Zoanl vs Man Marking

Hi

I am playing in League 2 with Barnet , I was wondering what is the best way for your CB to play Zonal or Man Marking

I always have problems because I concede so many goals , I just dont no how to stop conceding

My CB are set to Ultra Defensive , and closing down in own area , but still concede so many goals

Also what about , CM how do you have them marking Zoanl or Man ??? There are so many times , when they run beyond my Midfield player and set up a striker !!!

Sounds like you dont have the latest patch, where your players wouldnt close down properly. You got 8.0.2?

I tend to have man marking for my CBs and zonal for everyone else. Sometimes my DM will tightly man mark someone eg. a good AMC

I upgraded to the 8.0.2 patch before I even started a career on the game and I thought the closing down was terrible on patch 8.0.2 even if my players were instructed to close down. So goodness knows what it must have been like before that patch!!

Yeh I am on Patch 8.02 always have been

So you prefer Zonal or Man Marking

I alter my preferences match by match. If I'm facing a slow, tall forward I man-mark. If I'm facing someone who could be faster than my defenders than I use zonal defending and make my defenders more defensive.

I prefer to stagger my defenders, one more attacking with low closing down, the other one is defensive with high closing down. This'll stop anyone being able to just dribble through easily.

One of the strongest positions on FM2008 is the defensive midfielder, if you're leaky add one with maxiumum closing down.

I prefer to play man marking and tight marking with low closing down for all the defenders in a defensive formation to keep the shape of the team and loose zonal marking with high closing down on attacking formations this keeps constant pressure on the opposition when your players win the ball further up the pitch.

Here's a couple thoughts for you:

Ultra Defensive might be a bit too defensive for your centre backs. The "Mentality" attribute refers to Mentality for that position, not on a global scale. So, you don't have to have a defender on Ultra Defensive and a striker on Ultra Attacking just to get them to do their jobs. Bring it back closer to "Normal".

Among other things, the Mentality setting affects how far up the pitch they are, and from what you've described it sounds like maybe you have Ultra Defensive centre backs and Normal central midfielders, which leaves a large gap between the two lines .. which the opposition are exploiting.

I leave my central defenders on loose Zonal marking in all of my defensive, counter-attack, or normal tactics .. I only employ Man marking when I am trying to force the issue.

Another setting you might want to switch for your central defenders is "Forward Runs". I'd bet good money you have it set to "Rarely", which makes sense if you think of it as a global scale - you don't want your central defenders bombing forward as though they were wingbacks. But, again, its positionally dependent - so with "Mixed" forward runs for a Central Defender, especially one whose mentality is below "Normal", you won't see them going forward much, maybe sneaking across the halfway line if the opposition drops all eleven into their box, but that's about it.

However, what it does give them is a lot more flexibility to "go forward" after a loose ball. You know that partial clearance out of the opposition half, where your central defenders back away from it while you scream "Just get the ball!!" at your monitor? Switching to "Mixed forward runs" fixes that - one is willing to go get the ball if:

a.) He's pretty sure he will win it, and

b.) He has another defender behind him in case he doesn't. (Usually, your other centre back)

Hope that helps - you might scroll through your other individual settings and see if you have the same underlying assumption causing you problems elsewhere, but I guarantee those two changes will help.

(If they give habitually poor performances, your defenders and GK will have poor to abysmal Morale right now, so it may take some time for them to adapt - give your changes ten games before you judge them, and be sure to give encouraging individual team talks like "I have faith" or "Well Done" even if your overall team talk is something different.)

Thanks A Lot

So Far I have tried this and not conceded in 3 games

But , what about higher leagues , eg I strarted a career with Arsenal set my CB to Ultra Defensive , and no forward runs , I conceded no goals , 14 in the whole season

Why is it different in higher leagues ???

Thanks

HELP !!!

Thanks

Thanks A Lot

So Far I have tried this and not conceded in 3 games

But , what about higher leagues , eg I strarted a career with Arsenal set my CB to Ultra Defensive , and no forward runs , I conceded no goals , 14 in the whole season

Why is it different in higher leagues ???

Thanks

Probably cause you were arsenal - when you're playing as any of the big 4, the AI is generally helpless against the human.

It could be a number of things, in your Arsenal example.

- The rest of your tactic could have been good enough to overcome one or two inefficiencies

- You might have had a different player (DMC?) filling that role.

- You might have simply had defenders and GK so good that, even if they weren't winning the ball further up the pitch, they were able to take care of most of the resulting situations.

- Other teams may have been playing so defensive against you that they rarely had a player in position to win those balls .. or that they hoofed it long enough that the situation rarely came up.

I got a similar question in PM:

"Thanks for another excellent post Amaroq, very helpful for me as I continue to try to perfect my 4-4-2 system I've got going. One question though; about the mixed forward runs for the centre defenders.

If I play with a MCd, or a DM is this still necessary or would either of these two players do that job for me allowing me to leave my two CB's on 'rarely' for forward runs."

Personally, in my 4-4-2 I have an MCd, and I find that the change to "Mixed" made a huge difference in defense. I'm not sure about the DM, as I haven't run a diamond midfield in a while - the times I've had somebody with an arrow into or out of the DM position, he didn't always do the job.

Basically, though, I'm describing a specific situation:

You're attacking. Your DCs are up at the halfway line. The opposition gets a partial clearance, say, to about 40 yards from their own goal, or the edge of the centre circle on their half of the pitch.

Do your DCs back away from that ball, allowing the opposition ST, AMC, or MC to get to it and start an attack?

Or does one of your DCs go to, winning possession and keeping the ball in the attacking zone?

Or does one of your other players (DM, for example), win that ball instead?

If its either of the latter two, ignore my post - you're winning the ball, keeping the pressure on .. it doesn't really matter how you're doing it.

If, on the other hand, your guys are backing away .. then "Forward Runs - Mixed" is a suggestion that might be worth trying. I stumbled on it almost by accident, and was happy enough with the results that I've wound up adopting it for all of my tactical approaches.

Thanks Amaroq. I'll try out various approaches around this principle and see what works works best for my team, currently at Braintree.

Zonal marking works better when your defenders have decent-good ratings in Concentration, Positioning, Anticipation & Decisions

Man marking only requires Concentration & Positioning

play your players to thier strengths and they'll perform better

Depends on what the type of players you have. Some players are great at man marking and are useless at zonal and vise-versa. I have had many teams and many players have come and gone and every few seasons with new defenders requires me to tweak my marking settings.

The only way you can find this out is by trial and error.