Playing Quincy Amarikwa is a joke. He is flat out not an MLS Caliber striker. Why he is on this team is a mystery to me. His offsides, wide shots, failure to hold the ball and poor positional play leave me absolutely incredulous that we pay this man ANY money to play. I also do not understand playing with 4 in the back with 2 holding midfielders when we are 2 men up. One other thing why oh why were our "attackers" going right at FCC players in the penalty area particularly in wide areas. You have so much cover behind you I don't get why you wouldn't take chances and force the FCC defenders to make poor decisions on tackling or not to tackle in the box.
Amerikwa was fine....except nobody ever played to him or space in front of him (when he was onside.) His role turned into "pressure the defenders with the ball." Great use of a forward...
Keep Canouse out of the middle. As an outside defender he's solid. He's not very good on overlapping runs because his crosses aren't any good, but with Segura in front of him, that balances out. But when he came into the middle to sub out Martins, he did nothing. He wasn't the main reason we didn't score. But he certainly wasn't contributing positively. I would have left him at outside defender and put Jara in the middle. Oh, and keep Brilliant at all costs. He snuffed out several of their chances before they materialized.
I don't think we mean the same thing in the expression play with fire, maybe I should have written play with the fire, meaning they played with the possibility of keeping 4th place without winning, and in the end it did not work out this way (and that's why I wrote that they burned their fingers)
The lack of off-ball running has been a feature of this team for all of Olsen's tenure. There is little dynamism other than Arriola running around like crazy, especially when Acosta is riding the pine.
I really struggle to believe United had 33 shots. The stats have FCC having 2 shots on goal and United having 3. I have no problem believing that.
Me: Honey, you know I am cutting back on my drinking and Sunday's are beer-free for me but there's the game and we're all going and well... My wife: Ok, I am proud of you but let's take it easy ok?. Me: Yes and thanks for the supo......my God, is that a $4 beer special cart? Four beers sir!
Only saw highlights and boxscores. Is Rooney back in England? Didn't see him in the game or subs list.
He was suspended due to yellow card accumulation. I expect he will play one more game for DC in Toronto and he'll be off with his millions to Derby.
When Acosta entered for Segura both Segura and Arriola reacted with disgust: Segura because he thought he was doing well (he was) and Arriola, I suspect, because he knew this meant he would be moved out of the center to the wing, which he was. Personally, I would have taken out one of our Dmids - why do we need two of them against a nine-man team?
This is the biggest question, innit? I woulda left Segura in and pulled a DM or D, and put in Acosta. Go with a 3-1-4-2 at least...
When a team is concentrating their D in the middle because they are down 2 players you need to pull them out. That means outside backs and mids overlap and pull defenders out of the middle. Runs from the attackers are lateral to draw the center backs out. How is this hard? What do we do - clog the middle even more and stand still waiting for the amazing ball that never comes because our #10 is riding pine and our only other passer is suspended. James
I think I can imagine Benny's thought process: "I could pull a Dmid or two in favor of an attacker or two, but losing 1-0 when up two players would be a disaster. Better to ensure a 0-0 tie by emphasizing defense and hoping one of our 30+ shots hits the net (i.e., the inside of the net).
Spot on!! There were no runs being made. Arriloa and Mora were stationed out wide. Canouse, Jara and Moreno were five years back and three yards inside them. Tito and Acosta were making useless 3-5 yard horizontal runs to get balls in traffic. Amerikwa and Kamara were static high targets that no ball could reach. They played a formation by standing in it. It was easy for Cincy to defend that.
It was absolutely maddening to watch two of our players run literally 18 feet from each other in a straight line with NO ONE around them down the sidelines, over and over and OVER again... It was as if they were teaching their young child to ride a bike for the first time or something... the young kid with the ball behind them, with the father in front a few paces constantly running and looking back over his shoulder, slowing down waiting for them to catch up, going you can do it, you can do it.... What kind of strategy is that?!
Olsen was more concerned with not losing than he was with winning. See #96. above. Sadly, it shouldn't be a surprise, as it's the essence of Bennyball. Strange, though, because Benny as a player went all out for wins, not draws.