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Just a quick thread about the fourth Palace goal because there seems to be a bit of confusion about what happened:
Here's the moment where Jack Harrison lost the ball (Leeds playing left to right). Labelled are Ayling and Raphinha:
As Palace push, Ayling is now miles out of position. Robin Koch will have to push across to mark Zaha leaving McArthur unmarked. Ayling will look to cover McArthur. Cooper is worried he won't make it, though, and is moving across to cover.
At this point, Pascal Struijk probably assumes that Cooper is marking Jordan Ayew (his man).
Move forwards a few seconds and you can see that Koch is on Zaha and Ayling and Cooper are both closing in on McArthur. Struijk should now track Ayew but either he thinks Alioski is tracking him or he is worried about Eze coming in.
By the time the ball is played, the three centrebacks have all been dragged across and the two wing backs are both nowhere near the play. Alioski does a pretty good effort of stopping the shot.
Yes, Struijk could definitely have done better here. But, as always, the question as to where the blame lies in the breakdown of the man-marking system is a little more complex:
* Jack Harrison absolutely shouldn't be giving the ball away twice in that scenario.
* Leeds are 3-1 down at this point and are pushing forward to try and claw the game to a 1-goal difference.
* Leeds are 3-1 down at this point and are pushing forward to try and claw the game to a 1-goal difference.
* Ayling, Dallas and Raphinha are playing on the right hand side defensively - only Ayling is back to help out when the ball finally arrives in the box.
* Does Cooper come across too early? Is there a communication issue?
* Does Cooper come across too early? Is there a communication issue?
* Should Alioski have picked up Ayew with Harrison picking up Townsend? I don't know how the order of priority goes.
If you watch the chances that Leeds have conceded this season, the CDM is largely found sitting on the D in front of the defence mopping up loose balls into the box. The movement expected of PS vs Palace - dropping back onto a player that a CB pushes on - almost never happens.
It's easy to blame the last player in the chain who happens to be Struijk in this case, but he's absolutely the last player in a chain that can be traced back quite a way in a situation that almost never happens in a scenario where Leeds are pushing forward even more than usual.
One final thing: in this scenario, I'm not sure if the plan is to play forward like you do in a zonal marking system e.g. you see an unmarked playing in front of you, you push onto them and hope the player behind you does the same.
Needless to say, the players look pretty annoyed at Alioski... who seems to blame Struijk
What I mean by marking forward is that it may be the player behind's responsibility to mark this player in a partial libero system. It could be the case that if the back three pull across, it's the LWB's responsibility to catch the LCB's player. Idk.
