just

Fair point Loz, but I think there is a reason for young players not being given a look-in then. A reason other than the huge success we were enjoying under Jose. Before Roman's buy-out of the club it was widely accepted that our youth set up and youth scouting system had been ignored and under resourced for a long period. As a result of that poor infrastructure and under investment the talent simply wasn't there. Indeed, after he took over, I remember it was widely reported in the press that this would be one of Roman's major priorities in the future. And to be fair he did invest. Huge sums were spent improving the facilities and in bringing in people like Arnesen to capture the best young players available. And things such as the TV "Football Icon" series did alot to showcase our new youth set-up. I'll be honest Loz, all that excited me. "At last", I thought, "we are bringing in top quality talent not just from our own back yard but from all over the world." Surely, it would only be a matter of time before we got to see some of those kids given a go? But it simply hasn't happened. Not even against weaker opposition, or in early rounds of competitions such as the Carling Cup. Now, if we were winning every week and still enjoying the succes we had under Jose maybe it wouldn't be such a disappointment to many that these kids aren't getting a look in. But, when you look at how we have struggled this season it's soul destroying to see an average performer like Malouda getting a regular start when you feel a Katuka, Stoch or Sinclair could possibly do a much better job given the same opportunities. To be honest it's got to the stage where I laugh at it now. What's been the point? Our current youth policy is all smoke and mirrors. Why invest all that time, money and effort if we are never going to give these lads a chance to step up and find out if they're good enough? Another thing to consider is that maybe Roman's committment to scouring the world for the best new talent is already waning somewhat given the recent announcement of the cuts to our oversea's scouting network.

Watched all of Twin Peaks when it originally came out BJD. I freely admit it was mostly because it had Sheryl Lee, Laura Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn in it. Damn, I just thought of Sherilyn Fenn. Anyone got a Kleenex?

I made a point of watching the wire on your recommendation G4. I brought and watched the first series before Xmas and have now just started season 2. I found it took a bit of getting into at first but I'm hooked now. Have to say though, for me, The Sopranos was better. I also like the IT crowd and have got seasons 1 & 2 on DVD. It's good but nowhere near Linehan's earlier masterpiece Father Ted. The greatest TV series I have ever seen, and probably ever will see, was Spielberg's and Hank's "Band of Brothers". Absolutely stunning.

Com'on dkw. It's only a bit of a laugh. We're not exactly famous for giving youngsters a chance are we?

I enjoyed, "West Ham, West Ham give us a song" in the 2nd half.

or maybe, "Two promising youngsters who are going to be out on loan for the next three seasons, who will eventually come back and sit on the bench watching the likes of Florent Malouda for a year, before finally being sold to Port Vale"

I'm only repeating what Carragher said on SKY on Sunday Chippy. I think zonal marking is a flawed system. I've listed my reasoning in the other thread.

Mod this is getting confusing. Could you combine this thread with the earlier one below, where zonal marking was discussed in depth? http://www.theshedend.com/index.php?showtopic=10135 Cheers. And regarding Liverpool and and their zonal system, Carragher said at the weekend they have been using a system partially based on zonal marking for the past two season, and it is only now they are starting to understand and feel comfortable with it.

I hate these type of threads. Can you please change the title of the thread to: "Two promising youngsters who we may as well forget about because they will never be given an opportunity to play with our first team no matter how good they are."

I've sold my seat for Saturday Gary, as I'm still moving around on crutches and have no bend whatsoever in the left knee.

That is very true Gazza. You wait till I see you and I can tell what has happened since!!!

Cashley. Good goal from Kalou. Good ball from Joe Cole.

Exactly as I saw it ES. We did the job we should have done against weaker opposition, but it doesn't gloss over the cracks.

Indeed Star. Well spotted. Another disadvantage of the zonal system. Our players have to be in position to mark their zone prior to delivery of the set-piece. Opposition players can stay out of the area and await delivery of the ball. They can then run in en-masse and attack the ball as we saw Southend do. They have a running jump, our boys have to make a standing jump. Now does anyone here jump higher from a standing start than they do from a run and leap?

We've only scored because they've made a bad mistake and gifted us a goal. Not denying we deserved it because of our possession, but the fact is we got lucky for the goal. Anelka seems frightened of getting hurt and Frank's touch has been poor. The best two players for the first 45 have been Clark their centre-back, (despite his part in the cock-up for our goal), and Antony Grant, our ex-youth teamer. And their goal was a prime example of why purely zonal marking at set-pieces doesn't work.

Southend 1 Chelsea 0 Zonal marking....................... "IMO a purely zonal marking system is unworkable."

Totally with you MB but you are wasting your breath. Drogba is not the problem and sellling him now would be a huge mistake. Give us a smidgeon of pace in midfield, a wide player/players who can beat a defender and give reasonable delivery, and get some support close up around Drogba and the goals will come. Wasn't it Jamie Carragher who was saying at the weekend Drogba has been the best centre-forward in the world for the last three years?

I share your thoughts Dorset, but Sturridge is a promising, young, home-grown talent. As such he would have absolutely bugger all chance of getting a game with us.

IMO a purely zonal marking system is unworkable. There has to be an element of man to man marking, pitting your aerially dominant players against the opponent's strongest headers of the ball. If I may give an illustration. Imagine we are playing Villa and you take my previous example of Joe Cole, and let's add Kalou, having to hold and defend the front zone of the six yard box. That is their zone. Next let's say JT and Ballack are holding the middle zone of our box and in theory protecting Cech. Now, if O'Neil understood the system and then deployed Laursen and Zat Knight away from the centre of our box and into the zone held by Cole and Kalou, they are, with reasonable delivery, going to win a very, very high percentage of aerial balls that come into that area. In which case, common-sense prevailing, we would have to shift Ballack and JT into that zone to deal with the threat. Therefore, although it's still a zonal system by name, an element of man-marking comes into the equation. Of course no system is fool-proof and works 100% of the time. But I fail to understand how highly paid professional players struggle to implement a man for man marking system. What could be more straight forward? You only have to do three things to make it work well. 1. Pick up your man early and stay TIGHT. 2. Stay goal side. 3. Get up and attack the ball.

Watch what he does. Take a close look at Carvalho defending set-pieces over the next three or four games. The reason why you can't remember him losing his man at set-pieces is because he rarely marks an opponent one-to-one. He very rarely takes a player tight, man for man. He prefers to drop off. He's always done this. I remember we had a discussion about this during Jose's tenure. On occaisions I have seen other players left with two opponents while Carvalho is defending space. Incidentally, Scolari has said we are now going to switch to a zonal marking system for set-piece defending. My experience of that is it is a weaker system and much harder to implement succesfully than a man to man system. For instance, Joe Cole would be given a set zone to hold and defend, say the front edge of our box. All the opposition have to do to counter that is deploy their aerial strength to that zone and deliver and attack the ball from there.

I agree Loz. From what I have seen of the two to date I would be more inclined to let Ivanovich go than Alex.

I would like to see Carvalho being one of the defenders on the post. For all his other qualities he is very, very poor at man-marking on set-pieces. It would also rob him of an opportunity of wrestling opponents to the ground in our penalty area.

The second and third goals were all about the quality of the delivery. For the second Evra was able to get in behind us and reach the byline. Something we were totally unable to do all game. And Ronaldo's free-kick for the third was fizzed into the six yard box at such pace. It's practically impossible to defend that. For us, in similar circumstances, Deco would probably have hit the closest defender or Frank would have tried to float the ball across. Therein lies the difference.

Same here Mod. Wasn't brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but he did try his heart out and you couldn't say that about many.