The "jump to conclusions about Ben Olsen" thread

Panic button much?

Look at United's all-time history in Houston - 0-7-1 (17 goals against, 4 for)

They just don't play well there no matter the circumstances.

 

Well first off, Boskovic was technically brought off before the goal, but you can assume the penalty will be scored.

But seriously who else would you take off?

Noone in the back line, you can't go 3 back with a man down away to Houston. Kitchen, obviously not. Cruz? maybe. DeRo's not coming off, and if you take Maicon off, you lack a true center forward.

 

You're kidding right?

 

...and you do?

 

While you are 100% totally wrong, and the proof is in the Coach Of The Year Award which Olsen will be nominated for later this fall, he had a bad night. Which puts him in good company, since the whole team could only charitably be called clownish on the night.

But I think it's healthy that after 1.5 years this thread finally exists. Unfortunately you named it wrong. It should have been called "N E S L O E R I F."

 

I've questioned Ben's tactics before, but I don't think he did anything wrong this game.

He has to take off Boskovic. Can't take off either of the wingers, can't take off DeRo or Kitchen, so it's either Santos (and have DeRo play as a lone striker - WRONG) or Boskovic. Only other thing that would have made sense would be to take off a defender and play three at the back, but that is probably not the way to go since houston was playing a 4-3-3 and we haven't played with a 3 man backline before.

And you think Salihi should have come in this game? Are you crazy? Salihi's an excellent player, but he can't win the ball and hold up possession like Maicon can, so leaving in Santos was the right call again.

 

This is all correct; but nonetheless, Maicon Santos was the man to come off. Pulling Boskovic was a tactical mistake IMHO -- and that's not hindsight talking, I was screaming (well, grumbling loudly, as we were at the mom-in-law's) when the sub was announced. Going with the 4-4-1 meant you had little chance of getting the goal back, yes; if a goal came for us, it was going to come on a set piece or a surprise counter or some other piece of luck. That's absolutely true. But pulling Boskovic meant surrendering the midfield completely, at which point the forwards no longer mattered because they were cut off. And as soon as we pulled Boskovic, we gave up any chance we had of holding any possession in the match. This meant we were on the defensive for the rest of the game, lucky to just get the ball out of our half; and many more goals for Houston were only a matter of time.

Pulling Santos would have hobbled our offense. But pulling Boskovic hobbled our offense *and* pinned our defense to the wall.

 

This thread is stupid. Why is anyone even feeding this troll?

 

I at first disagreed with this analysis. The team had been playing well, creating good chances -- at least one of which Pontius should have scored. We could have climbed back into this one.

That said, it wasn't just the man advantage and the goal -- it was the early sub and the time of the foul. The problem is tha there's almost no way Branko goes 90. Then you have only one sub for injury or you're playing with 9.

You may be right Bootsy Its a tough call. But once the team gave up -- en masse, prior to the second goal (which is what it looked like from our vantage point at a bar) it's really academic.

Protecting our goal differential is Ben's responsibility I suppose, but I don't know if in the end Branko would have helped and we'll need him down the line even more after this debacle.

 

I have to agree with Bootsy. Boskovic is your most creative player and DeRosario the most successful. The two of them on the pitch together gives us a better chance than DeRo and Santos, IMO.

And is this the place to say that Houston is a very, very well-coached team? Sure, the missing man made it easier for them, but their movement on and off the ball was superb.

 

Get a grip, man.

First nomination for dumb thread of the year.

 

Is the argument against leaving Boskovic out there really that he's not yet match fit? When will he be? November? The season is halfway over.

 

Questioning Olsen's sub patterns is barking up the wrong tree. Olsen has overachieved as far as his in game subs. We've seen Neal making an impact off the bench. Santos and Salihi both have crucial goals off the bench. Boskovic has several crucial assists off the bench. I think Ben does OK reading the game once it starts, and tonight was no different. Boskovic was never likely to go 90 minutes anyway so if you're forced to burn an offensive sub it's normal to take off the guy that you probably would have had to take off later anyway. The De Ro sub later was essentially a smart protective sub in a game that was a lost cause anyway.

If anything you can maybe criticize Ben's starting lineups in several games this year. I do think he gets overwhelmed when he has too many worthy players to chose from for the starting 11. But tonight was not one of those nights. He chose a very strong starting 11, and the proof for that was the opening 15 minutes where we had the clear upper hand.

The game was lost by Hamid, not Olsen. Period.

 

Games like this happen. See RSL vs. San Jose just a couple of nights ago. Unless you want to blame Hamid's mistake on Olsen, I don't think this is a fair criticism based on THIS game. I think bringing Boskovic off was a good decision. I suppose Santos off would have been fine too. Do you have a better idea. In terms of Salihi vs. Santos I don't think either has shown themselves to be well better than the other. Salihi has shown well off the bench though. Keep in mind how rare it is to win after being down a goal. Ask me about Ben at the end of the season and we'll have a larger sample size to discuss. He's also made really good substitutions in games this season.

 

2 years ago DC United was the worse team in the MLS.
Last year just missed the playoffs.
This year battling for first place in the east.

That is damn good progress.
Olsen is still learning as a coach, but think he is doing a decent job so far.

 

Now, I would have taken off Maicon Santos...and it was clearly either him or Boskovic to come off...but I figured Ben would take off Branko.

Which means to me, clearly Ben Olsen has a consistent idea of what he wants out of his team and what he values on the field. So then the questions becomes, "does Bennie's system get results?"

Clearly the answer is yes. Since he has taken over DCU the trajectory has been consistently upward. Does he do everything the way I would? No. But he does things that work. Of course if he's clueless and it is all luck then things will balance out over the next 2 or 3 seasons and he will be exposed.

 

I think this is both true and overstated. On one hand, you can look at the standings and see that we're doing much better this year than last year. OTOH, if you look at the standings and the schedule, you see that our record up to this point has come from a schedule heavily skewed towards the weaker teams in the table. When you look at our record against the top half of the East and the West, it isn't that good, where we've played the teams in question at all: KC/SJ/LA = bad, Jersey/Houston/Seattle/Vancouver = mixed, Chicago/RSL = haven't played yet. Personally, I think the evidence suggests we're a middle of the table team: we've beaten the teams we should, like Toronto and Dallas and Philly; we haven't done well with the teams at the top, like SJ and KC; and we're mixed with the other middlin teams like Houston.

August 11 thru September 1 will tell the tale: six matches in 22 days, and four of those matches are against top-half-of-table teams. We still have matches to play against KC, Jersey, Chicago and RSL, and we'll see all four in that timeframe (KC and RSL on the road).

But that isn't really the question. The question is whether that's sufficient. It's an improvement over last year, which was an improvement over the year before that. Is that enough from Benny? Probably.

 

Unfortunately, I think this is it. It would seem the right move would be to take off a forward when the keeper is sent off. Of course DeRo moving to the midfield is essentially the same thing. But...
if Bosko can go 90, you keep him on because you want your best players on the field, and if we're choosing 2 out of the 3 of DeRo, Bosko and Santos, it has to be DeRo and Bosko. The only thing it can be is that Olsen can't trust Bosko to go 90, and to me, that's on Bosko. However, it would have been worth the risk, imo, to push him through it, particularly since Santos is no iron man and seems to 'cramp up' when the chips are down as it is.
No doubt in my mind this was a loss after the red no matter the sub, but, and this is hindsight, it would have been nice to see what Bosko is made of. And, of course, the set piece and possession thing.

 

I don't think we've had a real opportunity to see if Bosko can go 90...but even so, he could at least go 60ish, which would have proven to be helpful, I think.

 

Sure, but when you're already down a sub and you're thinking you would have to spend one on Bosko at some point, I can see why one would hesistate to do that. It's a shame that Bosko has left that doubt in Olsen's mind. If Bosko was a consummate professional and got himself in the best possible shape, the move would be an easy call. It doesn't mean he's a bad guy, just considerably flawed.

 

In as much as consummate means complete, sure it is.

 

Just an FYI

Here is United's record breakdown against teams currently in playoff position and teams that are not.

Playoff teams

2 wins, 6 losses, 2 draws - 13 goals scored, 21 goals allowed

Non-playoff teams

8 wins, 0 losses, 1 draw - 21 goals scored, 5 goals allowed


What can we draw from this?

The first thing that sticks out is that United is unbeaten against the lower 10 teams in MLS so far. That's a good thing. If you want to to be considered amongst the MLS elite, you must beat the teams you should beat.

However, their record against the upper crust is less than impressive and we've gotten a couple of real ass kickings (@San Jose, @ Galaxy, @ Houston and I guess you could throw in the match @ Red Bull too, though we did close the gap)

This must improve if United are to be taken seriously as contenders. Unfortunately, I don't see anything evident in recent weeks that fills me with any type of optimism. A few wins on the road against some of those teams would help assuage my fears..

We've simply got to stop dropping these clunkers on the road