Double Man Marking

By: Daryl | December 21st, 2008

Managing: Newcastle
Date: September 2nd, 2009
Progress: 13th in Prem after three games

The upside of getting mangled by Caley Thistle was that all my first teamers (except the injured Jonas) were fit to face Man Utd. And I had a plan to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo. A plan I call double lock down.

CR7 played on the right so I had both my left sided players – left back Jose Enrique and left winger Charles N’Zogbia – man-marking him. Enrique marked him tight, and N’Zogbia just marked him. At the very least it made for some good comedy, watching two men chase Ronaldo up and down the right flank of St. James’ Park.

But he still scored.

In the first minute, Michael Carrick played a great ball into the channel. C-Ron had too much pace for either Enrique or N’Zogbia, beat them both to the ball and ran through to score.

Here’s the thing:

Ronaldo – pace 18, acceleration 19
Enrique – pace 16, acceleration 17
N’Zogbia – pace 15, acceleration 14

He was just too fast for either of them. If only double man marking meant the two defenders could combine their pace, then Ronaldo would have had no chance against mega-N’Zorique with his pace of 31 and acceleration of 31. But sadly no.

However, I’m still putting the man-marking experiment down as a success, because that goal aside Ronaldo wasn’t too influential.

Jose Enrique even found time to ignore my instruction not to make any forward runs, and dribbled down the left wing to cross in for Pavel Pogrebnyak to head home an equalizer.

So another 1-1 draw, my third in a row to start the season. Three good results in a way, but my league position of 13th isn’t too impressive.

Small bit of transfer news in my quest to add some experience to my worryingly young squad. Finally had a loan bid for Belletti accepted, but the ungrateful so and so said no. Boo. But I did manage to get 31 year old Jonathan Zebina on loan from Juve for gratis. He’s not going to set the Prem alight, but does give me an old head in the squad, as well as an extra right back should anything happen to Habib Beye.