's interview and I have seen no big changes.

Damn that lying Uruguayan.

:lol:

We get strung along like puppets

 

[chewie]

first off happy new year.

secondly, the players have had 15 games to impress the new bloke, and enough IS enough.

they say footballers arent the brightest bunch, but our lot are thick as shit when it comes to defending.

WHO THE FUCK IS SUPPOSSED TO TAKE CHARGE ON THE PITCH TO ORGANISE THE MESS IN THE AREA??????

we're still lacking a leader on the pitch.

probably doesnt help us that the only defender who has been fit to play has been Kaboul... and even then he can only manage about 60mins before we haul him off.

 

[PLTuck]

Poyet sounded really, really, pissed off. Particularly in the Sky interview. He must have said 4 or more times 'We have had enough', or 'enough is enough'.

I get the feeling we might have an entirely new backline by Feb 1st, apart from Ledley, as he mentioned that it's not just individuals, but a team thing. I said to the misses last night after the game that Daws lost his man, if it isnt Daws it's Kaboul, if it isnt Kaboul it's Hudd, if it isn't Hudd it's Chimbonda.....

Maybe 'big changes' means more in terms of coaching, defensive systems but I can't see how you can coach out so many basic errors from so many players.

Interesting month ahead.

 

[AnotherSpursFan]

Gus POyet 1 General Levy 0

 

[walworthyid]

I didn't see the interview but I know how I felt after the game and what Gus' genral point was, and I bloody agree. It is not good enough and serious changes need to be made.

How some people can seriously criticise a man for telling the truth is simply beyond me.

You could say we need better players, who doesn't, but the situation can be improved regardless of who is playing. Defending from corners and freekicks is not rocket science and I reckon that if Rafa, Jose, Wenger or Fergie had Dawson et al for an entire pre-season they would soon be defending better.

It is no doubt not a coincidence that we seldom score goals from free-kicks set pieces either.... we just don't attack the ball with conviction and players are standing waiting for the ball rather than attacking it.

From experience of playing fairly decent football it is very much a mental thing. I am a striker but I used to play CB and when I did I was very good in the air (I am 6'2") and used to be very aggressive when attacking the ball. Since I moved up front I am useless in the air because I tend to stand and wait for the ball and my movement in the box when waiting for the ball to come in is not good enough. Perhaps I don't see it as an important part of my game where as when I was a cb it was my bread and butter?

Anyway, I reckon that rather than specifically marking players that defenders should attack the ball. I recall that when Rafa first took over at Pool he was criticised for his zonal marking from corners but once the players got the system they became and have remained very solid.

The principal of zonal marking is not just that you focus on an area in which you are responsible for winning the ball but also that you are physically covering the space that a forward might want to get into. How often do we see defenders worrying so much about the player they are marking that they get beaten to the jump because they are reacting rather than dictating?

I am not an expert but it seems that we should have bodies attacking the ball in the areas where the opposition would be doing the same and thus in a worst case scenario we are at least going to get a physical challenge in and prevent the free headers that we are allowing.

What ever Gus meant by changes I applaud him and hope he can effect these changes as soon as possible because if we could defend we would be challenging the top 4.

 

[General Levy]

Gus POyet 1 General Levy 0

:wink:

 

[yanno]

The principal of zonal marking is not just that you focus on an area in which you are responsible for winning the ball but also that you are physically covering the space that a forward might want to get into. How often do we see defenders worrying so much about the player they are marking that they get beaten to the jump because they are reacting rather than dictating?

I am not an expert but it seems that we should have bodies attacking the ball in the areas where the opposition would be doing the same and thus in a worst case scenario we are at least going to get a physical challenge in and prevent the free headers that we are allowing.

walworthyid - interesting comments. There's a discussion about switching to zonal marking here:
http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=24900

I was a CB too, and I have a question for you. I was never ever coached in zonal marking for set pieces. It was always man marking, apart from perhaps the player defending the near post (as Carrick and now Berba do for us). Liverpool's defenders bitched like mad when Rafa introduced zonal marking, mainly because they'd never played it before. Now, the stats say it works very well for them.

So, my question is how quickly do you think our players could learn zonal marking? (Given many are not British, they may already understand the principles.)

 

[Shanks]

to be honest, even if Gus kept quiet about hte players, only makes us more of a laughing stock than we already are, he came out and said what everyone knows, we cannot defend set peices, or much else for shite.
Big changes could also mean in training, not necessarily in personel, but I just hope we get things sorted out sooner rather than later!!!

 

[walworthyid]

walworthyid - interesting comments. There's a discussion about switching to zonal marking here:
http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=24900

I was a CB too, and I have a question for you. I was never ever coached in zonal marking for set pieces. It was always man marking, apart from perhaps the player defending the near post (as Carrick and now Berba do for us). Liverpool's defenders bitched like mad when Rafa introduced zonal marking, mainly because they'd never played it before. Now, the stats say it works very well for them.

So, my question is how quickly do you think our players could learn zonal marking? (Given many are not British, they may already understand the principles.)

Firstly, it is not simply a question of changing systems as such, you don't see players in the zonal marking completely ignoring the opposition they simply prioritise winning the ball over marking them. You can do both. Players need to have a specific task at hand, which currently ours don't. By virtue of the zonal system you will inevitably have a player trying to attack your "zone" so it kind of goes hand in hand, the only difference being that you are more concerned with getting to the ball than stopping somebody else from doing so.

If you take Dawson as an example, he is a big lump of a lad who loves a physical challenge, he would give ANY striker a run for his money in a straight physical contest, but he is not defending to his strengths. If all Daws had to do was worry about getting to the ball first and competing for the header physically with another player, more often than not he would come out on top or else he would put such physical pressure on his opponent that he would not have a clear header at the ball.

This then brings on to the issue of how players are attenpting to win the ball. It is obvious that from an in-swinging cross that a player running forward towards the goal is going to have an advantage. This is made even more so when the defender is backing towards his own goal, trying to watch his player, watch the flight of the ball and then jump. To me that is simply not an effective way of defending because the odds are nearly always against the defenders.

If on the other hand the defender is focussed only on winning the ball he can sit a little deeper and allow himself the space to run and get a decent jump at the ball. As I said in my post, if you have defenders physically dominating or at least competing for the space with the attackers there is just not any space left for players to get free headers. No matter how good the ball in is he will always have a player to beat in a straight contest.

 

[Keano]

Just found out what the 'BIG CHANGE' is..




















Berba is gonna mark the goalscoring CB from now on instead of going front post

 

[yanno]

Firstly, it is not simply a question of changing systems as such, you don't see players in the zonal marking completely ignoring the opposition they simply prioritise winning the ball over marking them.

True, and good points throughout your entire post again.

I suspect you're correct, and zonal marking against opposition corners would enable our defenders to compete far more effectively than they've done recently.

But how do you zonal mark at set pieces like Villa's first goal yesterday?

For a corner, where the opposition can't be offside, I understand how you can divide up the penalty box into Zones of Control for your key defenders. But how does this work for opposition free kicks? Do you have specific players defending the short ball and the deep ball, and then a couple told to attack any balls coming in between?

EDIT: there are some answers to my question here, in the link posted by SC's very own Juande_Ramos:

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

 

[walworthyid]

True, and good points throughout your entire post again.

I suspect you're correct, and zonal marking against opposition corners would enable our defenders to compete far more effectively than they've done recently.

But how do you zonal mark at set pieces like Villa's first goal yesterday?

For a corner, where the opposition can't be offside, I understand how you can divide up the penalty box into Zones of Control for your key defenders. But how does this work for opposition free kicks? Do you have specific players defending the short ball and the deep ball, and then a couple told to attack any balls coming in between?

EDIT: there are some answers to my question here, in the link posted by SC's very own Juande_Ramos:

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

Well the whole premise of zonal marking is that there are zones to mark. No matter what the opposition do in order to score a goal from a set piece delivered into the box they MUST put the ball and their attackers into certain areas and it is those areas that are then divided into zones that player/s are responsible for defending.

We conceded yesterday because our players were marking players and not the space into which those players actually scored from. Obviously there are situations where the ball is moved around before it comes in and the defenders are not in the starting positions that they would be in if they were defending from a dead ball but positioning should always be in the back of a defender's mind anyway.

The fact is that you can come up with any number of circumstances in which the opposition have chances to score but teams who can defend some how manage to not concede goals and there has to be a reason why.

For me, if we tell our defenders to attack the ball in the space around them instead of running around holding onto attackers or just standing still waiting for the ball to come they will have a better chance of doing their jobs.

As I said above, for a team to score from a dead ball into the box that ball must go into areas that can easily be identified and marked. You are not going to get too many headed goals from the edge of the box hence other than watching for the shortish ball to the edge of the box for a shot at goal you could afford to leave players unmarked on the edge of the box because they are not going to score from there. We must have bodies doing an effective job in the areas where they are most needed.

 

[themanwhofellasleep]

Whenever someone mentions zonal marking, I think of Egil Olsen and his attempts to teach Wimbledon to defend zonally. They were relegated that season, I believe.

 

[Damian99]

Whenever someone mentions zonal marking, I think of Egil Olsen and his attempts to teach Wimbledon to defend zonally. They were relegated that season, I believe.

Id say Zonal marking is the way forward, our players aren`t intelligent enough to man mark, nor are they capable of tracking both ball and man at sametime.

If all they have to worry about(as such)is an area of the pitch and to attack the ball should it look like it may appear in there, things could be a little easier for them.

 

[Bobbins]

Zonal marking is much easier to implement when you have players of decent size and ability in the air, and man-marking is harder to implement if you have a slower, less mobile group of players.

Given that King is the only one of our players of decent size who can actually move at more than 2mph, zonal marking would definitely be an option.

I was trying to explain zonal marking to my girlfriend the other day after the Reading game (I'd been moaning about defending zones of the box all game). She actually toally understood.

I was impressed.

By my explaining capabilities.

 

[joey55]

But even when we are zonal marking our players still get confused. Against Farmagusta we conceded a FK, which was high enough up the pitch for our players to take a line that meant they'd move in towards the goal, as oppossed to away from it, as would be the case from a corner. In these case the defence and attacking players are grouped together (as they are both going to be going the same way), with the Farmagusta players trying to unsettle our deffensive line. The whole point of the zonal system is to defend an area rather than a man and thus we don't have to worry about getting dragged out of positon etc. Yet somehow BAE started to man mark and follow a defender, until Dawson physically grabbed him and pointed for him to get back in position. To me that just shows how stupid some of our players are. I just don't get how everyone else can get into line and one player just forget everything they've been practicising in training and do something totally different. It was like he'd been hypnotised by the Farmagusta player and just had to follow him.

 

[Tickers]

Whenever anyone mentions zonal marking, my old dad will lean back in his chair and declare "Zones don't score goals, players do" and then look very pleased with himself.

I then repeat the words in the style of mock-rap scamps Goldie Lookin' Chain and then look very pleased with myself.

It's like a tradition we have.

 

[snake1]

Disagree with General Levy, I think its great he said what his said, the players let everyone down today with the same old shit and enough is enough.

Everyone watching could see the shambles so it makes no difference Gus coming out and saying the things he did. It should will make the players buck their ideas up, they need a good bollocking.

Gus says how we all feel and you really hear that from a coach.

Exactly. I for one am glad he come out and said what he said, enough is enough, how hard is it to defend corners/set pieces? I saw on SSN earlier that we have the worst defensive record when it comes to set-pieces, I think it was 18/19 goals conceded and thats 10 more than anyone else.Eek

Well done Poyet, now get rid of that duffer Dawson.

 

[brasil_spur]

All I will say that you will never see Benitez, Wenger, Ferguson and say that there are going to be big changes the day after your Chairman has said that there will be no major transfers.

From an amateur/fans perspective, I like that Poyet has came out, positive in that there are going to be changes, but as a professional, there is no need for him to have said it to the media.

yeh because we all believe what Levy says right?????????

 

[General Levy]

yeh because we all believe what Levy says right?????????

Missed the point again I see.