Why Saturdays game and their 1st goal made my mind up

[joey55]

Just a quick point, never posted on here before but thought you might be interested.

A few of you (Legend10 included) have mentioned the general fitness of the squad/team at the moment, and as I was at the game on saturday, I can certain agree that quite often we don't seem to have the ability to play at the required tempo for 90 minutes.

Anyway, was talking to someone the other day who is friends with Jamie O'Hara, one of our reserve team youngsters, who comes from the village where I live. He trains with the first team squad most of the time, but hasn't made his full debut yet (and probably won't for a while given he's a centre mid!) Anyway when I asked him what he thinks about spurs' training his mate said that evertime he comes off the training pitch, he feels like he could have done more, both fitness-wise and working on tactical plays. Make of that what you will, but bear in mind that he's only 20 years old this kid, and before moving to Spurs when he was about 16, used to be on the books at Le Arse!

I thought Jamie O'Hara was from Dartford.

 

[batigol]

Excellent post and i agree with virutally everything. However, you have to make judgements comparitive with football reality, rather than perfect theory. In the same way it seems odd how we defended that set piece, was it not odd how Arsenal defended Berba's shot cleared off the line. Had that gone in, would Arsenal fans, not have been asking "why the fuck was Gilberto marking Berbatov?" It makes no sense. Also, why on earth was Dawson, left totally unmarked? Wenger isn't a bad coach and still wouldn't have been a bad coach had berbs shot been a few inches further to the side and hit the back of the net. At least in the goal we conceded Adebayor had two men close to him and the keeper should have claimed it. Gilberto just totally lost Berbs.

On the training ground we may have continuously drilled balls coming in and if Dawson doesn't get his head to it, the keeper must claim it. Therefore Dawson has defend a zone rather than a man. This could be total nonsense, but it could be true. We just don't know. The only reason we even noticed it, was because the keeper didn't claim it. The point is when things are going badly every mistake is noticed. But when things are going well, as they are for Arsenal, people don't notice similar or bigger errors. I really can't believe Wenger coaches his players to ignore the likes of Dawson at set pieces, but it happened.

I seriously don't think you can compare the situation between Dawson and Gilberto. Firstly, Dawson is a Centre Back by trade and he should be eating up all those long balls going into the box while Gilberto is a Defensive Midfielder by trade and he is not so dominant in the air as say Toure would be.

Also, Gilberto was asked to be an emergency CB for the game because Arse had no one else. Also note that he only arrived back from an international game the day before and you can see that he is still suffering from jet-lag fatigue which affected his game. Dawson didn't go anywhere and trained as you would imagine as CB which he was. Dawson made a mistake in the area where he should be dominant in while you can see why Gilberto won't have been made CB in most cases because he isn't one.

No room for comparison basically.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Every so often I'll still hear an anguished scream and a torrent of obscenities from the room where my missus does her work, and find that she has highlighted a whole document she's spent an hour or more creating in order to format it and deleted the whole thing. She's forgotten, yet again, what I've patiently explained hundreds of times, that you simply hit Command-Z (or go to the Edit menu and select 'Undo' if you really must). And then I'll discover she hasn't done something else—i.e., save the fucking thing; it's still an Untitled Document. And if she does save it, she can't remember what she called it, and she still hasn't quite got her head around the concept of folders and sub-folders. And I'm expected to find it. And if I happen to leave a pair of Y-fronts or some socks lying around and don't put them in the laundry bin? One guess.

Of course, this isn't the greatest of parallels, for one very obvious reason. But I think we have a similar problem with our defence at set pieces. Jol and Hughton can go through the drills on the training-field and everything's fine and dandy; in a real game, under real pressure, it all goes out of the window, particularly if you've got two young CBs who have never really played together before, one of whom has a known propensity for forgetting what he's supposed to do, despite many admirable qualities. It doesn't help either that one of the two most experienced outfield defenders, who should be taking the lead, is himself one of the worst offenders in this sort of situation. There is no-one to take the lead, to organise, and to hand out bollockings, and Jol can no more run on the pitch and remind them what they've been told to do than he can come on and show the strikers how to put the ball in the net (not, obviously, that he could do this, not having been noted as a prolific goalscorer himself in his playing days, but you get the picture).

Yes, the buck stops with the manager, but if it is true that Jol's request for an experienced centre-half who could take command in Ledders' absence and an experienced CM were ignored, then maybe the finger of blame should point elsewhere. We signed Kaboul, who looks a terrific prospect, and Prince Kev, who is impressing in the reserves, but neither is really what you'd call ready to run. Rocha has impressed a lot of us this season, but he is not what I'd call an imposing presence in the sense that he can lead, organise, administer bollockings, etc., as above.

In a recent thread, Joey mentioned Richard Dunne as the type of player we should maybe have gone for, and this was ridiculed by B-C. But what we could do with right now is someone just like that, who would instantly take command, take no nonsense, and lead by example.

If you exclude Fruitini, only the mid-eighties teams of Shreeves and Pleat have conceded fewer goals per game than Spurs under Jol; 2005-2006 was one of just three seasons since WWII in which we conceded fewer than 40 goals, and 2004-2005 was pretty good by Spurs standards too. This proves that: a) Spurs have always been a load of old toot when it comes to defending; b) Jol does know how to train a defence, a fact further born out by the massive improvement he wrought at Waalwijk, and that it's improbable that he (and Hughton) suddenly forgot how to do this last summer.

Do you think if you were given a four year contract at 30K pw to pick up your yfronts and socks that that might help you focus ?

 

[SpurSince57]

Absolutely. But I could offer my missus Ballack-style wages and it would still be, 'Oh no! What's happened to my document! It just disappeared! Shit! Shit! Shit! Tell me where it's gone!'

Actually, Ballack gets Ballack-style wages and forgets he's meant to be a world-class midfielder. :grin:

 

[joey55]

I seriously don't think you can compare the situation between Dawson and Gilberto. Firstly, Dawson is a Centre Back by trade and he should be eating up all those long balls going into the box while Gilberto is a Defensive Midfielder by trade and he is not so dominant in the air as say Toure would be.

Also, Gilberto was asked to be an emergency CB for the game because Arse had no one else. Also note that he only arrived back from an international game the day before and you can see that he is still suffering from jet-lag fatigue which affected his game. Dawson didn't go anywhere and trained as you would imagine as CB which he was. Dawson made a mistake in the area where he should be dominant in while you can see why Gilberto won't have been made CB in most cases because he isn't one.

No room for comparison basically.

There is absolute room for comparison. In the sameway questions have been raised of the way Jol gets us to defend set pieces, then why not compare him with Wenger. Could Wenger not have put Adebayor on Berbatov? If Gilbeto is nothing more than an emergency CB and just back from international duty, then why on earth has he been asked to mark our tallest striker? Surely you'd have stuck Gilberto on the line. If you look at that set piece, Arsenal are definitely man marking. I've just watched ours again and we are defending zonally. Arseanls man marking was poor and that has to be as much, if not more, down to their coach, as our problems were to ours.

In fact, in terms of zonal marking there were no mistakes made by the defence. If you watch the ball come in and pause it in mid flight, there are 4 Tottenham players in line with the ball ahead of Adebayor. The theory behind this is we have 4 opportunites to clear the ball, before the keeper needs to get involved. If the ball is too high for a keeper, it means it has been over it. So in theory, if everyone does their job, we should have no problems. In this case the ball went over all 4 of our defenders (they did their job, as positionally they were fine, but the ball was too high for them to get a head on it) and was therefore the keepers to claim. Robbo simply missjudged it. He went the wrong side of Adebayor. This isn't a result of poor coaching. It was a mistake.

All of our defenders positioning was fine. Once the ball had got over the last defenders head, it was the keepers responsibility. His job is to claim the ball at the earliest possible moment once it has passed Bale. I think Robbo has taken alot of criticism this season he hasn't deserved. But, this time he was at fault. For any system to work, all parts must do their job and Robbo got his wrong. Robbo had one job, which was to follow the trajectory of the ball and decide if it is going to go over the last defenders head. If it is, then Robbo must be first to it. If the ball was played in at a lower height, one of our 4 defenders would have got to it. If it was played higher, then it would have gone out of play. So defensively we set up well.

 

[SpurSince57]

There is a lot of complaining about Arsenal's defending at set pieces over on Arsenal-Mania, and there's no doubt that they've been found wanting on several occasions (as were Chelsea last night, so even they can cock it up sometimes). What annoyed me on Saturday was that we forced twice as many corners as they did and really failed to make any of them tell, and really we should have done with the height advantage we have.

 

[joey55]

Also, to further prove Jol is all too well aware of how to defend zonally, then look at how e approach similar situations, when it is us who have the FK against team that defends zonally. The basic rule of thumb, is anything to the right of the penalty spot is the defenders and to the left is the GKs. If the ball goes over the outstretched GK, then it is safe to say it has been over hit. However, Jol is clever and puts Chimbonda on the far post, and gets the Hudd to play a straight ball, purposefully over hit, so it goes over their defence and GK, allowing Chimbonda to play it back into the box.

 

[Legend10]

There is absolute room for comparison. In the sameway questions have been raised of the way Jol gets us to defend set pieces, then why not compare him with Wenger. Could Wenger not have put Adebayor on Berbatov? If Gilbeto is nothing more than an emergency CB and just back from international duty, then why on earth has he been asked to mark our tallest striker? Surely you'd have stuck Gilberto on the line. If you look at that set piece, Arsenal are definitely man marking. I've just watched ours again and we are defending zonally. Arseanls man marking was poor and that has to be as much, if not more, down to their coach, as our problems were to ours.

In fact, in terms of zonal marking there were no mistakes made by the defence. If you watch the ball come in and pause it in mid flight, there are 4 Tottenham players in line with the ball ahead of Adebayor. The theory behind this is we have 4 opportunites to clear the ball, before the keeper needs to get involved. If the ball is too high for a keeper, it means it has been over it. So in theory, if everyone does their job, we should have no problems. In this case the ball went over all 4 of our defenders (they did their job, as positionally they were fine, but the ball was too high for them to get a head on it) and was therefore the keepers to claim. Robbo simply missjudged it. He went the wrong side of Adebayor. This isn't a result of poor coaching. It was a mistake.

All of our defenders positioning was fine. Once the ball had got over the last defenders head, it was the keepers responsibility. His job is to claim the ball at the earliest possible moment once it has passed Bale. I think Robbo has taken alot of criticism this season he hasn't deserved. But, this time he was at fault. For any system to work, all parts must do their job and Robbo got his wrong. Robbo had one job, which was to follow the trajectory of the ball and decide if it is going to go over the last defenders head. If it is, then Robbo must be first to it. If the ball was played in at a lower height, one of our 4 defenders would have got to it. If it was played higher, then it would have gone out of play. So defensively we set up well.

Joey, firstly you make excellent posts and excellent obeservations and your knowledge and perceptions of players is in my opoinion very very good.

However imho opinion your points on this subject are all wrong, I can't honestly believe that you think we were set up well to defend this free kick.

Firstly, defending a corner zonally is completely different from defending a freekick from this angle zonally. If Jol wants to defend from corners and certain set palys in a zonal system that's fine but to extend it to a freekick taken from there is total crap.

Secondly and thank god we actually didn't set up zonally to defend this freekick, if we did could some body please tell me what Kaboul's zonal position was 3-4 yards in front of our defensive line. We picked up man for man, I can't remember who daws had but then bale had Adebayor and JJ and Chimbo were man for man against Gilberto (I think) and another in the deepest position as the freekick comes in, we are after the front positions 4 against 4 and Bale has clearly been allocated Adebayor. Furthermore as i stated in my thread me and my mate were discussing our set up and particularly the bale Adebayor situation as we waited for the freekick to be taken.

Lets suppose for a minute that we were defending it zonally (which we weren't) then Dawson and particularly Kaboul are in nightmare positions.

We can all look to make excuses for what happened on this goal and yes Robbo didn't cover himself in glory but I'm sorry to say that this goal was a sign of really poor preperation and coaching.

 

[joey55]

Joey, firstly you make excellent posts and excellent obeservations and your knowledge and perceptions of players is in my opoinion very very good.

However imho opinion your points on this subject are all wrong, I can't honestly believe that you think we were set up well to defend this free kick.

Firstly, defending a corner zonally is completely different from defending a freekick from this angle zonally. If Jol wants to defend from corners and certain set palys in a zonal system that's fine but to extend it to a freekick taken from there is total crap.

Secondly and thank god we actually didn't set up zonally to defend this freekick, if we did could some body please tell me what Kaboul's zonal position was 3-4 yards in front of our defensive line. We picked up man for man, I can't remember who daws had but then bale had Adebayor and JJ and Chimbo were man for man against Gilberto (I think) and another in the deepest position as the freekick comes in, we are after the front positions 4 against 4 and Bale has clearly been allocated Adebayor. Furthermore as i stated in my thread me and my mate were discussing our set up and particularly the bale Adebayor situation as we waited for the freekick to be taken.

Lets suppose for a minute that we were defending it zonally (which we weren't) then Dawson and particularly Kaboul are in nightmare positions.

We can all look to make excuses for what happened on this goal and yes Robbo didn't cover himself in glory but I'm sorry to say that this goal was a sign of really poor preperation and coaching.

We set up to defend zonally. Follow the flight of the ball and pause the picture at various points and you'll see. When defending a set piece like that there are two major things that need to be taken into account. The pace/height of the ball and the line of the ball. We know that at some point the trajectory of the ball will come down. So, it is essential our defenders get in line with the flight of the ball. If you pause the action after the kick is taken you'll see Berbatov, Kabloul, Dawson and Bale are all in line with the flight of the ball. Therefore if it is coming at a low enough height for them to reach it, then they can head it clear. There positioning in this respect is very good. Do you not agree that had it been player a yard lower, or with less pace and dropped earlier our defenders wouldn't have cleared it? Looking at it by freeze frame this can't really be denied. Were they all not in the right positon to do this? Again, by freeze frame this can't be denied. By doing this, it means that all Robbo has to do is come and claim it. He's able to do this because of the way we set up. If you watch both Dawson and Bale, they aren't even really concentrating on Adebayor, as they don't need to, The both make straight runs backwards, knowing that if they defend that zone ie get a head to it, the danger is gone. Dawson doesn't even flinch when Rosicky start to move towards the goal as he knows as long as he gets the flight of the ball right, we are safe. If they can't reach it, they know the keeper is the big favourite. Robbo should of claimed it, but even if he didn't he still would have probably kept it out had he kept still. The problem was for some reason, he made a bizzare angled run the otherside of Adebayor. We've probably drilled this hundreds of times in training and I doubt Robbo did that once.

Look at JJ and Chimbonda, you say they are man marking, but the moment the kick is taken and the flight of the ball becomes clear, they don't even give a splitt second look at the Arsenal players, all they do is move straight back to defend the area over Robbo. I think the trouble is, because you are looking at the situation from before the kick is taken and therefore you see our shirts next to their shirts. However, from the moment Fabregas makes contact with the ball, every single one of our defenders moves back to defend a zone and not an Arseanl player. You can even see Bales face clearly looking at the flight of the ball. He is not interested in Adebayor, but in making sure that he gets in line with the ball, so if it comes at a height he can reach it, he can clear the danger. He is confident that the area behind him is protected by the GK, who in turn is confident JJ and Chimbonda are protecting the area at the far post. If everyone does their job, we shouldn't have had a problem. Someone didn't and Arsenal scored.

The whole point of defending like that, is if each player does his job properly, then they shouldn't have to worry about the opposition players. On this occassion someone didn't do there job properly. Each player has to put themselves in the optimum position to win the ball and cut out any danger. essentially in this case we were defending the flight of the ball, so our players need to put themsleves in a position that makes them favourites to win it, if it is at a low enough level. Key to this, is the advantage the keeper has of being able to use his arms. In theory we should be able to clear any danger. If it beats our defenders because it's too high, then there is no way a striker should be able to get his head to it, before the keeper can get his hands on it. There in nothing Arsenal players can do to change the flight of the ball, so we set up to get to it first. Therefore, we don't need to track runners or man mark, until the second phase (if there is one).

Infact, having just watched it again, Robbo isn't helped by the fact Bale steps slightly forward towards the ball. Had he not doen this, he probably would have got his head to it.

I could accept we were man marking if only one player ie Bale seemed to lose his marker, but from the moment the connection was made with th ball not a single one of our defenders even glanced at an Arsenal player. Are you saying we are that bad, that everyone ignored the man they were suppossed to be marking?

In contrast, when berbs missed his opportunity, the reason he found so mcuh space was because the Arsenal players had gone man for man, so when we berbs lost his man, there was no one defending the flight of the ball or the space.

 

[Legend10]

That wasn't zonal marking

Reasons why

Kabouls starting position
The distance between bale and JJ
Our starting positions are man for man

The reason why Dawson, Bale, JJ and Chimbonda come towards their own goal and leave their men is because they are because they are following the flight of the ball and not looking at their players. dawson realises the ball is over the area he is in, bale goes for it, Chimbo and JJ come in with Toure and gilberto just stopped. From a man to man starting position they are pretty much doing as the should except for bale got caught too far wrong side of Adebayor and under the flight of the ball.

If it was zonal defending then the distance between Bale and JJ is laughable and any ball in the centre of the goal pretty much kills us.

Robbo come didn't get there and if the ball had been 1 or 2 yards further out he would have had no chance of getting there and even then Adebayor is having a free header because our zonal system doesn't include the centre of the goal? No chance

Finally to defend zonally from a freekick from that angle would be folly anyway.

Bottom line if Daws picked up Adeabayor I would bet a £ to a penny that they wouldn't have scored.

 

[joey55]

That wasn't zonal marking

Reasons why

Kabouls starting position
The distance between bale and JJ
Our starting positions are man for man

The reason why Dawson, Bale, JJ and Chimbonda come towards their own goal and leave their men is because they are because they are following the flight of the ball and not looking at their players. dawson realises the ball is over the area he is in, bale goes for it, Chimbo and JJ come in with Toure and gilberto just stopped. From a man to man starting position they are pretty much doing as the should except for bale got caught too far wrong side of Adebayor and under the flight of the ball.

If it was zonal defending then the distance between Bale and JJ is laughable and any ball in the centre of the goal pretty much kills us.

Robbo come didn't get there and if the ball had been 1 or 2 yards further out he would have had no chance of getting there and even then Adebayor is having a free header because our zonal system doesn't include the centre of the goal? No chance

Finally to defend zonally from a freekick from that angle would be folly anyway.

Bottom line if Daws picked up Adeabayor I would bet a £ to a penny that they wouldn't have scored.

That is why Robbo and his arms are key, as i said in the previous post. If a ball is high enough to go over the extended arms of a keeper, who is to the left of the penalty spot, then it is going out of play, or to the player we have defedning the far post area ie JJ and Chimbonda. You say the zonal system didn't include the centre of the goal, but it did. Robbo steps back (he isn't stagnant during the flight of the ball) to take up a position to the left of centre. Had the ball been reachable from the middle of the goal, the Dawson or bale were in line to deal with it. Once it's over Bales' head Robbo should deal with it. If it's too high for Robbo and extended arms then is is too high for anyone in between Bale and JJ (including Adebayor). Ultimately no matter how you look at it, and no matter what you call the marking, we conceded because of apoor error. We defended the line of the ball, to the point when it was in the zone where the keeper should have claimed it. FFS he didn't even run straight. For some reason, of which I have no idea, he ran behind Adebayor, as if he thought the ball was going over his head. I just think you are looking for a reason to blame the coach that isn't there. Adebayor didn't beat BMJs system. Had everyone done their job the goal wouldn't have been scored. You can even see Bales little monkey face throughout the whole move. He isn't interested in marking Adebayor, but in defending the area his side of the keeper. Unfortunately the keeper, ran out, the wrong side of the striker. There was even about a meter gap between Bale and Adebayor for Robbo to aim at. All he had to do was catch or punch the ball away.

The system basically makes sure that at any point during the flight of the ball, it is our players who are in the optimal position to get to it first (we aren't interested in the Arseanl players). The reason that didn't happen wasn't because of Martin Jol, but because Robbo made a mistake. Had the ball been played a yard lower, then our defenders have postioned themselves well to deal with it. Had it been played a yard higher and gone over Adebayors head, than if it doesn't go straight out, then JJ and Chimbonda are there to deal with it. If the ball is played, as it was, then Robbo should have been there to deal with it. He wasn't.

 

[SpurSince57]

Well, I'll leave you two to thrash this one out.

One thing I will say, though, is that it seems wildly improbable to me that Jol assigned Bale to Arsenal's most dangerous aerial threat. It just goes against all common sense. And if you say, as you do above, that it's the players rather than the coach who have got us to successive fifth places (which I find ridiculous, sorry), then if Jol issued loony tunes instructions, why didn't Dawson or someone say, 'Sod it, we'll do it this way.'?

I think you're left with two possible explanations: either we were defending zonally, as Joey suggests, or what had been rehearsed on the training-field simply went out of the window due to inexperience/stupidity.

 

[Legend10]

I'm going to agree to disagree with you guys.

You believe it was zonal and I don't, we can argue the toss all night but we will never know.

What I do know is that I am not looking for an excuse to blame Jol, I'm just calling it as I honestly see it.

I don't dislike Jol in anyway but I've finally convinced myself that he doesn't havethe neccassary tools to take us where we want to go. I havebeen open minded for a long time and even believe that we will recover to have a decent season but I can't see him taking us to where we want with the tools the club can give him. For that I think that we will need a coach/manager with a bit extra and I don't see Jol having that.

 

[DC_Boy]

How much do people think the fact that the free kick had to be retaken disconcerted the defence?

 

[Legend10]

How much do people think the fact that the free kick had to be retaken disconcerted the defence?

I don't think it did at all DC

If you have a chance to see the freekick again you will see that we were set quite a while before it was taken.

I do find it interesting how so many people can see the same incident and see it so differently and I guess this is why football is such a great game.

We all have an opinion.

 

[joey55]

http://img103.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=27426_00_08_39_122_901lo.JPG

From this first screen shot, we can see that we have three defenders all in line with the flight of the ball. No one is interested in the Arsenal players and they don't need to be. If defender 1 doesn't get to it, defender 2 gets it and if not defender 3 gets ii. If the ball is still too high for the 3rd defender, it isn't a problem as all Robbo has to do is complete the line. He can even use his arms, so the striker should have no chance. Once it's over Bales' head that is Robbo's, what thye'd call in the millitary, killing ground. If a ball is too high for the extended arms of the keeper, then it has to be going beyond the far post as it must be too high for the head of a striker. Hence Chimbonda is heading to the far post and JJ (out of shot) is already there. Everything is covered. We have positioned ourselves well.

But somehow, this happened:
http://img25.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=27430_00_08_40_122_941lo.JPG

I just don't see how BMJ is to blame. We've clearly got everything covered. Robbo has just had a moment of madness. he gets alot of stick and so far this season has been undeserving of it. But why or how he missjudged the ball so badly and went the other side of Adebayor is beyond me. But I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't on BMJ's advice. Looking at how we tried to defend that ball, i think it's pretty safe to say, we were coached to defend how I've suggested in the first paragraph. If everyone does there job, there isn't a problem.

 

[DC_Boy]

I don't think it did at all DC

If you have a chance to see the freekick again you will see that we were set quite a while before it was taken.

I do find it interesting how so many people can see the same incident and see it so differently and I guess this is why football is such a great game.

We all have an opinion.

Cheers Legend and fascinating research Joey, not for the first time you go beyond what most of us could be bothered to do to make your point. I'm keeping out of the detailed argument, because I don't think I can add anything to it, but it's a good debate that's being had here

 

[Legend10]

Sorry Joey i can't agree that that shows zonal marking

It shows....

JJ is just to the left of the screen with Toure, it shows Chimbonda with Gilberto and it shows that Bale has got too far wrong side of Adebayor. But it is 3 marking 3, it then shows that Daws has been attracted to the flight of the ball.

To me it confirms that we were picking up man for man and not zonal.

The whole point of zonal is that you cover all basis not just the near post areas, if it was zonal then we would not have Keane, Berbs, Kaboul, Hudd and to a point Daws so far across, we would have had a much better spread across the line.

To conclude for me if you are right that we went zonal (which I don't believe) then ourzonal set up with Daws, Kaboul and Berbs so far across doesn't inspire me with any confidence anyway, oh and Isay again you shouldn't defend zonally from a dead ball from that angle.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

We set up to defend zonally. Follow the flight of the ball and pause the picture at various points and you'll see. When defending a set piece like that there are two major things that need to be taken into account. The pace/height of the ball and the line of the ball. We know that at some point the trajectory of the ball will come down. So, it is essential our defenders get in line with the flight of the ball. If you pause the action after the kick is taken you'll see Berbatov, Kabloul, Dawson and Bale are all in line with the flight of the ball. Therefore if it is coming at a low enough height for them to reach it, then they can head it clear. There positioning in this respect is very good. Do you not agree that had it been player a yard lower, or with less pace and dropped earlier our defenders wouldn't have cleared it? Looking at it by freeze frame this can't really be denied. Were they all not in the right positon to do this? Again, by freeze frame this can't be denied. By doing this, it means that all Robbo has to do is come and claim it. He's able to do this because of the way we set up. If you watch both Dawson and Bale, they aren't even really concentrating on Adebayor, as they don't need to, The both make straight runs backwards, knowing that if they defend that zone ie get a head to it, the danger is gone. Dawson doesn't even flinch when Rosicky start to move towards the goal as he knows as long as he gets the flight of the ball right, we are safe. If they can't reach it, they know the keeper is the big favourite. Robbo should of claimed it, but even if he didn't he still would have probably kept it out had he kept still. The problem was for some reason, he made a bizzare angled run the otherside of Adebayor. We've probably drilled this hundreds of times in training and I doubt Robbo did that once.

Look at JJ and Chimbonda, you say they are man marking, but the moment the kick is taken and the flight of the ball becomes clear, they don't even give a splitt second look at the Arsenal players, all they do is move straight back to defend the area over Robbo. I think the trouble is, because you are looking at the situation from before the kick is taken and therefore you see our shirts next to their shirts. However, from the moment Fabregas makes contact with the ball, every single one of our defenders moves back to defend a zone and not an Arseanl player. You can even see Bales face clearly looking at the flight of the ball. He is not interested in Adebayor, but in making sure that he gets in line with the ball, so if it comes at a height he can reach it, he can clear the danger. He is confident that the area behind him is protected by the GK, who in turn is confident JJ and Chimbonda are protecting the area at the far post. If everyone does their job, we shouldn't have had a problem. Someone didn't and Arsenal scored.

The whole point of defending like that, is if each player does his job properly, then they shouldn't have to worry about the opposition players. On this occassion someone didn't do there job properly. Each player has to put themselves in the optimum position to win the ball and cut out any danger. essentially in this case we were defending the flight of the ball, so our players need to put themsleves in a position that makes them favourites to win it, if it is at a low enough level. Key to this, is the advantage the keeper has of being able to use his arms. In theory we should be able to clear any danger. If it beats our defenders because it's too high, then there is no way a striker should be able to get his head to it, before the keeper can get his hands on it. There in nothing Arsenal players can do to change the flight of the ball, so we set up to get to it first. Therefore, we don't need to track runners or man mark, until the second phase (if there is one).

Infact, having just watched it again, Robbo isn't helped by the fact Bale steps slightly forward towards the ball. Had he not doen this, he probably would have got his head to it.

I could accept we were man marking if only one player ie Bale seemed to lose his marker, but from the moment the connection was made with th ball not a single one of our defenders even glanced at an Arsenal player. Are you saying we are that bad, that everyone ignored the man they were suppossed to be marking?

In contrast, when berbs missed his opportunity, the reason he found so mcuh space was because the Arsenal players had gone man for man, so when we berbs lost his man, there was no one defending the flight of the ball or the space.

But surely you can't zonal mark from a free kick in this position. All our players were almost lined up along the edge of the area. You then say they started to run back towards the flight of the ball. But that isn't Zonal marking. Zonal marking is you mark a zone.

And if we are trying to zonal mark from this sort of free kick it is stupid and making a rod for our own backs.

Surely the point is, if we had worried more about marking their players and watching them we might just have prevented the goal.

Of course the ultimate error was by Robinson, but we need to go back to the drawing board on set pieces and get tougher than wishy washy zonal bollocks.

And Jol's "clever Chimbonda free kick routine" is predictable and rarely works, in fact I can't remember one instance of it being vaguely dangerous, can you ?

 

[Rupstoh]

That wasn't zonal marking

Reasons why

Kabouls starting position
The distance between bale and JJ
Our starting positions are man for man

The reason why Dawson, Bale, JJ and Chimbonda come towards their own goal and leave their men is because they are because they are following the flight of the ball and not looking at their players. dawson realises the ball is over the area he is in, bale goes for it, Chimbo and JJ come in with Toure and gilberto just stopped. From a man to man starting position they are pretty much doing as the should except for bale got caught too far wrong side of Adebayor and under the flight of the ball.

If it was zonal defending then the distance between Bale and JJ is laughable and any ball in the centre of the goal pretty much kills us.

Robbo come didn't get there and if the ball had been 1 or 2 yards further out he would have had no chance of getting there and even then Adebayor is having a free header because our zonal system doesn't include the centre of the goal? No chance

Finally to defend zonally from a freekick from that angle would be folly anyway.

Bottom line if Daws picked up Adeabayor I would bet a £ to a penny that they wouldn't have scored.

Good post. You know your football.

This zonal defending at such a close range is crap.

Man for man only; we have a keeper as a 12th man, which sadly is needed, as a last resort, at the moment.