Ok, I'm admitting it. We've been bad. Very bad. So, let's talk about how to fix it and list our ideas. Let's try and keep this to a constructive conversation. 1) Admit it's not the defense. Yes, we've leaked goals. But our major problems right now aren't on defense. We haven't been steam rolled of late. We've been boneheaded, but not steamrolled. Against NY we had ample time and opportunity to attack. NY had 1 shot on goal. 2) Admit it's the offense. 3) Edson Buddle still doesn't look good, but even in off form, he's better than the lead foots of Chad Barrett and Adam Cristman. So, you keep him in. BUT... 4) Do you move LD? Do you move him centrally where he can connect more and be creative? Do you move him closer to Keane? I don't think this means Franklin at RM, but it could mean a 4-3-3 with Becks and Landon out right. Although this is essentially what we played today and it didn't work. The reasons you consider moving him are: a) he's the one player that's looked consistently dangerous of the ENTIRE team and he's currently stranded out right, b) LD + Keane = goodness, c) he can help our passing game through the middle, we are overly reliant on the flanks right now. 5) Reinforcements in the summer. We would need to trim the squad. We could use a speedy winger, and another forward. And a decent LB for later. We have a distinct lack of speed - we look old. 6) Hire an offensive specialist for your staff. 7) STOP with the longballs. Please. Stop. This doesn't include stopping every cross Becks puts in. But the crapola longballs out of the back that NEVER hit their target, and the Becks countless crosses to our midgets, STOP. Play the ball on the ground. 8) Stop whining for every foul and play the damn game.
Honestly- major changes are in order. Contracts aside, I'd consider imploding the team and rebuilding from scratch. Other teams have made too big a strides for us to stay stagnant. I think many assumed the Galaxy would steamroll to another title and I suspect the squad wasnt as hungry in the off season as other teams. It shows. Fire Arena. Dump Saunders if he can't shake the sauce. Find a marquee player to be the successor when Landon and David fizzle out (more). Develop youth. Change this long ball b.s. strategy... This season is a write off. Time to start talking about 2013.
I don't see how blowing up the team will work...we have good talent they just aren't linking up the way they should. With two marquee players waiting to get back onto the field (Leonardo and Gonzalez) breaking up the team over the summer, only imo obviously, just doesn't make much sense. I would try bringing Keane back from the top and play a 4-2-3-1 with Keane @ CF and Buddle as striker. I'm just spit ballin' but it looks like Keane is more comfortable playing slightly back, he'd still get a lot of chances but he'd be able to link up with LD more often. Magee and LD would obviously make up the other AM and Juninho and Becks towards the back. IDK, I just want them to play better.
Yes, this. What I would do along with this is replace Sarvas with Magee and save Mike for the Chad Barrett late-game offensive replacement role. Rather though dropping Beckham back, where we would see a lot of 30-yard passes from him, I'd have him play further up and in front of Juni and Sarvas. Deeper problem is that the team seems to be not having fun, something is wrong internally. Maybe its just being depressed from losing, this was looking like a very promising year on paper and we've underachieved. It's more apparent after each one of these lackluster games that the main change we will have to make is not to scrap the roster and start over again but bring in a new head coach...
As others have said, we've looked the best when we had this pairing (even back to MLS cup) -----Keane--------------- ---------Donovan------- Which leaves us with two fundamental questions, do we want another striker and where do we play Beckham? People have been talking about "false 9" formations, which is what we would be running with Keane and Donovan as the only forwards. Given how weak we are on the wings, it makes me nervous to have our forwards so far from the box. So let's say that Donovan can combine with Buddle better than Keane can, so we have: -----------------Buddle -----Keane--------------- ---------Donovan------- Beckham helps possession in the midfield, but is not enough of a defender so we also need Juninho in the middle. Add in two wide players and we get: ---------------------------Buddle------ ------------Keane-------------------- ----------------Donovan------------ Wide-------Beckham-----------Wide --------------Juninho----------------- So if they let us play the 4-5-2, we've got it made! We could line up as 3-5-2 but that formation seems not to work too well these days. More seriously, either we go with Keane and Donovan up top and lose an attacker in the box, or shift Beckham the right and weaken possession in the central midfield.
^I'm with Baysider - we need a change of formation and tactics before we blow up the team and give up on this year. We have talent, you have to figure out how to use it. Lobbing stupid balls into the box and praying isn't a strategy and it isn't working for this team. SO CHANGE IT. Perhaps the reason why everyone looks so lethargic is because they don't agree with said strategy. We need a tactical change to playing on the ground, and we need a formation that enables that. False 9 is one option, as is shifting to a more grounded 4-3-3. You could also shift Becks permanently out right moving Landon to the center. It isn't working right now, so Bruce needs to figure out a solution. The 4-4-2 sitting around and waiting for Buddle and Keane to connect is just not the answer.
Buddle and Keane are not good together so stop forcing that. We gotta try something new cause this isn't working at all obviously. I suggest a 4-3-3 or stick with the 4-4-2 but put Donovan up top with either buddle or Keane and play Stephens outwide with Magee on the other side.
Stephens is not the answer out wide. He is a dmid. Not a right midfielder. If you are moving LD from the right, your choices are: Sarvas or Beckham. That's it. We have no speedy wingers, and Franklin and Jimenez don't count.
We have to wonder, in retrospect, of how much anyone thought about how well Buddle would fit back into the LAG system (whatever that is, more on that in a second) before re-acquiring him in a coup over the winter. It seems like we're constantly having trouble getting the most out of our most expensive players at the same time.Having said that, this was even a problem last season. Can someone please tell me what our "style" is? We should play like Chelsea have been lately, a 4-2-3-1 with Buddle sitting up top like Drogba. When Keane gets frustrated and starts wandering for the ball, he looks more like a center mid anyway.
I still think we blow up the team. Lose Buddle and Barrett. Forget this whole "team Buddle or team Barrett" nonsense and lose them both. Put Landon next to Keane as the two could definitely work well together. Tighten up the midfield and find some cohesiveness there too. As many here have pointed out, the defense is a small microcosm of a much bigger issue: Team Chemistry. Yes it's virtually the same squad as last year, on paper. But the team that left the pitch in 2011 as cup champions isn't the same that came back. There is plenty of blame to go around but I think a clean slate is in order. Here, I'll say it: Either Beckham or Donovan has to go in favor of another marquee player on the team. Preferably a goal scorer and playmaker who doesn't rely on others to get them service (which is Keane's downfall in my opinion).
Changing players isn't the solution - we have plenty of talent. We could fix our offense very, very simply. Just stop simply stop launching mindless long balls repeatedly throughout the game. (Yeah, I'm looking at you Beckham. And yeah, you too Bruce, since you are in charge of tactics.) The NY game was the perfect example of how to waste the talents of Keane, LD, Juninho, Buddle, etc. while simultaneously making NY's defense look awesome. The fact is we would have likely scored 2 or 3 goals and tore them up if we simply kept the frickin' ball on the ground. I've watched a few of NY's games this season and their defense is clueless and chaotic when Conde is out of the lineup. But that only becomes apparent if you dribble at them, or send through passes into space behind them, or do something besides send predictable long high balls that they can easily head out from the back. And - despite all the praise the commentators were giving him - Meara actually has bad hands, spills routine balls, and often shows his inexperience. But again, the one thing he can do consistently is come out and catch predictable crosses like we sent in. The only good thing I got out of this game was that our back four finally looked halfway decent, not shaky and scared. But our midfield's defensive shape was ignored, and as someone pointed out Donovan should have paid better attention to Lindpere and we get our first shutout. And I miss Saunders. And Buddle should play the whole game. He often got goals for us in the 89th minute in the past in games where he looked like doodly-squat for the first 88. And b/c Barrett is simply awful.
Buddle shouldn't start. Period. Even though he can finish, unlike Barett and Christman, he is not a good pairing with Keane. Barett at least opens up space for Keane and is a huge handfull for defenders.
The problem here is FAR beyond just a formation change. It's an approach problem, it's a movement problem, it's a confidence problem, it's a tactical problem. The 4-4-2 we play will not be any different than a 4-3-3 or a 3-4-3 or a 3-5-2 or a 4-2-3-1 or whatever unless we address the off the ball movement, on the ball creativity and defensive responsibilities of midfielders. You're putting lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig. Us filtering our attack through Beckham is a huge problem. He kind of roams around, doesn't get too far forward and as a result, his only way of play making is through long balls. He doesn't have the 90 minute fitness to bust ass up and back down the field as should be required of central midfielders. As a result, you see far more responsibility put on Juninho's shoulders. Last year a lot of that was masked because Omar and Juninho were stellar, but we're now seeing how much we have to give up to have Beckham on the field. He's a luxury player on a team that really can't afford one of those right now. There is absolutely a place for him on this team, but he need to either be in a position where he stays far forward and creates far closer to the strikers, or he needs to play less minutes and bust his ass up and down the pitch for those minutes. Either way, we've got to get Beckham out of the free role he plays and put him in a defined role. We need more discipline right now, not Beckham floating around the field. Oh you're playing right back now Beckham? Now you're playing sweeper? Who are you, Beckhambauer? So we're stuck with Beckham for the time being (2 year contract, really?), but he certainly has something to offer this team. We need to give him no defensive responsibility, get him closer to the attack. He needs to play the Schelotto role, if you will. It saves his legs, gets him centrally, closer to the goal, and reduces long balls. Unfortunately, having him in that role pigeonholes us into a 4-5-1 variation. Bear in mind, as I said above, a change of formation alone doesn't nothing unless we fix the things I mentioned above, but let's examine the 4-5-1 and see if we have the personnel to do it. ----------------Buddle--------------- -Donovan---Beckham---Keane- ----------Juninho---Stephens----- The back four is whatever you prefer. Donovan has the pace and stamina to get up and down the pitch, but Keane is being played out of position (though he drifts so wide anyway) and his defensive abilities are questionable at best, so he's not an ideal right winger. Beckham could play wide, but we'd defeat the purpose of the experiment. Let's just assume we can play this way, it would become something that looks a bit more like this: -----------------Buddle----------------- ------------------------------Keane---- Donovan----Beckham--------------- -------------Juninho------Stephens-- Stephens would have a ton of defensive responsibility, not just centrally but wide right. This means Beckham has to slide back to cover centrally and we're back to square one, playing the 4-4-2. Now, we can play the 4-4-2 on defense and transition to the 4-2-3-1 on offense, but you have to play a defensive central midfielder who can also play wide, as well as have a team who can transition formations on the fly. Stephens seems a good fit for that role, but I question Bruce's ability to have such a dynamic team as to change into a 4-2-3-1 on the fly. That role is probably made for Stephens. He's a good possession midfielder who had a ton of hustle, but is poor creatively. In a three man central midfield, a player like that can exist, and is even desired for his ability to plug gaps, hassle opponents, cause turnovers and get the ball to players who are more creative than him. So, if we want to play a true 4-2-3-1, we are going to need a right/left winger who busts ass up and down. Not just that, but it leaves one of Keane or Buddle on the bench. Neither of them are in good form at the moment, but on their respective days, they are elite MLS scorers. I wouldn't mind trying Keane out in that right winger role. In fact, when you've got Buddle, Keane, Donovan and Beckham as a very high attacking four, you're looking for a lot of role interchange and a fluidity of movement that would confuse defenses and open gaps. Unfortunately, we should be able to see this with a 4-4-2, and purely changing formations isn't going to solve anything. The only real difference here is you're forcing Beckham forward knowing he won't have to play much defense. So we're going to have to trade for someone to get that winger, because outside of Landon, we've only got Jimenez as wide players. Magee is a good enough player, but he's not going to be the player we're going to need busting up and down the field. We need speed, stamina and work rate down the wings for this to work. For me it comes down to Arena being a shitty tactician. I have a ton of respect for the guy, but Bruce Arena teams have always had a problem with: a) Playing as the favorite b) Offensive creativity and movement c) Getting results after going behind We certainly exhibit all of these problems. This season has been an unmitigated disaster. We lost a home and home with Toronto FC, a team who is 0-0-8 at the moment. We lost to New England at home. We lost at home to a New York team with 7 missing starters. Not a single clean sheet. Extremely poor chance creation and even worse chance conversion. We need immediate improvement or it's time for Bruce to go (or step into the GM role full time). Unfortunately, if we fire Bruce, who do we hire? This isn't a team where we can wait for a guy like Kreis or Olsen or Heaps to rebuild a roster and cut his proverbial teeth. We don't really have any legacy type guys ready to coach anyway (unless you count Cobi, but somehow that seems unlikely). We're in win now mode. Donovan, Keane and Beckham aren't getting any younger, and any manager we bring in has to get results. Unfortunately, there aren't any MLS proven managers around (unless we want to try and retread Steve Nicol), and bringing in a proven foreign manager means jack squat in MLS. What that says to me is to move Arena to the front office, have him be GM full time and let someone else take over the coaching role. As well, any manager who comes in isn't going to be able to change a lot this season. Our roster isn't very liquid, and we don't have a lot of moving pieces. So really, we need a coach to make the best of what we have now. At any rate, how we approach the game needs to change. Our mentality needs to change. Whether that is with a new coach, a new formation, new player or for Hachiko to start gameday threads again remains to be seen, but something needs to be done, if for nothing else but to signify that there is a recognition of a problem.
Telling you RIGHT now. The minute the collective media, fans, and supporters groups more or less write off the season - the team will win - consistently. The pressure is getting to them. One of the biggest problems this team has is they believed their own hype. THEY WERE TOLD, AND CONSEQUENTLY BELIEVED, THEY WOULD REPEAT EASILY AS MLS CHAMPIONS. The downfall of any "empire" is believing your own superiority. One thing that's worth mentioning in fairness too is that the other teams in the league have made tremendous strides in the off season. As a fan of the league in general, it's great to see teams like Sporting KC emerge. If the league is going to flourish, stories like this need to be the rule rather than the exception. Otherwise you have a situation like any other league in the USA where the large market teams simply smother out the small markets.
I agree with this for the most part. Mainly because the league has realized out entire offense relies on long balls from Becks and when they pack it in we can't get anything going. I still think that we should be a passing team. Lord knows we have the talent for it. And on another note I'd rather have someone who can compliment Keane than Buddle who's main attribute is he's big. When he gets the ball he either looses it or passes it to the other team. I wonder how much longer Keane can handle this. He's probably going insane.
I very much agree with this being one of the easiest things to do. And Galaxy Koa - your post raises some great points too about some tactical changes (and Bruce's potential lack of being able to accomplish those). As someone mentioned before, the false 9 is something else we should consider. Regardless, all of these changes that we are mentioning involve keeping the ball ON THE GROUND. That is the consistent theme through all of our posts. How we achieve that is the question. Looks like the potential options mentioned are (in no particular order): 1) eliminate the longball tactics, play the ball on the ground 2) remove Buddle 3) go to a 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 or 3-5-2 or false 9 4) move Landon 5) insert Stephens or Sarvas 6) we need another winger We shall see what happens next week against Montreal - it's another game where our offense *should* have the upper hand. Should being the operative word.
Magee Keane Donovan Juninho Stephens Beckham Dunivant Lopes AJ Franklin Saunders Bring on Buddle for Stephens later in the match
This is what I would do if I were Bruce... First: We look at the roster and determine who are the weakest links on this team. Player Keep/Cut/UndeterminedChad Barrett CutDavid Beckham KeepAndrew Boyens CutEdson Buddle KeepAdam Cristman CutAJ DelaGarza KeepLandon Donovan KeepTodd Dunivant KeepSean Franklin KeepRafael Garcia UndeterminedBill Gaudette KeepBryan Gaul KeepOmar Gonzalez KeepHector Jimenez UndeterminedBryan Jordan CutJuninho KeepRobbie Keane KeepDan Keat KeepLeonardo KeepDavid Junior Lopes KeepMike Magee KeepJack McBean KeepTommy Meyer KeepKyle Nakazawa UndeterminedPat Noonan KeepBrian Perk KeepMarcelo Sarvas KeepJosh Saunders KeepMichael Stephens KeepJose Villarreal UndeterminedKenney Walker UndeterminedIf you are listed as "Undetermined" then I won't to see them get some first team minutes to determine who gets to keep wearing the jersey. If you have "Cut" next to your name then I have seen more than enough of your crap-a$$ play. It's time for you to go and get a job that you will actually be good at. That's 4 guys out.Second: We replace as many "Cut" members in the summer transfer window as possible. Third: We go back to the counter attacking style that made us the team we were for the last 3 successful years. Ugly but effective. We start to redeploy the 4-4-2 Diamond with the traditional D-Mid. Landon can play both midfielder and forward. He has also proven to be very successful with Robbie or Buddle up top. Buddle is a pure forward and as far as I know is not a midfielder. However Robbie can and has played in the midfield successfully; and can play from either the left or right. So I say have LD and Keane swap spots. Also with Juninho struggling we need to start out with a pure D-mid behind Beckham in the center then bring in Juninho. The defense has issues but they have officially become the least of our concerns as Meyers and Lopes are playing well despite Leonardo-esque mental mistakes. Our key issue is that our midfield and forwards aren't linking up. The midfield has 0 shape. The long ball is being overused/poorly executed and we are passing when we should be shooting. We either go with the following lineup----------------------------LD------------Buddle-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Beckham------------------------Keane-------------------------------------------Sarvas/Magee-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Stephens/Juninho--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Todd--------Leo/Meyer/Lopes------------AJ------------Franklin----Or we go with this line up as it would put all of our best distributors in the midfield and leave up top 2 forwards that I trust to put away the goal.----------------------------Magee------------Buddle------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------Beckham------------------- ----------Keane-------------------------------------------LD/Sarvas--- --------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------Stephens/Juninho------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- ----Todd--------Leo/Meyer/Lopes-------------AJ-------------Franklin---- If after these changes we don't start to see improvement then it's time to blow up the team.
You need to keep Buddle in there if you want Keane to be able to drop back behind and assume more of a center-mid role. Keane is a terrific striker but we are having so much problem stringing together passes that lead into scoring chances that his talent is needed a little further back where he can be utilized more. But this means we need to have to keep a striker up top, and it is clear to me that Buddle is a far, far better option than Barrett. I think GalaxyKoa has the best solution with his: ----------------Buddle--------------- -Donovan---Beckham---Keane- ----------Juninho---Stephens----- modified into: ------------------- Buddle ------------ -------------- Keane ------------------ ------- Donovan ------ Beckham --- ---------Juninho ---- Sarvas --------- Personally, I would go Sarvas over Stephens, but this is what we should be aiming for. I would also put Keane centrally, Beckham out wider because 1) Donovan and Keane have shown some nice interplay, and 2) Beckham is better able to utilize his crossing ability out wide. Alternately we could use Keane as a lone striker and place Magee in midfield. But if team chemistry is the issue, like Eyenigma mentions above, then we could sign Messi tomorrow and still have problems. I tend to agree, there are deeper issues at play here and it starts at the top, Bruce might have to go to see us turn things around... EDIT: That is it in a nutshell. Bruce had better start showing some tactical ability in reforming our attack because I would think his job is on the line.
Buddle as sole striker will not work as proven by the U.S. National team. Buddle works best when he has some help up top. He is good but he is no Drogba after all. I think Keane would find the same issues in such a role. If we are all willing to put Donovan, Beckham and Keane into the midfield, then we'd need to get Buddle a competent strike partner. Mike Magee is better than Chad Barrett thus I would take him as a first choice strike partner for this situation. The 4-2-2-2 is pretty much the formation we are playing right now with the way the midfield drifts apart the way it does lately. Skydog's original point that we just need to play on the ground becomes the key problem at that point. Plus I am not ready to remove Bruce just yet. He has given us 3 awe inspiring years with lesser rosters. I am pretty sure he will figure this out. I'd bet we would get a surprising amount of production from my second formation suggestion though.
We run 3 in the back during the last 10 minutes, and don't look too bad doing it. That would also allow us to stop this "who's filling in for Omar this week" nonsense. And it gets our best 11 players on the field. I've thought we should run a 3-5-2 since Omar went down, and I still think it's our best option. Going with ---------------------------Buddle------ ------------Keane-------------------- ----------------Donovan------------ Magee-------Beckham-----------Wide --------------Juninho----------------- Dunivant ------AJ----------Franklin doesn't seem so bad, especially if Juninho continues to improve his possession game over his April form (he's been less horrible lately, imho).
I agree in that we don't have a perfect striker to play with one up top, and yeah, it isn't Buddle's strength to play as a lone striker. Keane is better equipped to play that way, but the tandem with Edson hasn't worked well. So we have a mismatch of player styles vs system, but unless we get our forwards to click we are going to continue seeing this problem. Not to mention, we are playing so many balls over the top rather than working through the mid, and when they are finding Edson he isn't able to hold it up, he's on a different wavelength than Keane is. But although Edson doesn't look as he did his last stint here, he's still a lot better than Barret - I guess we can all agree on that. I like Magee as a striker, much less as a mid. If they were to replace Edson with Magee, it could work, having 2 strikers that is. I don't like using Landon with Keane as strikers because it would mean using Magee or Stephens in mid. It would be nice though to see Landon more centrally located where he can figure more into the mix, Beckham is fine out wide where is ability to cross would be well utilized - but to do that would require going 3 mids and who a left mid would be is a mystery because we don't have an ideal one that is suited to play that role. So by default, it is probably best to use the 4-2-2-2 lineup you are referring to. I like the work Sarvas did in the Seattle game, I'd like to keep him in the mix. He allows Juninho to play further up and provide us offensive distribution through the middle. This is what we are severely lacking, it was much better in Seattle but didn't have the quality strikers to do much more than squander touches repeatedly. Sarvas could work ahead of a 3-defender lineup but I don't think Bruce is radical enough to go with 3 defenders, that would be too big a departure from the norm for him. Our style of play has become muddied though, it's unclear what Bruce tells our guys. We're kicking it up, bypassing our mids and making a mess of things on attacks repeatedly. I like Bruce and defended him through the CCL/season opener substitution pattern mess, but I can't put a finger on what is going on internally. This should have been a game where Beckham for instance put on a soccer display for all to see to give Stuart Pearce some ammo to show an increasing number of voices in England calling for Beckham to be left off the Olympic team, but his play was tentative. That leads me to believe he is probably unhappy in the role he is being asked to play. Keane too, he wasn't his usual hyper-animated self. It seems like something is amiss internally, not sure what it is but something is up.
I don't see much to like about how the team is playing right now, including the back line in this game (against a VERY depleted NYRB team). They continue to look a mess, like they have absolutely no leadership back there. Nothing is sacred, try something daring. Stop trying to make the AJ at CB experiment work. Stop pretending that LD or Magee are going to defend. -------------------------------Keane----------------------- -----------Magee----------------------------------Donovan -----------------------------Beckham---------------------- ------------------Sarvas-------------------Juninho-------- DeLaGarza/Stephens-------Gaul*-----Meyer*------DeLaGarza/Stephens *any two of Meyer, Lopes, Gaul, Boyens, really
dozens of crosses on Saturday and not a decent one among them. When was the last time you saw Beckham put in a truly good cross. Most of our crosses are either headed straight to the keeper, don't get past the first defender or go over everyone's head. Sure there is a lot of tactical discussions here and you all have good points, and I may be a lowly youth coach, but I do know a few things and the most important among them is "you can't do tactically what you can't do technically." If we can't pass or cross the ball effectively what's the point in making any tactical changes. The fact is, the technical part of our game sucks, including that of our golden geese (Beckham, Donovan, Keane.)
