John Terry urges Xabi Alonso to make big change after Chelsea’s defeat to Brentford | Football

John Terry has called on Xabi Alonso to ditch zonal marking at set-pieces after the club continued their disappointing start to the season with a heavy 3-0 loss at the hands of Brentford.

Chelsea enter the international break languishing down in tenth place in the Premier League having picked up just seven points from their five opening matches.

Defeat at the Gtech Community Stadium on Friday night means the Blues are now without a win in their last three games in the English top flight – and they are still yet to register a single clean sheet.

There had been a renewed sense of optimism amongst the fanbase after a summer of big spending at Stamford Bridge, but the west London giants now have three weeks to wait before they are able to put things right.

News that star man Cole Palmer has picked up another ‘small injury’ – which has forced the forward to withdraw from England duty – will do little to extinguish the doom and gloom at this embryonic stage of the campaign.

Alonso’s men will look to get back to winning ways when they return to action on October 10 at home to Bournemouth, who have endured a similarly inauspicious start in the Premier League.

Coincidentally, Chelsea and Bournemouth are the two teams to have struggled the most when defending dead-ball situations dating back to the start of last season – conceding 23 league goals apiece from set-pieces.

After the Blues suffered again in this area versus Brentford, former Chelsea captain Terry said on his YouTube channel: ‘I’m a little bit old school, I like man for man. I don’t like this zonal marking, front marking.

‘I think Brentford came out at half-time and identified that we are exposed at the back post and our smaller men are picking up their biggest players so effectively, we were allowing Brentford to win those headers.

‘[Valentin] Barco is never winning those headers. You could put 100 balls into the box and he’s not beating Jannik Schuster, absolutely no chance.

‘But when that happens, no one knows who they’re marking once it goes over those front-post players in that space.

‘Again, I don’t like this zonal marking. I know pretty much every team is doing it but there’s just no responsibility in players.

‘For me, you have to be accountable. Whoever is marking Jaidon Anthony comes in at half-time or after the game, puts their hands up and says, “Sorry boys, that’s my man and I lost him!”

‘As soon as that ball goes over your head in that near-post space, if you’re marking Anthony then your full focus still has to be Anthony. It’s for someone else to deal with that longer ball around the far post.’

Terry added: ‘This is why I love the responsibility of man marking.

‘I don’t like zonal marking and I don’t like smaller midfield players picking up big centre-backs.

‘I prefer our biggest and best headerers competing at the back post, winning those headers, dominating our penalty box.’

Chelsea have now gone 21 matches without recording a clean sheet in the Premier League while facing a total of 72 shots in the top flight this term.

‘It’s really not good enough,’ Terry went on.

‘When you start looking at the stats and the numbers on this, it’s really unacceptable from our point and this is something we need to get better at.

‘I know it’s the international break coming up and the manager has got so many players away, but it’s also an opportunity to give players rest and recuperation.

‘It’s a difficult time for us and we’re certainly going through it at the moment.

‘But when you go through these difficult moments I think the best thing to do is go, “JT, you’re marking him, he’s your responsibility and if he scores don’t look around the dressing room”, and I think go back to basics.

‘Do this really well, be aggressive in those first headers. Do not allow Brentford, Arsenal, or whoever we’ve lost to in these first contacts with, don’t allow these teams to get those first headers and just head it freely back across the box for someone to head it into an empty net, this really frustrates me.’

Away from the negativity surrounding Chelsea this season, Terry was delighted to see Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli make his senior debut as a late substitute against Brentford.

‘The one plus from an academy perspective, Mahdi came on to make his full debut. What a player this young boy will be,’ the former England defender said.

‘We’ve seen in the last couple of weeks Reggie Watson make his debut for the first-team and Mahdi has now made his debut for the first-team as well.

‘Ideally, he would have liked to have come on in a game we’re winning but from an academy perspective it’s really positive news and sends really good vibrations through the academy.

‘It gives other players the belief that there’s opportunity out there.

‘If we keep performing the way we’re performing, I also think the manager will be brave enough to put our young boys in and trust them to go and do it because we have some real quality in the group.’

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