please help, man marking question?

[ROUGIE]

Hope you can help / give me some ideas.
I am the manager of a Sunday Morning football side. (Open Age) We play in a decent standard, the Premier division of the Birmingham Coronation League. I have taken over after a bad start, and we have won 5 on the bounce, against lesser sides in the division.
We are playing top of the league this week, and their main strength is there centre forward, a 6'5, Nigerian fellow, who is obviously quality in the air, but quick and skilful as well.
I am pretty sure I am going to get one of my lads to man mark him, but not sure which centre half to use. My two choices are, my best player and captain who is excellent, in the air, great passer and quick, or a more standard centre half who is good in the air but no where near as quick.
Should the man marker be the better player of the two? Or do I take someone out of my midfield to do the job. Would appreciate any thoughts you have. We usually use a 4-4-2, (Diamond) and revert to a 5 man midfield if things aren't going our way, this has been very affective.
Hope you can give me some good advice, many thanks.

[Val]

Welcome to GrassRootsCoaching

How old are your kids? I, for one, have never had the problem of marking a 6'5" anything....

Right off the bat, I say, let your best player take him on. It'll be a challenge, and that's a good thing. Hopefully, with your run of good fortune, the rest of your lads will be eager for the chance to pick up the slack that will come from your best player primarily focusing on defending. Glad you've had the good run to get you primed for this matchup. Let us know how it goes.

[Hamburger Hill]

Just my opinion but by opting to man mark one player no matter how big or skilful he is leaving yourself open to problems elsewhere on the park.

I would encourage my players to press the opposition all over the pitch and therefore restrict the service in to the "big man"...if you cut off the supply chain he will be forced to drop deeper and deeper to influence the game and then you can impose yourselves on the game...

A few years ago (ok a lot of years!!!) I played against Andy Myers (ex Chelsea) in a five a side...we tried man-marking him and he scored 6 in the first half...second half we set out to stop his supply and we managed to score 1 ourselves (without conceeding i might add!!!)

Good Luck and let us know how you go!

[nelson]

don't your centre-halves man mark every week?

i mean if the opposition also line up 4-4-2, don't your two central defenders pick up their two forwards or do they mark zonal ?

if you take a lad from another position to man-mark a centre-forward, your gonna have to plug gaps elsewhere...

just my two cents.

[ian.curry]

I personally would stick your biggest, strongest, fastest(or best overall) player on that man and stick to him like glue.
Often teams rely on this one player and holding him up can stop their entire game - especially if the rest of your players match up quickly, and as hamburger hill suggests, pressure all over the pitch.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by ROUGIE

Hope you can help / give me some ideas.
I am the manager of a Sunday Morning football side. (Open Age) We play in a decent standard, the Premier division of the Birmingham Coronation League. I have taken over after a bad start, and we have won 5 on the bounce, against lesser sides in the division.
We are playing top of the league this week, and their main strength is there centre forward, a 6'5, Nigerian fellow, who is obviously quality in the air, but quick and skilful as well.
I am pretty sure I am going to get one of my lads to man mark him, but not sure which centre half to use. My two choices are, my best player and captain who is excellent, in the air, great passer and quick, or a more standard centre half who is good in the air but no where near as quick.
Should the man marker be the better player of the two? Or do I take someone out of my midfield to do the job. Would appreciate any thoughts you have. We usually use a 4-4-2, (Diamond) and revert to a 5 man midfield if things aren't going our way, this has been very affective.
Hope you can give me some good advice, many thanks.

So what did you do and how did you get on ?

[Jerzy]

^^^^^We tend to get a lot of that, Charlie. People ask and then don't follow up with how the session/game went, and some of these game situations are very provocative. I've learned that I don't think enough about the game/my team between times.