Zonal Marking or Man Marking?

What do you thinks best?


I say Man Marking. We currently do Zonal Marking as McClaren is a wanker. Pretty much all our goals conceeded this season have been from set pieces

With Billy Davies we did Man Marking and we had one of the best defences in the league for the past 2 years

Depends on the players, there isn't 1 best fit.

Both are good. You'll concede as many through man marking as zonal. People only notice the goals through zonal.

Zonal Marking works best from open play

Dan wrote:Both are good. You'll concede as many through man marking as zonal. People only notice the goals through zonal.

This is so true, on MoTD always pointing out teams who zonal mark.



I'd go zonal with best teams, man with teams with worse defenders.

zonal marking because of the tactics site

Depends who you defend against and who you are defending with. One can work better for team A but not work as well for team B.

Hard to give a definitive answer, zonal marking worked well for us for ages. We might have conceded 5 goals a season (complete guess) from set-plays, yet every single time zonal marking will be criticized.

It depends on your players and the opposition.

James wrote:

Dan wrote:Both are good. You'll concede as many through man marking as zonal. People only notice the goals through zonal.

This is so true, on MoTD always pointing out teams who zonal mark.



I'd go zonal with best teams, man with teams with worse defenders.

Exactly. We had a fantastic defence under Rafa (no matter what people say) but whenever we conceded a goal from a set piece, it was always down to zonal marking..

Stupid question. Depends on your players.

Rafael Benitez got so much unfair stick for his Zonal Marking while everyone got a free pass when they conceded from set pieces where they man mark. Man marking is just more simple, and more people can relate to it, so it is unusual and picked on more.

Man marking is clearly much better. I've never liked zonal marking. It is suicidal in some cases.

Depends on the opposition.

Some teams are little threats from set pieces and it is easy to man mark them out. Likewise, some teams or opposition players are very good at set pieces and it would be suicidal to not man-mark some players in the box.