“Before the game we got told that they like to play man to man, it’s a rugby pitch as well is this, they were concentrating more on rugby than watching the ball” - Billy Sharp.
Very accurate statement Billy, no mention of the word 'defending' whatsoever! You've been sussed again Terry.
Zonal marking was employee under Silva .. and doesn't work .. the best we defended in recent years was under Bruce who drilled the team into a solid unit .. he also employed 3 in the centre of the defence and played wing backs. A good coach manager can drill a team into knowing what they have to do to defend properly. Wilder is another one who's teams were well drilled. I'm at a loss when McCann and Byrne were bloody defenders and can't set up a team to fkn defend ! Clueless doesn't even cover it !
Part from the rugby style marking, I can’t understand how you can defend a corner but have no idea where the ball is.
Summed up excellently by Sharp. Teams know what we are doing and how to combat it. A combination of zonal marking and man marking has always been used to successfully defend corners. Most teams have players on each post. Players attack the ball in their zone and they know what areas the goals are scored in. Man markers pick up runners. No team let’s their best headers of the ball get dragged out of positions where the goals are scored. And FFS let’s stop picking out a player every week to criticise its getting ****ing tedious.
Any club coming up against City must give all their scouts the day off! No need to do any research- they know exactly how we'll play, how McCann "changes things" during the game, how we line up from corners and free kicks, there are no surprises. Except for varying degrees of crapness! (Did On top of this, There were so many errors on Saturday- I know people say this tongue in cheek but I genuinely have seen better organised defences playing Sunday league! What concerns me also is an experienced player like Richie Smallwood hasn't picked up on it! He's supposed to be "experienced". Where was the "Wilks! You get out of there! I'll mark this big C*nt!", Where was the threat to their players? Not one of them feared losing teeth or a broken nose during those set plays! I'd love to hear of a City player frightening an opposition player. We have nothing! On the other side, Billy Sharp's experience showed. He played the full back line, the ref and the crowd. It was probably one of the easiest games he's ever had! Wilks going toe to toe with Egan.. It was like me getting marked by a toddler! He was getting led a merry dance. Well that escalated with my first post. Rant over.
Welcome to the forum and I like the cut of your jib ! Far too many excuses being made, singling out players to deflect from the shyte that McCann keeps serving up. Good teams are well drilled and managed, they know their role, it honestly is keystone cop stuff at the minute, they look absolutely clueless.
... which is such a shame as otherwise, as we have seen in spells, they are players who are capable of playing some decent football, but are being let down by ****, predictable, inflexible tactics & coaching, and being out thought by the opposition managers. McCann and Byrne are letting them down so badly ... but it's ok, they just need "to grow up" (says McCann).
On set pieces what McCann seems to tell the players is man mark and don't lose your marker. That's fine, but you have to have one player responsible to try and attack the ball when it's coming into the box. We seem to wait for the ball to come to us, rather than attack the ball to clear it. So all the opposition then does is move bodies around the box, which our players follow which leaves an attacking player space to attack the ball. We seem so focused on watching players rather than watching the ball and making sure someone gets a head on it.
I think Billy Sharp adapted very well to the game Chazz...His Rugby skills were exquisite. All kidding aside ,I pay little or no attention to what our opponents think of us after a game.
Well the part about the wrestling is rubbish isn't it. The wrestling from Honeyman on him was a response to us failing to handle his clever foul on Wilks for the first Egan goal. George was intent on not letting him do it again. I'm not here to argue that McCann is great or that we aren't **** at defending set pieces, but some of the stuff people are posting is just daft. All that stuff about Bernard's position and now the idea that going man to man is our sole problem. We've already declared that 4-3-3, probably the most commonly used formation, is ****, and now the most common defensive set piece strategy is **** as well. You do wonder how other teams manage to be good.
What Billy Sharp needed was what used to be described as a "straightener", nice and early, preferably from an experienced defender, like Justin Whittle gave Alan Shearer when playing for Grimsby.
The most common defensive strategy? Sorry, but I'm struggling to recall anyone else ever doing what we did on Saturday!!
We know the team lacks experience and is very poorly coached by a couple of clowns who are so out of their depth at this level it’s embarrassing. But it’s all irrelevant as these clowns are going nowhere whilst Ehab is running things.