And now ALEXANDER with a horrendous turnover leading to a fire counter. I can't take much more of this.
Terrible sub by mike. Peggy on for Steele pushing Alex out wide. Steele was having a very good game. Alexander not. WTF?
Alexander starts the turnover on the left side that leads to another fire counter and chance on goal. Unbelievable.
Peggy with a great win at cm, great pass, and makes a good run into the 18. Unlucky not to have the ball kick off him for the goal.
Cahill with a great defense splitting pass. Henry closed down at the last second. Cahills link up play has been very good today. Only thing I'd say is that he could have been a little greedier in a few instance when he was inside the 18 today.
FT. 1-1. A fair result and I'll always take a point on the road. Also, the best 90 minutes we've played yet. HOWEVER, if Dax plays marginally better or if Alexander doesn't play terrible we win this thing 2-1 easy. Build on it and move forward.
If the plan all along was to have Henry play a central midfield role, why even have Alexander out there? Waste of a space especially with how badly Cahill is struggling in the target striker role, would have been better off with leaving Alexander on the bench and going with Cahill-BWP up top. On the bright side, I thought Dax looked much better even aside from the goal, much more organized performance from him. Sekagya was outstanding as well.
I'm actually really pissed off that in the post game a few people were singing Alexander's praises. I thought he was god awful today. He was completely invisible the entire match except when he was turning the ball over and/or committing a cardinal sin (in my mind anyway) in giving up on a run that could have resulted in a goal. I'm beginning to wonder if something is wrong with him either physically or mentally. This is not the Alexander I remember from last year. Dax was a little better than the first 2 games. So I guess there's that. Still not back to the form we know and expect from him though. Sekagya and Olave played great. Steele played out of his mind in that first half. In fact everyone else played very well.
Its kind of exactly the Alexander I remember last season, my biggest criticism of him has always been that he has trouble getting involved in the game on either side of the ball. We just didn't have Lloyd Sam or Peguy playing like they did at the end of last season so he had no competition. He didn't turn the ball over much today, but that's because he played nothing but short square passes. He also did nothing to win the ball back, he was regularly one of the last midfielders back in defense after we turned the ball over. Granted it didn't help his cause much today that Henry basically took over all attacking responsibility in the midfield today, but I just don't see where Alexander fits into this starting lineup. He should be a bench player unless we have a bad string of injuries.
Steele has always been a limited player. He is only as useful as his work rate. I was really hoping Bover or Obekop would be ready this year to push him. Convey is similar to Steele in the sense that both are not very pacey. Convey is a bit more technical though.
Truth be told, I think Petke wants his first team to really be firing on all cylinders before he gives chances to the kids. If the team is playing well, then he can begin giving these guys more time in the latter third of games, so that they are ready for more heavily congested part of the schedule, which is still about 3 months away. But with 2 points from 3 games, this team is well behind the curve, although they appear to be catching up. The quickness of Chicago's defense gave Henry, Cahill and Co. some real fits, yesterday. If the goal is to work the ball into the penalty area before shooting, they are going to have to go for goal with a much faster build-up.
Last year I remember him being decent. He wouldn't win you the game (unless he went crazy on Montreal ), but he wouldn't lose it for you either. What I saw yesterday was a single player preventing us from getting 3 points. He was absolutely useless...and giving up on that run...i mean C'MON MAN!!! When Peggy came on we became SOOOOO much more dangerous up the center of the pitch without giving up anything more in defense. I'll admit I project Alexander as a CM in the long term, but right now he's absolute garbage.
Agree, not saying the younger guys should be playing, but I was hoping one of them would have progressed enough to possibly force Petke's hand this offseason to potentially start
If the Red Bulls regulars keep playing this way, it will force Petke's hand. But I'd rather see a more deliberate approach.
We need Henry or any good striker at front, not just on the lineup but playing the 90 minutes at front, Henry come to the CAM position more often than to the striker zone and that is limiting the production of goals, because we are playing practically with out of a striker, you have to play Peguy as a CAM, Cahill as a right Fielder and force Henry to keep him on his place and if Peguy isn't good enough to hold the CAM position, look for some body else, the CAM is very important and that is what we need right now to start winning......