Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Houston Dynamo (Saturday, 4/14) postgame thread [R]

Wow, we are worse than I thought. Houston was the better team and we were lucky it didn't end 3-1 or so. You are not supposed to get outplayed at home in MLS.

On the plus side, maybe Stahre will start to have some more confidence in players like Hyka and Yueill.

Anyone else feeling like Hoesen kinda isn't getting the job done. He never seems to win 50/50 balls, usually winding up on the ground looking aggrieved. Needs to be tougher / stronger.

 

Except Yueill spent the first half hour of the game passing the ball to the other team.

 

Posting up isn't his strong suit. He is better running onto through balls and stretching the defense, though he had two opportunities with that where I thought he could have done better.

 

I'm having a hard time believing how bad we look. Sloppy. Careless. Occasionally, inept. Did I mention sloppy? If not, let me add: VERY ****ing sloppy.

Our first goal was nice, thanks to a nice heads up play by Yuell (who stunk for much of the first half) to play the ball back into space, and a very professional finish by Eriksson (not easy to hit a ball that hard and keep it low when it's rolling at you). Hyka's goal was well struck, but took a very lucky deflection... a perfect deflection, in fact.

First of all, we look amateurish trying to play the ball out from the back far too often. It's really pretty sad. Tarbell didn't have any huge gaffes tonight, but I expect more of those from him in coming weeks. The new back four alignment should have helped more than it did. Affolter was no worse than Cummings has been, but Quintana was not good. I think he will be better... off nights like this can happen to good players. Flo and Nick were pretty solid- and Nick still looks like one of the best players on the team.

Our midfield was generally dreadful in the first half. Godoy and Yuell repeatedly gave the ball away, and Alashe isn't good enough to be starting an MLS game (thank Cummings for the start, Fatai).

Erikkson looked good, and Vako... still likes to dribble (or shoot) rather than find a dangerous pass. He's still an asset, but still not enough of a team player, imo.

Hoesen cheats a little too often trying to get behind the defense, and gets caught offside too much. Otherwise, I like Danny. If we could get our team talent working together more efficiently, I think he would be scoring goals.

Wondo?... meh.

Aside from being sloppy with the ball, it appeared to me that Houston wanted it a lot more than we did. Tonight's 50/50 balls (or what should have been 50/50 balls) looked more like 80/20 balls in Houston's favor. It got to the point that we started going into defensive mode instinctively (and lazily) rather than fighting for the damn ball.

One point at home against a mediocre team is not going to cut it.

 

On the tv broadcast, they kept showing a replay of Flo getting wrapped up and brought down in the box on our corner kick. Dangerfield suggested that the ref was hearing about this from the sidelines, but I don't know if that's what was being considered (a PK). Not sure why the ref never went to look at video of whatever the issue was. ??

 

A mild push in the back, I believe. Maybe someone imagined they saw a deliberate elbow.

 

He had the assist on the first Quakes goal, as I recall.

 

Wish I could say the same. I've been thinking Wooden Spoon.

 

He did, but, he had played awful up until then.

 

Yes, Houston players were pretty agitated and badgered the ref into having the VAR crew look at it.

 

But we need him to post up. Otherwise, we need to have someone else do it. Quincy I guess is the only one who's good at it.

 

Hoesen didn't have a great game, but he's capable of playing better. He was having trouble running on to balls as well as posting up. I think it is a function of the whole squad being out-of-sync and pressing.

Lack of possession, coupled with cheap giveaways, leading to few offensive opportunities, poor cohesion and pressing. It's all interrelated.

 

They seem to be lacking confidence right now also. After the first goal I thought they'd relax a bit and start playing better, but they didn't. They started playing worse.

 

Yes, we are terrible playing out of the back, but, some of that falls onto the shoulders of our midfielders, who are not coming back to show for the ball. Our back line is so uncomfortable under pressure, if I was the coach of an opposing team I would press our back line as hard as possible.

Quintana had a rough night, a poor give away to cause the first goal, however, could have made amends and scored the winner at the end, but headed over the net.
Lima did get beat to the endline to give up the cross that led Houston's second goal, but, otherwise was solid. I do think playing on the left sacrifices a lot of his offensive ability, it's obvious he is not nearly as comfortable crossing with his left foot. It's a rare team that uses off-footed players at the outside back position.

 

As others have mentioned we were fortunate to end up with a draw at home, against a poor team.

The good, Great goal (and assist) on the first goal, courtesy of Ericksson and Yueill
Great Hyka goal
Hyka and Yueil actually saw the field.
I thought Hoesen was our best offensive player, unlucky not to have gotten on the end of a couple of crosses.
Nick was excellent.

The Ugly:
Tarbell's distribution is awful. Just awful.
Affolter is not the answer.
Wondo is not going to stretch tired legs, he doesn't have the pace for it.
We were outplayed for huge stretches of the game.
We got beat up on the field, and the Center Ref let them get away with it.
Stahre's substitutions are bewildering (as was his lineup selection tonight)
We are getting outcoached, so far almost every game our opponent make a tactical change at half time that burns us (Philly game an exception, we made a change that put enormous pressure on them).

So far, not sure we aren't competing for the Wooden Spoon as opposed to a playoff spot, and if we get into the playoffs, not sure we will see a home game, more likely a one and done road game.

Color me disappointed, and completely unsold of the brilliance of hiring Mr. Stahre as our coach.

 

Hoesen literally plays by himself on the forward line, completely isolated. That is a problem for Stahre to fix, not Hoesen.

 

Hyka’s post game interview was insightful - with the net/net being “we are a team that is supposed to play with the ball, but we play like we are afraid of holding the ball.” Obviously something is not translating from the practice field to the game. But what to do? If we need another player that is confident on the ball, do we take off Fathai for Hyka, push Godoy back to purely holding and slide Vako to the middle?

The only positive I really saw from this game is the willingness to bench Wondo (at home no less) and try with a fairly different lineup. Unfortunately about the same “success”.

 

Bingo. We have a winner.

 

Not sure how you manage to both praise the goal scored by the subs Stahre made while criticizing his substitution choices. Also, this was easily the best combination of players that have seen the field so far this season for the Quakes. Yueill did more in the midfield in one game than Godoy and Jungwirth were doing in the previous four combined.

Moving Godoy up the field and away from defensive responsibilities was a good move and I'm happy that Stahre finally made it. Godoy wasn't great, but he was significantly better. I think the overall defensive work of the team improved. there was more coverage, smarter plays, but the passing out of the back is just not good and that has to be fixed.

My major issues was Vako, as he just wasn't in the game much. It looked like he was supposed to be lined up as a forward, but drifted back into the midfield, putting himself on a completely different page than the rest of the team. It showed as he was pretty awful compared to earlier games we've seen from him. If he isn't going to play anywhere but the wide midfield area, that's going to be a bit of a problem.

I think Wondolowski was more useful as a sub. I wouldn't say he was great, but he certainly wouldn't have accomplished much starting in that match and I'm glad he didn't. I think he should have come on a few minutes earlier (preferably before Houston's second goal), as I think that would have changed the balance enough that Houston would have had to take their foot off the pedal just a bit to figure out how to deal with adding a second forward.

Stahre makes substitutions way too late. The team came out completely flat in the second half, something we're all used to seeing dating back to the Yallop days. I don't know why this happens, but it's extremely annoying and it's costing them a lot of points.

Overall, it was a more entertaining match than any they've played so far this year. I thought Alashe did extremely well in his hybrid defender/midfielder role. He put himself in some fantastic spots to make great defensive plays, and unfortunately his passing let him down a bit, especially early on when it seemed like no one could connect with one another. As someone who has heavily criticized Alashe in the past, I was extremely happy to see his play in this game and I'd love to have been wrong about him.

 

Yueill was one of the worst players on the field for us the first half hour or so, but, after getting the assist he started playing better. I thought he was good in the second half.

 

Yueill played well pretty much from the moment he scored onward. Before that he was bad. He was getting his passes picked off and wrong footing his whole team. It was fortunate that they didn't capitalize. And I am glad he played. I am glad he started. In a 30 minute sub appearance we might have only seen bad JY.

I didn't think Affolter was bad. Yefferson is okay on D, but he really brings a threat to score on set pieces, and I think that makes him super-valuable.

Vako had the worst game of anyone relative to his ability. Lots of hero ball, no magic.

I am glad Wondo isn't unbenchable. It is also sad, because he has given so much to this team. I hope he is still able to poach his way to the record... while not starting every game.

I was sad to see Lima get "Shea'ed" on D. He had a really good game otherwise. But if you are a defender "great other than that one goal that was on you" is not good. Still, he is solid and it is just a mistake that happens sometimes. Lima made some nearly-excellent passes to Hoesen. They were within a few feet of linking up.

And Tarbell plus the midfield just aren't finding themselves in distribution. Tarbell just needs to put the ball down and give it to Lima or Flo to get out. Particularly when Hoesen isn't your guy to win it out of the air.