Lineker exposes what most Liverpool fans know
Football FanCast columnist Jerome Johnstone would like to see Rafa look to scrap the zonal marking system.
Alan Hansen was quick to criticise Gary Lineker’s punditry last night, however the Match of the Day anchorman was right on the money with his weekly column when he talked of the benefits of playing against a zonal marking system and how easy and reassuring it is for any striker. Lineker has experienced playing against both having spent a considerable time in Spain as well as England, so when he talks it is worth listening.
I am sure that I’m not the only Liverpool fan who is incredibly frustrated with Benitez’s reliance on this defensive set-up. When it is played well, as we have shown in the past, it does work well; however when players are out of form it seems like a free for all as the opposition strikers take full advantage of it. The system has been flawed for months and the longer we persevere with it, the more vulnerable we become defensively.
Lineker said that the flaw of the set-up is that strikers simply have the freedom at the set pieces to pick their runs without the presence of a centre half around them. As we have witnessed this season the opposition have had the freedom of our box and the amount of goals that we have let in from set-pieces has been an absolute joke and has proved our undoing this season. The time Adebayor had yesterday was ridiculous and it is something that we must look to resolve.
I know Benitez is a stubborn man and hoping that he will change his ways is incredibly unlikely, but why the defence is as shaky as it is and why we are shipping goals at will, surely it is time to reassess the set-up and go back to a man-marking set-up. Something has to change, because at the moment the opposition are easily picking us off.
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This weekend Arsenal conceded a goal from a corner, using man marking AND with a player on each post. Did lineker write an article on that……
Zones don’t score goals! Men do! There man-marking is vital. Rafa has lost the plot!
Satha that is such a rubbish and overused cliche, why don’t you make up your own point instead of reading punditry. As the guy in the article says if players are out of form then they concede goals. The problem is he refres to only Zonal Marking, surely if defenders are out of form then they are not doing their job which is stoppping goals. This would be true of any system, the only thing I have against Zonal Marking is it gives muppets like you two a chance to air cheap views that are not even your own.
Amid all the comments about Rafa, I think the most pertinent is this. Rafa Benitez has Asperger’s Syndrome. Once you have got this everything about his behaviour makes sense.
We have most of our conceded goals from set pieces, period! Get real and figure out what to do. We need a better way NOT to concede goals from set pieces. See how woeful wsa the defending when Ade was invited to pickhis spot. If you saw the video, Skrtel was distracted all over the place before finallly spotting Ade but his lunge was too late!
I’m not sure about this so will appreciate if someone can confirm that we were using a man-marking system for Adebayor’s goal. I remembered seeing every blue shirt being policed closely by a red one (with the exception of course being that on Skrtel’s back).
Agree with the Jonski that a system is only as good as the personnel executing it. If indeed Rafa has relented to use man-marking last weekend, is that not an indication that the players (and their confidence) are the root of the problem, not the system?