Reply With QuoteHe speaks a lot of sense, especially about man marking.Originally Posted by Chris Pontprennau Blues
| + Visit Cardiff FC for Latest News, Transfer Gossip, Fixtures and Match Results |
He speaks a lot of sense, especially about man marking.
Does he? I'm not so convinced he does - he keeps on about "rotation", but what I've seen in our past two home games is us falling behind inside three minutes because of a combination of individual errors and sloppy implemantation in the basics of defending a free kick just outside your penalty area. Man United and Spurs didn't have to do anything special to go 1-0 up against us and, once they had done so, two sides who may have been a bit mentally brittle going into the game were able to start playing with confidence.
What Blakey seems to be talking about is the old man to man v zonal marking debate, but I honestly don't think it would have made any difference which one of those we were using when we defended as badly as we did in the opening minutes of our last two home matches.
I'd prefer my team to go out and take on the best teams in an attacking manner, but you've got to be realistic and we should aim to get to around the hour mark at 0-0 against these sides and then who knows what might happen?
I think what Nathan is trying to say is that we do need to try something different , ie have an option because clearly we are not getting close to the top sides in any games.
Without trying something different we will never know if it could be an improvement.
Though as you have said Bob, with some of the defending lately I think we would struggle against anyone whatever the formation.
No, he was talking about rotation. And he has a god point. Our defenders don't know what to do when they switch. Setting up man marking against teams like that dosent work with our squad, with that i disagree with him. He said it might work. The two early goals against utd and tottenham had nothing to do with it though.
Blakey was incredibly patronising and always is, a massive ‘I used to play, I know best’ merchant.
I haven't listened to it but I remember something very telling about how we mark, maybe just against the big teams, that Kevin De Bruyne said in an interview after we played Man City in the cup last season.
He was asked about our man marking system and he had a really confused look on his face and said something like "yeah it was a little weird".
I thought then that trying to man mark the top players with the players we have was suicide, and we still seem to attempt it.
Yea it's not something you see to the extreme we employ it. I think he said in that game they gave the ball to kompany to bring forward into space as everyone but the cbs were marked. He had a lot of room and then when someone has to close him down other players become free.
It's a system that clearly works for us but when it goes wrong it's obviously going to be pointed out. It doesn't matter what system you play though, there are basic mistakes we have made in some matches that throw any tactical set up out the window.
I'd prefer us to get to the hour mark 1 or 2 up ie be attacking rather than look so nervous thereby playing into the opposition hands.
It's not only the top teams we have started poorly against. Southampton were all over us for the first bit as were Fulham and Wolves.
Posting Permissions
