Post-match: Vancouver Whitecaps FC - San Jose Earthquakes (Sunday, 7/22) postgame thread [R]

Yeah, that was poor by Wondo. You can't wait for the ball to drop like that. You need to attack it somehow. At that point it was like a crowd of people watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve. I actually thought I heard a few choruses of Auld Lang Syne from the crowd as it dropped, but it could have just been my imagination. No way was he going to score that.

Well, he's an attacking mid / striker, and he's one of the team's best finishers. So IMO he should take shots "like an in-form striker". I actually thought he wasn't selfish enough, especially in the 1st half. He kept trying to lay the ball off to the forwards but they chouldn't get in sync.

As far as "in sync from midfield to forwards", the Quakes generally have 3 ways to link midfield to forward:

1) attack down the wing, generally by Chavez or Salinas or one of the fullbacks.

2) long pass to target (either Lenhart or Gordon). Lenhart is significantly more effective in this role IMO because he is much faster than Gordon and can run down and win balls in space. With Gordon the ball has to be close to him, and if he's going to win it, he tends to take a heavy touch with it back to goal and chase it down, and by that time he's near midfield, and at that point they haven't really accomplished getting the ball to the forwards in the final third.

3) Dawkins makes a run.

Without Lenhart, then there are really only two effective ways for the Quakes to link the midfield to the forwards where the forwards are in a dangerous position: attack down the wing and cross (1), and Dawkins run (3). That's why Dawkins is in there - to give the Quakes attack that dimension and link the midfield to forwards. Baca and Cronin tend to distribute to the outside mids and or overlapping backs and don't generally participate directly in linking midfield to forwards (though Cronin hit a lot of long balls near the end of the game).

 

If we don't bring in reinforcements, our success will be rather limited, and we'll be reduced to what might have been

 

Why did Frank take out Chavez?

 

fy broke his own rule and changed the starting lineup which imo effected our game immensly.

why sub shea in for chavez (unless chavez was hurt which i don't think he was)? what we were needing was more north/south flank play and by having chavez & shea out there at that same time would give vancouver double the trouble but instead chavez comes out and "we all know who" stays in. bad bad bad.

not going to get on sercan too much but yeah he didn't give me any confidence coming in late for the equalizer. i've been banging the drum and will condinue...JD get us some reinforcements already!!! we are 1-2 injuries away from not fulfilling the promise of this great season. adding dawyne richards to the team would of been genius and just the kind of player we need....maybe we could of sent opara to NY or hernandez, come on get us some more speed.

 

Is it just me, or has this thread turned into a massive blame-fest? I think we all need to relax a bit...

 

The Craps player knocked the ball too far forward for him to be able to play it, so it shouldn't have been a PK. Still, I can see awarding a PK in that situation. However, it that was a PK, how come the Craps didn't get three or four more yellow cards? There were several plays where they just knocked our guys to the turf and no call, no card, nothing.

But, it's also true that we only made two subs. For reasons beyond my ken, we started Dawkins instead of Shea, and then pulled Chavez rather than Dawkins. Why did we wait until the 82nd minute to bring on another forward? Why did Wondo drop back into midfield when Sercan came on?

Oh wait! Wondo was pretty deep in the midfield most of the night because Dawkins was crap, and he pulled us way the hell out of shape, forcing Baca to play deep because Dawkins is useless on defense. Oh, and when Dawkins loses the ball, he pouts! WTF?! Really? Are you a pro?

And I'll admit, freely, without prompting, that Baca has an off night too. Pulled out of position and covering for someone else's erratic play is no excuse to suck.

So, other teams have worked out that applying high pressure to us causes us to make mistakes. We're going to have to work on that.

Still and all, with a good ref, we either tie the game, or we get the win. Marrufo is total crap, and he hates us my precious!

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

And so this thread is different from every other thread on this forum because...? :--)

 

Agree about the PK. He had no play on the ball at all.

We did hold the ball reasonably well for periods, and we did have some good attacking efforts. But the lack of wing play was the result of us not having a left wing, at all. That is on Dawkins, who flatly refused to play his assigned position. Now were I Baca, I'd have played the left wing spot, and then bitched out Dawkins at half time, but clearly, Baca wasn't channeling me.

Still, I don't see how we don't hang this mostly on Frank. He's the one who decided both to start Dawkins, and then leave him on. Frank chose not to make more subs, with more time for them to have an impact. Frank failed to make adjustments to our midfield, either at the half or with subs in the second half. I don't know how he didn't manage to tell Dawkins: "Play the left outside mid spot, damnit!" Because Simon playing central mid (which may or may not be OK) pulled us badly out of shape, and we never addressed that. Dane Richards had tons of space down our left side, because there was no left side midfielder to even slow him down. Oh, and Morrow pressing up is clearly part of Frank's plan, but it doesn't work well without a left side middie to help cover.

Yeesh!

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

I told myself I wouldn't bite on any of this, but old habits die hard, I guess.

Could it possibly be that Frank wants Dawkins to go inside, leaving Morrow to overlap on the left?
If Dawkins was refusing to play his position, why didn't Yallop yank him in favor of Salinas?

Didn't I read somewhere that Dawkins has studied successful wide left midfielders who are right footed, and that their success comes from cutting inside?

 

Home teams went 15-0-2 last week in MLS... we had a bad PK call sink us from what would have been a solid road draw. Nothing to get upset about, we played well, on to the next one.

 

Quakes formation is relatively fluid. My guess is that Dawkins was doing what Frank wanted him to do - he was essentially playing attacking mid, and doing it well. Despite the score, the end result was pretty good - the Quakes had the better of the run of play after the first 20 minutes or so. Essentially they outplayed a good team on the road. Of course having Dawkins attack centrally from the "left mid" position is a risk, but it's a calculated risk.

 

Exactly.

 

That was a rather telling play... Let's watch the ball float down, hit the ground and turn.... Not even shielding it in any fashion. Like he thought he was out there, by himself, and doing it for a photo shoot or something.

 

Hey! I mentioned that Baca had a poor game.

But Dawkins was terrible. He played in the middle of the park, which was not his assigned role. He gave up the ball too easily, when he could have passed. He played next to no defense. And, worst of all, when a play didn't go his way, he pouted, like a petulant child.

Now Frank should have made adjustments for this. Also, Baca should have sucked it up and played left mid, because clearly Dawkins wasn't going to.

I certainly don't put all of this cluster on Dawkins. As you know, I am more inclined to blame the coach, because it's his job to get the guys to play his system, and to make changes when it's not working, instead of putting his head in his hands and crying. That was crap.

Still and all, it's only one game, and we'll bounce back.

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

and....we lost.

 

It's your fault this happened!

Sorry, I will leave now. But y'all just left that one hanging!

 

I think Dawkins played the way the Yallop wanted him to play. I think that was his mistake (unless Shea was worn out and only had a few minutes in him).

When we start with Salinas and Chavez, we usually establish good width play with overlaps by both Beita and Morrow. This tends to pull defenses apart and create lots of space for our forwards. Then we bring Dawkins in late and he suddenly exploits the gaps in the middle. It's worked well time and again. When Yallop starts Dawkins at left mid, and he pushes mostly in the middle, we have a lot of congestion and our forwards seem confused on where they are suppose to go.

Yes, we can bring in width play late and try to exploit that, but we didn't do that by leaving Dawkins in. I think he's a great weapon, but it's a risk that can hurt us as much as help. Maybe play him as a withdrawn striker and let him move around and find his space.

 

On another note -- I'd sure love to get Dane Richards. Can you imagine a team with Chavez on one flank and Richards on the other?

 

If that's the case, and it might be (that Frank wants Dawkins to cut inside, then Baca still needs to cover the left outside mid spot more.

We got scorched by Dane Richards down our left side repeated. (Richards is an excellent player, by the way.) What we needed was another player on that side, because we mostly had both Baca and Dawkins playing centrally, exposing Morrow to Richards. And Morrow really hasn't played against a winger or striker who is faster than Morrow. So that had to be pretty disconcerting.

I see this as an error on Frank's part more than anything else. When we go up against a very speedy team we ought to play our own very speedy guys to counter them.

And this is why I complain more about Frank than the players. It's on Frank to make the game plan. It's on Frank to adjust when the game plan isn't working well. It's on Frank to make adjustments at half time. And yeah, I think that Frank probably likes Dawkins cutting in. But it pulled us out of shape, it gave Richards way too much time and space on the left side, and Frank never made any adjustments for it.

How's that?

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

and with shea + garza as subs....!!!

that would b awesome and it could of happened an ny was looking to deal

 

That trade would'nt have worked unless we were givng them Wondo, they got Le Toux for Richards, who have we got of Le Touxs quality that we could don't need or could afford to trade? ..Sercan?
We should switch to a 3-5-2, Morrow,Henandexz & Bernardez as the 3 center backs, Beitashour & Corrales as the wing backs & Cronin,Baca, Dawkins as the 3 center mids. Anways, massive over reaction thread! Its just one game we dont really need to make many ajustments,it's fun to throw ideas around but in all seriousness we don't need to.

 

red bulls have had a mess of time with their backline this year, opara may have been good for them and wondo's > le toux!