I love Dom as Houston's manager. I'm not sure who is to blame, but there is a problem with the team. It'd be hard to argue that there isn't.
Why do I think our results have been terrible? Because we loss 2-0 in New England who has a -4 GD and allowed 9 goals. We tied in Philly who has a -1 GD and has allowed 10 goals. If we can't create offense against these teams how are we going to compete with the top teams in the league? Our current D isn’t going to win 1-0 games, so we have to create more offense if we want to win. I think Bruin needs some bench time. He isn’t getting the job done. In the Philly game he wasn’t pressuring the D to create a turn over. The Philly D consistently had a free pass out of the back. Barnes hasn’t done much by at least he was running 18 to 18 trying to make something happen.
You're absolutely right to say that statistically the team has reached playoffs and Finals etc. and we shouldn't have many complaints. But let me ask everyone a totally serious question. Does anyone actually enjoy watching this Dynamo team play soccer? I don't mean the collective experience of going to the stadium, hanging with friends and family, or sharing the common cause of supporting our team. I mean actually watching 2013 and 2014 Dynamo soccer and getting excited about the soccer itself? I sure don't. The experience is fun, and I share the time with my wife and friends. But more often than not I sit in the stands asking WTF they are doing rather than exclaiming on the wonders of Dynamo players. I want Tally Hall to throw a quick outlet to a breaking Giles Barnes or Boniek. I want anyone in Orange to beat a defender one on one and curl one in from 18 yards. I want someone to take a shot, have the opposing keeper block the ball and have a Dynamo player following the rebound to bang it home. I want someone to play soccer!!! Not just work a system with mediocrity until the other team makes a mistake. Give me Ching's headers, Adam Moffatt's blasts, DeRo's moves in midfield, Stuart's field sense and game awareness, I'd even take Oduro's breaking (failed) runs at this point over what we have these days. We have no creativity in midfield, no ability to finish up top, and a defense that hangs on rather than takes command. The historical Dynamo product and Dom's past success don't absolve the vanilla-ness of the current roster.
So the barometer is struggling against bad teams and you define bad teams with how they are doing after six games? In statistics that is called small sample size bias. We've played six whole games. Six. Three home games. Three road games. in our three home games we have two wins, with a 5-0 goal differential. We lost 4-1 at home in a game against arguably the hottest team in the league (using your own barometer) that was tied 1-1 until we suffered a bullshit red card. After the red card, there is no doubt the team was ripped apart as it conceded three more goals. We've played three road games. We've lost 2-1, 2-0, and tied 0-0. In two of those games, we were without our best or second best player. One of those games, we had to start a rookie at CB. We've also had to due without Cascio to start. Not to mention Bruenner was hurt the entire start of the year. You can say -4 GD and allowed 9 goals for New England or you can say that they were a playoff team last year and they've given up just four goals in their last five games. Look, I don't know if Houston will make yet another run at MLS Cup or totally fall apart. I do know that Cochrane appears MLS good, Horst is playing great, Sherrod is legit, and Cascio seems like a good addition. All that with losing a starter last year that was solid, but not spectacular and getting older every year. Is forward still a concern? Absolutely. Do we have everything figured out? Nope. But we have a pretty deep team for our manager to experiment and one of the league's best managers in the last eight years who has shown a propensity to figure things out and an ability to pull off mid-season acquisitions that help the team (OBG, Camargo, e.g.) Everyone calm done and back away from the ledge.
I don't watch the Dynamo for the fans, I watch them because they represent our city in my favorite sport. I don't pay much attention to the irrational fans, but I cannot help but notice that there are some major issues right now, and the team is not looking good.
You can take the beautiful game and tiki taka all day long. If you don't enjoy the quality of Brad Davis and Oscar Boniek Garcia - I can't help you. They are both creative players. Are they Ronaldinho? No. But by MLS standards they are great.
It's a salary cap league. We can't go out and buy the best player in the world at every position. So there will always be issues major and minor. The coach we have will figure out the major from the minor as the season goes on and usually fixes them by the time we get to the playoffs. Again. Where we will exceed expectations. Again. It will happen every single time until it doesn't happen. LOL.
Didn't we go through something like this last year too? I don't think things are great, I want to see a lot more goals, but I really don't think we are playing badly. If you overlook the lack of shooting, we actually look pretty good I think. It seems like most Dynamo teams have no idea what to do when they get inside the box. I don't know why, and that is frustrating to me....
I understand this more than most. I am a eurosnob, so when I watch Serie A/LA Liga/EPL and then turn on MLS, the drop in quality is very noticable, but I believe in supporting local football. I even go to Houston Dutch Lions matches. MLS may be the minor leagues, but they don't get a pass for playing poorly. I praise Horst, and Rico for playing good, and complain about the uselessness of Cascio, or Driver when they play like they do.
If you don't enjoy the quality of Brad Davis and Oscar Boniek Garcia - I can't help you. They are both creative players. Are they Ronaldinho? No. But by MLS standards they are great.[/quote] We need that guy back.
Absolutely not. My 5-year old caught me asleep at my laptop during the first 45 minutes of the New Emgland away: "Dad come play littlest pet shops with me, you're no even watching the game". Went to play LPS instead.
...and let's all just be totally honest here. The only team winning the Houston vs. Dallas match was Houston until Salazar decided to change things up with the straight red to Horst. That's three points right there that we could easily say woulda coulda shoulda. We've had some bad breaks so far to be sure but as someone said earlier, that's over a total of six matches. If the trend has continued through 15-20 matches, then I might be quite a bit more concerned than I am now. I'm not saying we don't have some issues, we do. But when have we EVER had a Dynamo season where we didn't have some issues? The way I look at it, Dom and the gang are getting our crap summer stretch out of the way now so that we can have a fantastic summer run before backing our way into the playoffs only to make another patented Dynamo MLS Cup run. It's the same season after season, We're just doing it differently this year.
Exactly - I would be making all these arguments but if we were halfway through the season and sitting in the last 3 spots and no movements are being made- It's the same every year - We suck at some point during the season make the playoffs and give them hell. What do you guys honestly expect from the an apathetic ownership and a Coach and president trying to do the best they can with what they have? Seriously sometimes you guys sounds like the average uneducated Dynamo "fan" who attends 1-3 games during the year and post on the Dynamo Facebook things like "We need to buy Ronaldinho." Rant Over - Once we have a full healthy team again and some more games under our belt we can determine if this will 2010 all over again. And.......on my final note - Do you guys really think Brunner is that bad? I think Horst and him are our go to guys when healthy - Jermaine's # is about to be called.
Just like any club, in any league, I am more than willing to give it until the next transfer window before I give up for the season, and concentrate my time and money on other things. Brunner is not that bad, and I attribute the gaffes that he had last season that to lack of minutes. I like his size, and speed, and don't have an issue with him. Honestly, Cahill beating him on a header does not alarm me.
Also...no one has started out completely on fire, destroying every team in it's path. Remember how MTL started the season last year? Remember how they ended it? I do.
...and I didn't think Brunner had that many gaffes last year. Yeah he made a few mistakes but I don't remember any that were huge or costly. I've always felt that he was another under the radar type of acquisition that Dom & Canetti made to bolster and area that needed some bolstering. Good squad player to have on the team and seems like a generally good guy which makes a difference in a lot of areas.
@MLSNHTOWN I will put it in the easiest way I can the Dynamo have reached a point where they are the Texans of the last two seasons. What I mean is that they are stagnant and predictable, now in the case of the Texans it was Kubiak not growing as a coach and changing the offense amongst other things. Now the Dynamo have hit this rut a lot longer we just happen to overachieve. Now the big criticism is that while other clubs have switched things up and are always looking for available pieces that can contribute as quickly as possible, we have remained the same and it shows against better teams. There is a lot of blame to go around coaches, FO, owners etc. but as a fan you are concerned then I don't know what to tell you. At the same time Dom has to change his habits if we are to win. Edit: You can add the Rockets to that list of coaches not "growing".
I don't want to be irrational however at the same time one has to point out that recently (since 2013): The team failed to advance out of a Champions League Group that featured W. Connection and Arabe Unido, the only MLS team not to advance out of Group where it was sole MLS Representative (Montreal didn't advance but was in a Group with San Jose). The team had not lost at home by a 3 Goal deficit at all prior to last year IIRC, it has now managed that feat 3 times. Managing to get 1 Point out of 12 Available isn't going to get it done anywhere, it's possible that after Wednesday that goes to 1 Point out of 15 Available. When your biggest scoring threat is your DM, you've got issues. When you go 3 out of 4 Halves in the last two games with 0 Shots on Goal, you've got issues. The only thing making this not quite as bad as it could be is because the present Eastern Conference is so weak, in the West you'd already be looking at a 5th Place battle as a likely best case scenario. Things can change in a hurry in MLS, I just think if this doesn't change for the Orange by the end of next month then we are looking at 2010 all over again.
my expectation at this point in the season is to NOT have 12 other teams in the league with more points than us. I guess to some, that is an irrational, near the ledge, unreasonable expectation. welcome back sunshine police. We missed you!!
2012 was Boswell and Cameron in the middle, Ashe on the left, Taylor and occasionally Hainault on the right. When Cameron left, Taylor moved over into the middle and Hainault generally started on the right until Sarkodie returned from injury and became the regular starter at RB near the end of the season. Don't believe me? Boswell started 33 games in 2012, we know he was a CB. Ashe started 30 games, we know he was a LB. Cameron started 15 games in 2012, we know he was a CB. Taylor started 26 games, if half of them weren't at RB then were were they?