Why would you ever set an opposing player "never press" or "never mark tightly?"

[superdave]

I'm just curious if anyone ever does this, why, and what the effect is.

[whoopy]

Once I played agaisnt man city,on pre-match opposition instructions screen my Assistant suggested these for their most skilled winger player.His judging player ability is 15 and tactical knowledge is 15 as well.In general,he always suggests to mark tightly and force to use weaker foot options.

[herne79]

Because if the opposition player has especially good off the ball movement (for example) he could run rings around your defender.

[westy8chimp]

Or pace... if facing Walcott, for instance, you would want your left back standing off him maybe 5-10 yards, not marking tightly. That blocks off the easy ball in behind ... whereby he would win the foot race. You are making them play to his feet which isn't a strength of his.

[ajsr1982]

Yep, fast players with poor decision making. Or technically poor players (limited full backs for example) that are likely to hoof the ball when in possession. You can let them have it and block off the passing options.

[BoxToBox]

It's for if, for example you want your defender to stand back and deny the player space to move into. Like zonal marking over man marking.

Think of players closing Messi down, only a moment later he dazzles them, skins them and and has a free run into space. Or think of one of your CB's rushing forward to press, and leaving a hole in your defensive line to be exploited. Some players and teams it's more dangerous to try and stop them aggressively than it is to sit back and deny them space.

[Kawee]

I actually use it quite often. I use it specifically when I want the opponents to channel the ball to their worst players. For example, I sometimes give the OI to the opponents CBs and DM, who are bad with the ball, and specifically man-mark the other ball-carriers. What happens is the CBs and DM have all the time and space with the ball, but no one close to pass to, so due to their cautious mentality, which stems from their roles, they will hoof the ball up front, where my defenders can dominate their strikers.

[superdave]

Wow, this has really opened my eyes.  I'm going to dip my toe in this pool and see what happens.

The big shock to me is suggesting it for players who are good on the dribble. (BoxtoBox).  In my "counter tactics" thread I wrote that if the other team has a player who has a high average of dribbles per game, I close them down.  BTB, are you suggesting "never close down," or "never tightly mark."

The latter seems reasonable, the former, I dunno.

[sammayel666]

I remember every team doing this to Mike Williamson when he was playing for Newcastle. They'd press all our other players and then sit back and wait for him to hoof it aimlessly up the field.

[superdave]

On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 12:06, Kawee said:

I actually use it quite often. I use it specifically when I want the opponents to channel the ball to their worst players. For example, I sometimes give the OI to the opponents CBs and DM, who are bad with the ball, and specifically man-mark the other ball-carriers. What happens is the CBs and DM have all the time and space with the ball, but no one close to pass to, so due to their cautious mentality, which stems from their roles, they will hoof the ball up front, where my defenders can dominate their strikers.

I don't have the guts to do most of the suggestions here.  But this one works.  It's not a HUGE benefit, but when I "funnel" the ball to the weaker passer of 2 central defenders, that one ends up making more passes, and I see fewer dangerous attack from the other team starting out of the back.  But like I said, it's a small effect.

[Rashidi]

On 06/12/2016 at 23:14, superdave said:

I'm just curious if anyone ever does this, why, and what the effect is.

I think you got all the right responses to this question, closing down is a way to funnel play in a specific direction. There are several ways we can funnel players:
 

1. Close down high so that one lane is closed forcing a player around or through to somewhere there are better players.

2. Don't close down, make that the point of least resistance because you actually want play to go through that area before they meet a wall.

3. Show wrong foot, can also be used to funnel players. I typically turn to that for really tough games. Once I had to claw back a two goal deficit, and I realised that if I funnelled their dangerous players into congested areas, I could turn things around. It really depends on how you set up your overall system and the system you are playing against. Sometimes you run into a truck that won't stop. There are teams that are simply too good, and no amount of funnelling will help. Thats when you light a joss stick and pray.

[3@theback]

RB Leipzig are currently doing exactly this in real life, they aggressively press/close down the fullbacks, whilst their strikers drop off the centre backs. This means they congest the middle of the pitch and the opposition centre backs have no easy passes. It's working rather well for them at the moment.

[superdave]

I've been more aggressive about using OIs to funnel play to their weak players and away from their strong players...and it's not working very well.  My opinion at this point is that it's a useful strategy when used very, very sparingly.  For myself, going forward, I'm going to look at the opp. defenders and central midfielders and if there's a really weak passer in the middle, not tightly mark and not close down.  If there's an opposition fullback whose best role is limited AND he can't cross, I'll put him on never tightly mark.

But my experience is that when I used 5-6 of these, my defense was marginally worse, and for some strange reason my attack was noticeably worse.