Di viao runs right past Armando again. 1v1 and Robles bails us out. Midfield pressure is crap. Defense is crap. Tempo is crap. Effort is crap. Passing is crap. Alexander can't do anything. Gives away another great chance right at the top of our 18.
Petke has had some bad days, but today is his coup de grace. This lineup is the polar opposite of what this game called for. There's no way this grouping of players can be effective defensively.
Completely against the run of play Sam serves the ball to the back post. Great finish by Steele. 1-1 We didn't deserve that goal at all.
I'm going to continue to bad mouth this team because it seems to result in goals. Steele picks up an awful Montreal pass and feeds Peggy who finishes very well. 2-1.
Alexander on a breakaway confirming how incompetent he is. Takes 5 hours to decide what to do on the break and makes the worst possible decision. Great chance wasted. Miller follows up w his own incompetence. Steele puts it on a plate for him inside the 18 with no pressure and Roy kicks it into row z.
Alexander is also doing nothing to shield our slow-footed center backs. He's clueless with his positioning and decision making with regards to pressure. Thank God we got a couple smash and grab goals
After the Dax sub nothing but reserves left on the bench. We WILL see the kids today! Jesus. Montreal is going to have 30 shots at this rate.
Robles and Kimura amazing double save! Montreal terribly unlucky so far today. They should have 2-3 more goals. Kimura took a bad knock but is up and moving. Looks like he can continue.
And there it is. 2-2. Red bull players just walking around not closing down anyone. Not in midfield. Not in defense. This is absolutely unacceptable. Sub the entire team off the field. They didn't even come to play today.
Let's hope that's the last time we ever see Alexander as a defensive midfielder. A lot of people, Petke included, seem to think he's a solid defensive player, and I have absolutely no idea where this came from. He manages to put himself near the play, but never applies any actual pressure let alone put an actual tackle in. Some better ideas going forward today, but still far from a complete performance. Steele and Peguy had their best games of the year and Sam continued his amazing form. BWP was pretty underwhelming though. Defense was still a pretty big mess overall. Kimura made me regret supporting him last week, he was 10x worse than Eckersley has been all season. Armando didn't have a great game either, especially in the first half. If not for Robles and Sekagya this game could have gotten ugly. Just overall as a team they look unsettled in defense, and for that you have to point to Petke. Guys seem hesitant to make a play, like they're all just expecting their teammates to make it instead.
Tough call but for me, Alexander if only because he had more responsibility and failed to step up to the challenge... Your defensive midfielder should be so afraid to actually play defense. Not sure what role Convey was really supposed to be playing in the first half. He wasn't pitching in defensively, but he wasn't making any attempt to bring the ball forward either. He never left the middle third of the field, and never moved the ball out of it either, everything was a square pass which seems to be a trend with both him and Alexander.
I will say though that BWP was as responsible as anyone for the second goal. Granted it was a pretty wide open field so it wasn't that complicated of a move, but his run across the top is what opened up Luyindula, that's what you want from your lone striker. I agree about Alexander, he applied no pressure and was a mess.
Great call, watching the replay you can tell he never really intended to get the ball, he's practically looking back over his shoulder at Peguy before Steele even played the pass.
I honestly am dreading bad performances less for the lost points than for the absolute nearing-on-hatred for the red bulls on bigsoccer. Yes, today was frustrating, but hey, Luyindula got his first goal from the run of play. Half our team was out and the rest got heavily banged up. If luyindula had gotten the penalty, this would be a very different board here. We can't let everything hinge so much on inches. In any case, this was a much better performance than I expected given the lineup. I'll repeat, half our team was out and we were inches away from a potential 3-1 win. Red Bulls even looked good on the attack for much of the game and were the better team overall in the second half. And finally, of course the defense sucked, a new, makeshift back four that will likely never play together again..... Which of course brings up the potential real problem as I see it: Petke.
Five games without a win isn't good, but is this a game the Red Bulls were expected to win without Henry and Cahill? http://www.flashscore.com/match/rcPs4Wp0/#match-summary has the Bet365 odds which say Montreal was more likely to win. That site also mistakenly attributes the penalty kick to Wright-Phillips.