Tactics with Shaun (pre-season 2023)

Shaun Calvert looks at our defensive set-up at corners during our recent friendlies

Following on from the end of season analysis of Town’s attacking corners, I’ve been keeping an eye on them during pre-season… but we appear to have stuck with all of last season’s routines, takers, signals, roles, etc.

So presumably they will continue with the successful ones from last season and possibly start working on some new routines over the coming weeks and months… if it ain’t broke and all that, especially with Leif’s pinpoint deliveries.

As such, I have turned my attentions to Town’s defensive set-up at corners for the last few weeks.

Like the majority of teams, Town set-up in a hybrid of part zonal / part man-marking and the reason that this is the most popular is because the stats show that it is the most effective.  

Positives

✔️- Protects the 6-yard box

✔️ - Versatile to enable spare players to get out to short corners and clearances.

✔️ - Number of bodies in box removes the available space for headers and attempts on goal.

✔️ - Zonal markers can look out for any potential dangers and communicate to others.

Negatives

❌ - May have up to 9 players to mark / cover with only 4 or 5 defenders.

❌ - Have to decide which players not to cover, depending on opposition & their quality.

❌ - Will often mean that any clearance is then re-cycled into a second attack wave or shots from distance.

❌ - Attacking teams hold the ‘cards’.

Hopefully the following photos will show the zonal, free men and marker roles and the players assigned for each are based on the set team from the end of last season (with apologies for my amateur attempts at photoshop)!

First the Zonal Markers – The three players in the 6-yard box – usually best headers  and defenders (Here it is Woolfenden, Burgess and Clarke).

Second the Free men  – two or three players on the near post, ready to go out to a short corner or to the edge of box. Usually the least affective in air but good at covering ground quickly (Here it is Morsy / Chaplin / Broadhead).

Finally Marking Men – this if four or five players – usually mobile and physical to go with or block runners. They are efficient in the air (This is Hirst / Burns / Luongo / Davis).

And finally… This all means we have to have every player back – so mention the Derby goal to anyone who is in the ‘why don’t we leave someone up’ brigade, because this is how we setup for that defensive corner, that lead to the breakaway goal.