Guppy [R]

[Knave]

I like Guppy. I do. I think he's a good addition to the team. I'm glad we brought him on board.

But he should not be starting. This Guppy starting business has to stop right now.

[DutchFootballRulez]

I like Guppy. I do. I think he's a good addition to the team. I'm glad we brought him on board.

But he should not be starting. This Guppy starting business has to stop right now.

Motion Seconded. Any riders? Ok, Proposition "Start Player X Now" Thread. All those in favor...

[pokemoncards]

I think that Freddy should start over Guppy, I really do.

[DCFAN96]

He'd be a great sub, your right he shouldn't be starting.

[CPRoyale]

Start Freddy. Sub Guppy. A fresh Guppy in the late 2nd half could be dangerous. Freddy looks dangerous this year. Me likes.

[ursula]

I think you all are being to harsh on the Gupster. Look at Pumas' defensive game plan:

-Priority #1 was to shut down the DCU skilled offensive players. Moreno, Gomez, Esky, and Guppy. Didn't you notice that after the first fifteen minutes or so that those guys virtually disappeared? Guppy was the most obvious because at least he got the ball a fair amount of the time. But so many times he did he was pinned on the sideline. I'm not saying Guppy was great. I still want Q1 to start in his place. But Guppy wasn't all that bad either.

-Priority #2 was to then let the other DCU offensive players make poor decisions. This meant let Gros, Carroll, and Olsen try to win the game. But these guys couldn't make the right decisions time after time. Those three are so used to passing the ball at first opportunity to the other guys that since those guys were covered they passed the ball to the other team or hit a poor shot.


Finally Adu is not the replacement for Guppy. Quaranta is.

[DutchFootballRulez]

Guppy doesn't have a "replacement". Q1 plays because he's a physical player with enough stamina to play outside and defend as well. Gros is Guppy's replacement. If Gros would sit and Guppy would start Guppy would be subbed off for Gros. Techincally Simms could be brough on for Guppy, since the pattern has been switch Gros and put Q1 on the right. It would unbalance our attack, but its possible provided we have adequate defensive cover on the wing vacated by Gros. When he switches to Guppy's side.

[gnat]

I disagree. He can't go 90 minutes, but he spent the time he was on the field busting his ass and performing well at both ends. The Pumas also seemed to have some trouble with Guppy from what I could tell. Until we have another natural winger that can start or Guppy really starts dragging/making massive mistakes, I see no reason to not start him.

I also disagree with starting Freddy in his spot. Everyone is enamoured with how he played tonight, and I don't disagree but he plays like that when he is in the A-Mid position vs a wing or up top. It's Gomez that Freddy needs to displace, and I think he still has some work to do before he can think about that.

-dave

[Big Roy]

Best performence I've seen by Freddy to date, but Guppy definately belongs in the starting XI. Props to the DCU brain trust for picking him up!

[Hedbal]

Don't put Freddy on the wing. He'll get swarmed and pinned to the sideline, where he will look ordinary. Play him inside where he has room to move.

BTW, Guppy had more speed than I was expecting to see. Unfortunately, Pumas did a good job of blanketing our middle guys, so most of our offense consisted of swinging in crosses. Guppy is fine at this, but during the run of play there were few teammates uncovered and in a position to redirect.

[geordienation]

Maybe this is the point in the thread to point out that if he ain't starting, we shouldn't be wasting an SI spot on him when we could use help in other areas. *cough*cough*backline*cough*cough*

[MeridianFC]

I think the Gupster will add a lot against MLS oposition. This wasn't a night for him. He was pinging in those crosses against the Goats, but tonight it was all up to Esky's lonlely noggin v. 3 defenders. In case you haven't noticed Esky is short. This is not a recipe for success.

[RMDad]

Guppy was definitely shut down hard in the 2nd half.
Pumas did a good job of negating several players, actually.
Where the work needs to come, is in having alternate plans when he does get shut down, that actually work, rather than feeding him ball after ball that ends up in a turn-over.
Mark

[NattyBo]

Guppy was winded at 20 and I had Bootsy Collins yelling at him in leiu of me to "get his ass going"

If he cant handle 20 minutes of running in this kind of weather, hes going to collapse when we play at home in July.

[soccercptn]

As much as Guppy did nothing, his replacement, Q, did even less against Pumas.

That said, Gros was dominant on the left side once Guppy left.

Guppy doesn't have the speed or athleticism to play against a team like Pumas. If I were Novak, it would be a matchup thing - start him against less experienced and less fast midfields.

[Bootsy Collins]

Guppy was winded at 20 and I had Bootsy Collins yelling at him in leiu of me to "get his ass going"
I didn't do a good enough job.

Right or wrong, I reflexively think of English soccer as having a lot of really high-quality crossing and pinpoint long balls. The pass he made to Jamil Walker to open our scoring in the away leg against HVFC gave me the feeling that we'd poached a little bit of that. Unfortunately, we didn't get one of those out of him tonight; Pumas seemed to do a pretty good job of channeling him into the corner or trapping him against the side and not letting him get off a quality pass. To be fair to him, though, I think Pumas did a pretty good job of tying up Jaime/Esky/Gomito so he might not have felt like he had much in the way of crossing targets.

I still think he had an OK match; I was just hoping for more out of him. And I guess I'm just telling myself that just as good play in one match (@HVFC) didn't make him Elvis, below average play in one match doesn't make him Michael J. Fox either.



If he cant handle 20 minutes of running in this kind of weather, hes going to collapse when we play at home in July.
Yeah. This is truth.

[eric6854]

Maybe this is the point in the thread to point out that if he ain't starting, we shouldn't be wasting an SI spot on him when we could use help in other areas. *cough*cough*backline*cough*cough*
Well, IF we played a 4-4-2 and IF Guppy could mark well on D, Hmmm...

[Arisrules]

I think you all are being to harsh on the Gupster. Look at Pumas' defensive game plan:

-Priority #1 was to shut down the DCU skilled offensive players. Moreno, Gomez, Esky, and Guppy. Didn't you notice that after the first fifteen minutes or so that those guys virtually disappeared? Guppy was the most obvious because at least he got the ball a fair amount of the time. But so many times he did he was pinned on the sideline. I'm not saying Guppy was great. I still want Q1 to start in his place. But Guppy wasn't all that bad either.

-Priority #2 was to then let the other DCU offensive players make poor decisions. This meant let Gros, Carroll, and Olsen try to win the game. But these guys couldn't make the right decisions time after time. Those three are so used to passing the ball at first opportunity to the other guys that since those guys were covered they passed the ball to the other team or hit a poor shot.


Finally Adu is not the replacement for Guppy. Quaranta is.


I think Ursula read the game pretty well there. Except for spurts, you saw nothing out of that quartet, especially Eski, in my opinion after the firrst quarter of an hour or so.

What I was impressed was how quickly they would double Guppy. I was thinking to myself, jesus, this guy is a mid-30s average player, but whenever Guppy had the ball on the wing, almost always two guys would come in and cover him.

I also think Q1 should be starting. Although I saw him for a short time, there seemed to be a more mature player out there, and one who seemed to be much more agressive and decisive in attacking opposing players.

Adu, for all his trickery fades out of matches too quickly. He's also not mature enough, way too tempermental. I think another season under the tutelage of Nowak, and he will be an extremely strong player next season.

[RMDad]

They need to start Guppy running laps in the steam room to acclimate him to our weather.
Brits tend to start dropping like flies in anything over 73 deg heat.
It's plenty humid over there, but with an average temp of about 55 deg
they just cant hang when you turn on something for heat besides a "back-boiler".

Mark

[JayJay4Pres]

As much as Guppy did nothing, his replacement, Q, did even less against Pumas.

That said, Gros was dominant on the left side once Guppy left.

Guppy doesn't have the speed or athleticism to play against a team like Pumas. If I were Novak, it would be a matchup thing - start him against less experienced and less fast midfields.

Very well said. I would start Q1(On the right, moving Gros to the left) in the second leg. But in the MLS I think he could still be a solid starter. But he'll die in Mexico.