How Marsch’s zonal line has helped Leeds improve defensively at corners - The Athletic 25/4/22
By Phil Hay
One of Pontus Jansson’s biggest attributes was his aerial
prowess and it was no coincidence that in finding a way to make Leeds United
adequately defend set pieces, Garry Monk tapped directly into that strength.
Concessions from dead balls hampered Monk in his early days
at Leeds until he and his assistant, Pep Clotet, settled on a system in which
Jansson patrolled the box as a free man at corners and other set-piece
deliveries. Jansson was there to attack the ball, ignoring the bodies and the
jostling around him.
That was 2016 and a period when Jansson often felt
indispensable but times changed and, three years later, Marcelo Bielsa made the
decision to sell him. Jansson’s exit in the summer of 2019 was dictated by more
than tactics but it told a story about the type of squad Bielsa liked: mobile, slick,
accomplished on the ball. The last thing Bielsa’s Leeds relied on was
overwhelming dominance in the air.
When opposition sides began to hurt Bielsa from set-pieces,
and from corners more than anything, Mateusz Klich joked that Leeds as a team
were “small”. In explaining why the club were vulnerable in those moments, it
was one place to start. Leeds were not awash with towering defenders and it was
evident that more rudimentary players would have compromised the football
Bielsa wanted to play. But set-pieces could be a thorn in his side; situations
where Leeds depending on a certain style of marking amplified their aerial
disadvantage.
Bielsa had a specific way of approaching defensive corners,
lining up man to man inside the box and assigning his best header of the ball —
Liam Cooper, in Bielsa’s estimation, when everyone was fit — the job of marking
the opposition’s biggest threat in the air. Leeds persisted like that to the
end of his tenure but the old set-up has been abandoned since Jesse Marsch
replaced Bielsa as head coach in February. Latterly, the club had been under
pressure from dead balls again, with goals conceded via headers directly from
corners in three of Bielsa’s last four matches.
Two of those, one at home to Manchester United and the other
away to Everton, were strikingly similar and indicative of the methods used by
opposing sides to knock Leeds out of shape. Harry Maguire’s finish for
Manchester United in a 4-2 defeat on February 20 was a textbook example of
cracking the man-to-man structure and creating simple chances.
As the following images show, Leeds set themselves predominantly one-on-one with Luke Ayling, Diego Llorente and Stuart Dallas pinned close to Maguire, Paul Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo. With the exception of a defender at the near post, every Leeds player has someone to mark. Llorente’s job was to babysit Maguire but the England international used the small crowd 14 yards out to stop Llorente sticking to him tightly.
As the ball arrived, Manchester United disrupted Leeds’ shape with runs in different directions, including one beyond the near post, drawing two defenders out. The movement opened up space seven yards from goal where Maguire got the leap on Llorente and nodded an easy header in. Because of the distribution of players, no-one else was able to step in and do what Llorente was supposed to do.
A week earlier, Everton’s second goal in a 3-0 win at Goodison Park used the same tactics. An attacking train on the edge of Leeds’ box sucked Bielsa’s markers together and when Everton burst forward from their standing positions, Leeds were unable to hold their ground or pin the advancing group down. Pascal Struijk lost a yard on Michael Keane and he, like Maguire, was presented with an easy close-range goal. Struijk, again, had no team-mate to bail him out.
Some heavy defeats, the worst of them a 7-0 rout at
Manchester City, have compounded the data but the club’s clean sheet away at
Watford two weeks ago was their first since the end of November. Marsch’s
attempts to tighten up involved a switch to zonal marking and the use of two
holding midfielders, as opposed to the single defensive one Bielsa stuck with, but
his six matches in charge have shown specific changes in Leeds’ method of
managing corners.
The next sequence of screenshots from Leeds’ 3-2 win away to
Wolverhampton Wanderers last month neatly captures the switch in system. Leeds
are still required to go man-to-man to some extent (see grey shaded area, image
two) but behind the pocket of players vying with each other, Marsch has
introduced a zonal line of four defenders, set up on the edge of the six yard
box.
The blend of players there can vary — Raphinha and Rodrigo have featured in it — but Marsch’s centre-backs are generally in the middle of the line. They are marking space rather than individuals and they are watching the ball rather than the movement in front of them.
Wolves try to scatter as the corner drops in but Struijk, part of Marsch’s defensive line of four, tracks the flight of it and steps out to attack it with a clearing header before anyone else can reach the ball. In this instance, a simple approach is effective in quelling any danger.
The zonal line was in place at Marsch’s first match away at Leicester City, indicating that it was one of the things he focused on during his first week of training at Thorp Arch. Leeds (next image) have five players in front of goalkeeper Illan Meslier here because Leicester have placed a body close to the goalline but the principle of occupying space and focusing on winning the first header is the same.
Leeds’ only concession directly from a set-piece under
Marsch was via James Ward-Prowse’s free-kick for Southampton at Elland Road.
They have twice shipped goals in the second phase from
free-kicks, away to Wolves and at home to Aston Villa, but their resistance to
corners has been solid so far. Against Southampton (below), the positioning was
there to see again: a line of Raphinha, Llorente, Cooper and Rodrigo ahead of
Meslier with a crowd of players a few yards further forward.
Away at Crystal Palace tonight, Leeds are up against a side who have scored only six times from set-pieces all year. It is a contest in which Marsch will hope to see his dead-ball tactics hold firm.
When it works, the system gives him what he got in this next
example against Norwich City: a powerful header out from Llorente as Norwich
tried to rush the six-yard area in injury time at Elland Road, a moment when
the game was on the edge.
Marsch tried to be innovative with attacking set-pieces while he was coaching on the continent with RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig but in his short time with Leeds, repelling corners is where a different way of thinking has been most obvious. And to this point, it has worked.
Bit by bit Leeds are changing as a team, in terms of tactics
and structure. As time goes on, the shift from Bielsa’s way to Marsch’s will
intensify and with the club on the verge of securing a third year in the
Premier League, the freedom to make broader alterations will increase if and
when Leeds get over the line. But in trying to steady the ship short term,
addressing set-pieces was one way of making marginal gains.
“The major difference is that you’re not man for man any
more,” Charlie Cresswell, Leeds’ young defender, said last week. “You have to
be more zonal and you have to be more zonally aware. You’re not just marking
men. You’re marking multiple men because you have to mark the zone.
“I like the new way of playing and I liked the old way of playing. That’s football — adapting to two different managers.”
