This is true. We need to move past just seeing this as another fan gripe or chance to moan. This is absolutely disgraceful, public apology level of incompetence. Most amateur sides show at least some degree of order when set pieces enter their box.
Set pieces and balls into our box
- Thread starter noodlehair
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Our defensive structure is severely lacking in both set pieces and general play. It doesn't seem like we have a defensive unit at all.
If people were asking and wondering what we were doing during training sessions under Mourinho or LVG, I can tell with a 100% certainity that we're doing feck all under Ole. We've even had Martial throwing the ball to Pepe from a throw in.
Great decision to send the best header in the team, out on loan.
Watch literally any corner we defend or attack and see if you can figure out what ANY of our players are actually supposed to be doing.
They're literally just winging it. They clearly don't work on it at all.
It's clearly not important enough to spend any time on. Even though we've scored 0 goals from corners this season and I've genuinely lost count of the number of chances/goals opposition teams have had from them.
This undermines ANYTHING positive the team or management do because it's such an unbelievably basic and crucial bloody thing to not do. It is literally the difference between us being in the top four or hopelessly adrift of it.
The overriding issue for me is zonal marking. I can’t stand it. It just doesn’t work for me and that’s why we keep conceding from corner.
That and the fact De Gea doesn’t command his box. He should come out for anything going into the 6 yard box. This has been a persistent issue for years now. Why don’t they improve on this in training?
That and the fact De Gea doesn’t command his box. He should come out for anything going into the 6 yard box. This has been a persistent issue for years now. Why don’t they improve on this in training?
The thread title could fit in the General also.
It’s like we don’t work on set pieces at all, in attack or defence. It’s truly baffling.
And it’s not even just corners, free kicks are a lottery too. What was that Fred freekick on goal in the last minute all about? It’s like the school kids have run amok and are just doing whatever.
And it’s not even just corners, free kicks are a lottery too. What was that Fred freekick on goal in the last minute all about? It’s like the school kids have run amok and are just doing whatever.
It all comes under the same hat for me.
If the keeper can't command his 6 yard box, then you either teach him to, teach his defenders to command it for him, or use a different keeper, or different defenders. You know, just work at it until you find a solution, because that's literally your job.
I mean if you can't get players to command the area immediately next to their own goal, why in the hell would you get them to zonal mark instead of man mark? ...but that presumes we are zonal marking, because when you actually watch, our players don't really mark zones anymore than they mark players. They all just kind of huddle around wherever the opposition players stand and hope for the best.
It wont get any better, the coaching staff probably still needs another 6 months until they realise it wouldn't be bad to work on it. We have clear signs of under coaching in every game, and set pieces are one of them.
What the feck do we do in training? It’s been a major problem for us all season at both ends, you‘d think after conceding so many and not threatening at all at the other end Ole and out coaches would take time and focus on improving this area but it seems to be getting worse like they don’t give to fecks about it.
Can we bring in big Sam or Tony Pulis purely as a set piece coach?
Six months later ...... 
It's actually disgraceful how poor we are defending set pieces. I'd probably go as far as to say it's pure negligence from our coaching staff.
What does these lot actually train on ffs
8 goals conceded from corners this season. That’s truly woeful. Don’t we work on this?? We’re level with Villa and Norwich, two teams down in the relegation zone.
Never seen a team opt to defend set pieces by not attacking the ball. Its impressively bad.
Can’t defender or attack on set pieces, must be comfortably the worst team in the league at both.
After having Brandon Williams mark Van Dijk and conceding from it, our response is to have Fred mark Van Dijk in the last corner of that half.
You honestly could not make this up.
You honestly could not make this up.
Why is Williams marking Van Dijk?? Why????
The common denominator all this time is the goalkeeper. I’m not saying today’s goal was his fault, but attackers know they can go for everything because there’s no chance DDG is coming off his line.
Plus you don’t give one of the most powerful players a free run at the ball. He’s the only player to focus on, they’ve got no other big players.
Plus you don’t give one of the most powerful players a free run at the ball. He’s the only player to focus on, they’ve got no other big players.
Poor in defending corners and poor at taking corners at the other end of the pitch.
In part, this is just another symptom of the lack of physicality and physical weakness in this squad.
In part, this is just another symptom of the lack of physicality and physical weakness in this squad.
The amount of goals we concede from set pieces is astonishing. You can blame the crap squad all you want but set pieces are purely tactical and show how inept our coaching staff is. Williams defending Van Dijk 
It's as bad as Jones taking corners.
It's as bad as Jones taking corners.I never thought we'd be stupid enough to do zonal marking but here we are
We've got a man mountain in Maguire though, surely we cannot be conceding goals from corners if his standout feature is the aerial ability.
You can have zonal marking but we seem to have idiots as coaches. They do not take into account the most important aspect of defending in zonal marking. The Goal Keeper. If we had a keeper who is commanding in then air it would work. But we don't and so there is no way it is going to work. It seems that they are uneducated apart from doing some UEFA course. So whatever is there they look at it.
Zones
We sold the best man mountain we had for set pieces. Also we need to go back to man to man marking and also to blocking the path of the attackers. In zonal marking for example VD can go to the zone of Mata too and get a header in. This is utter madness.
He needs to scrap this zonal marking shit. Put maguire on the oppositions biggest threat
I've started paying a lot of attention to what we do from corners, and there is no common denominator. The players all take up positions and then that's the end of that. There's no organisation or plan to it beyond that.
Today for example, you can say "why is WIlliams picking up Van Dijk" but the fact is, no one is picking up Van Dijk, just like no one is picking up anyone else. Williams just happens to be the one stood near him so tries to do something.
Zonal marking is fine if it's done properly. We don't mark zones or players. We stand in places and hope that we get in the way. As soon as someone makes a run, or the ball isn't crossed directly to one of our players, or someone blocks one of our players from jumping, there is a problem every time because we react as no team in the history of football has ever tried these things until that moment.
Honestly I'm not in the Ole out campe, but if Ole was sacked purely on the back of this at this point he would have literally no argument. We are a professional football team and this is blatantly unprofessional. It's a literal example of incompetence...failing to do your jobs time after time not because you aren't good enough, but because you haven't bothered to learn how to do it.
13 months noods, 13 months he's been here training this team, yet every single week I expect to concede and shit myself from every single corner against us.
It's not only the defending of set-pieces we are also incredibly shit taking them.
Williams wasn't marking vvd. He was marking his zone
We had the strongest headers on the six yard line. Man marking and zonal are both great when done correctly.
However the problem is we don't attack the ball. Today vvd had the advantage and run (and a good delivery)
Man marking normally you can pin point who's error it is. It's also easier for the opposition to put blocks in place (kinda like vidic did to Chelsea to allow berbatov to score in that 3-0 game in 09)
We don't look strong at zonal at all
We had the strongest headers on the six yard line. Man marking and zonal are both great when done correctly.
However the problem is we don't attack the ball. Today vvd had the advantage and run (and a good delivery)
Man marking normally you can pin point who's error it is. It's also easier for the opposition to put blocks in place (kinda like vidic did to Chelsea to allow berbatov to score in that 3-0 game in 09)
We don't look strong at zonal at all
It’s not a recent thing. I meant over a period of several years. Having a keeper who isn’t going to come out for anything is a massive problem. We’ve been shit at defending pieces for a long long time.
Its long, long overdue to be looked at. We've been completely hopeless at defending them for years. We were hopless at defending them when we had Smalling, Jones, Fellaini, Pogba, Matic and Lukaku playing together which makes no damn sense.
Our set piece defending genuinely the worst I can recall.
I was so sure we'd concede from a corner, I told my wife to put VVD as her captain.. And now she has 30 points.
I was so sure we'd concede from a corner, I told my wife to put VVD as her captain.. And now she has 30 points.
It's a massive problem if you do nothing to even mitigate it. We concede a lot of chances like the goal today where the goalkeeper not commanding his box is nothing to do with the problem.
We concede goals like the one against Everton where the keeper could be stronger but as a team we do nothing to recognise this and protect him.
This is the whole point. We do nothing full stop. A weakness one week is still there the next.
Zonal marking don't work. End of. Williams vs Van Dijk should not happen, end of. After they scored from the corner, the very next corner they had it ended up Williams vs Van Dijk again!!! WTF is happening, who is coaching our defence to mark zonal?
Once again
It's a joke at this point. An honest to God sackable offence
It's a joke at this point. An honest to God sackable offence
He probably still thinks everything is fine and we are having some bad luck