Yes, you've heard it out the mouth of Andy Gray on so many occassions, zonal marking this, zonal marking that. Whenever goals go in against teams using the standard man-to-man system you never hear about the failings of the system.

Whereas if goals are conceded using zonal, it's always the system that is wrong. Arsenal's goal on Wednesday was a classic example, ITV put it down to 'Oh well Porto are marking zonally, which allowed Campbell to score...'.

Brian Reade from the Daily Mirror has a thoughtful take on the matter;

It's funny how the zonal marking debate has gone quiet, mainly because the biggest proponents of it, Liverpool, have conceded one set-piece goal in twelve hours (now over thirteen) of Premier League play.

So I'm amazed that some of those very fair-minded TV pundits, who always like to admit when they're (ahem) wrong, didn't pick up on a classic example in last weekend's Merseyside derby of how useless man-to-man marking is.

Dirk Kuyt stood between Everton keeper Tim Howard and Phil Neville, and both pushed and pulled him, taking their eye off the ball, enabling the Dutchman to react first when it dropped in the box.

Had they been deploying the much-ridiculed zonal marking system, they'd have taken the ball not the man, and the derby would not have been lost.

The point about marking systems is quite simple. It's not the system that's good or bad, it's the players who are playing it.

Well said Brian.