watching the chelsea game last night and their inept "zonal" defending for the southend goal, just brought to my attention the way we defend corners, why do we insist in putting 11 men behind the ball with noone up front surely we should have at least 1 maybe two forwards on our half way line then the box would become less conjested and we would have an attacking option if (heaven forbid) our keeper claims the ball.

jumping is a good tactic

Space never scored a goal.

Zonal marking has got to be one of the most pathetic and stupid tactics ever invented, probably thought of by some foreign manager who thought he was a bit of a boffin. If you are going to use it then it's defensive suicide to do it while defending corners, free-kicks and throw-ins.

The only single positive of it is when you are playing on the break you can defend and then attack very quickly and all your players are in position rather than having to build up slowly. It suits Chelsea's game to a tee, get the ball up the pitch from the back as fast as possible.

Man-marking every time for me like

I've never seen a zone score a goal!

To be fair though we must give zonal marking some credit, we used it to very good effect to beat Stoke, in other words to counter Stoke's one tactic, Delaps hoys into the box!