You know how we love to say we are "the opposite of LA Galaxy" well, this season is shaping up to be just that. We started pretty hot, didn't have too high of expectations, but are suddenly spiraling downwards. LA, on the other hand, had huge expectations, started awful, but is recently making amends (Seattle game withdrawn). One of my favorite lines this team has thrown around the last few years is "you don't win the championship in June/July". Which is somewhat true. Now that we are in August, though, I think its time to play or hit the road
Andy Williams? He wouldn't drop the team speed of RSL exponentially by himself. We have plenty of players that play with themselves let alone tha ball out there. The only reason to have kept him was to use as trade bait for teams looking for leadership. Slow leadership. RSL did right by him.
yeah, because we have plenty of players that can make a good offensive pass on this team... I don't care how slow andy was/is, we're missing his vision in the offensive third of the pitch. No, he wouldn't have addressed our need for speed, but he would have very much given us the creativity we so desperately lack when we come within 40 yards of goal. Re-watch this game. The entire RSL offense is built on getting Fabi the ball wide and then crossing to Sabo with 3 defenders around him - especially once Javi was off. We don't have midfielders that make runs into the box or even into 30 yards from goal. We just get Espy the ball and say "okay, you guys do it". We are so damn worried about defense that we lack any offense whatsoever. Kreis preaches team defense, how about a little team offense?
One thing that has become painfully obvious this season is that Gil is not a "plug and play" replacement for Morales like many fans have said. Gil has played well late in games and when playing alongside Morales, but he is not ready to be the focal point of the attack.
I never really understood why people thought Gil was going to just slide in and replace Javi without losing much. To me, that shows a lack of understanding of the importance and skill required for the #10 position. Gil, in my opinion, is better used when he is on the outside of the diamond. When he isn't required to be the #10 creative mid but is allowed to roam a bit more and not get hacked at nearly as much. Speaking of hacking - good lord Barry Robson is a hack. Heck of a player, no doubt, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out Kreis took off Javi just because Robson was on the pitch.
I thought the team played better than they had in recent road matches. Certainly better than Colorado. The defense played well overall. The forwards had a decent road game, but too many errant passes. The midfield looked more energetic this game. With that said, RSL's overall play in the middle third of the pitch is killing them. At least two significant problems, IMO. 1) Too many passes into covered players; and 2) Too many hospital balls. Does anyone know where to find stats regarding distance ran by a player during the course of a game? Maybe it's not tracked for regular season games? My perception is that Johnson has continued to cover a lot of a ground during our recent games, but that Beckerman and Morales are not covering as much ground as they normally do. My guess is that Grabavoy is covering about the same. I could be completely off with this - just my perception.
For the distance covered and amount of the field covered, see the chalkboard section of the game report. Actually I don't see the distance covered but there is other cool info there.