Preseason matches mean nothing. For all we know, Bruce could have been trying a new tactic with all the players and it failed. A lot of teams from various sports have terrible preseasons or good ones, but then when the league starts it suddenly switches.
Maybe we were playing possum to lull Seattle into a false sense of security. More seriously, I think we learned that this particular version of our backline does not have the recover speed to play a high line.
Maybe, but Cole, Van Damme and De Jong probably all have a lot of experience in playing under these kind of conditions and should have been able to adjust, one would think. After the first two or three times Seattle scored or threatened on essentially the same play, its time to recognize that Plan A is not working all that well.
I love playing in the rain, but it doesn't make for a fast game. the ball will just sit in water. watching the recap last night, the pitch was soaked. as fast as some of seattle's players might be, it's hard to imagine the conditions helping them. a defender running back can run just as fast in the rain, but an attacker isn't going to run fast with the ball at his feet in the rain. i didn't get to watch the game, but when i came in and saw we were beaten 4-0, that's pretty dismal. i had just started to get some confidence in the team too.
The pitch seemed incredibly water logged, I get the sense it was developed without the same kind of drainage a pitch in rainier climes gets. My knees & muscles ached just watching players change direction. As I mentioned in another post, I think the fact the backline and De Jong have played a grand total of about 120 minutes together means they’re still working on Plan A. It was unquestionably a dismal performance, I’m just not sure there’s much to be gleaned from it.
But if you’re heading towards the attacker and they get by you, stoping, changing direction and getting up to speed is harder to do on a water logged pitch. That doesn’t explain or excuse everything, but certainly if you’re playing a high line, it’s going to have a greater impact than if you’re parking the bus.
I think the rain and the scoreline contributed to the effort put forth by the millionaires (or lack thereof after 29 minutes). It will be interesting to see if they respond when they get down in a real game. I saw some fire out of Van Damme and De Jong but I don't think that's going to be enough. Unless we can stop turning over the ball, I think maybe Gerrard, Gio, and Cole need to see some time on the bench so we can shore up defensively. And Keane and Zardes do not seem sharp finishing - I'd like to see whoever is in the best form of Villareal or Magee get a chance to see if they can make their touches count.
For those who haven't watched the match, I suggest you watch De Jong's tackle at around min 44 and Stevie G go down in the box and then turn it off.
Bruce is still trying to shoehorn players into the same tactics. He relies a lot on individual quality overcoming the lack of tactical approach. That can work when you have intelligent and skilled players like Donovan but you can't just throw players out there in a basic formation and expect them to figure it out. He's still not adapting based on the situation and that was a problem last season. It's preseason but being preseason it would be a good chance to work on things like that. I said earlier playing 4-4-2 from jump was a bad idea. We keep saying we knew how Seattle were going to play, then why not consider that in how you approach the match, especially in those conditions. I'm not sure how Bruce thinks it's going to improve when guys like Lletget get fully fit. Playing fullbacks who aren't the most disciplined, two inverted wingers and two strikers one who relies on service from players not built to provide it as traditional wide players is going to make us imbalanced and given the opponent toothless. Yeah it's preseason, the pitch conditions weren't the best but if we don't take any lessons whatsoever from the match and continue thinking everything is fine and will work itself out then we could be in trouble at some point. There were warning signs in the match which should be addressed and similar ones in matches we won/drew.
Also this feeds into why I like Zardes more inverted on the left. You can see in matches like against Seattle when playing in the middle he relies on service to be relevant, when that's not forthcoming it becomes a problem. If he was playing the left he would be able to go and find the game better, get involved. Also the supporting defending on the left probably would have been better.
It was good for them to get a wake up call! It is not going to be a walk in the park for them. Timing on this was perfect.
This is one of the problems with the win-now mentality. It will take half the season for the team to jell and then the old players leave and we have to start over next year. I'm actually fine with Zardes being up top. If you think about crosses, there are those high into the box, low across the face of the goal, and then pull-backs towards the top of the box. Both Keane and Gio like to hang out at the top of the box so that limits things to only one type of cross which makes it easy to defend. I think the defense is fixable if Cole and Rogers stay home more, but Bruce seems to like them because they push forward, which is a problem. And yes, it's extremely early and I wouldn't actually do this, but I'm not convinced that we wouldn't play better if we lined up as: -------Keane------Zardes Boateng----------Lletget -----------Husidic---------- ----------DeJong---------- Obviously if Gerrard and Gio figure things out then their upside is much higher. But I'm starting to wonder if they'll figure it out.
I have see high school football games there that were even worse. I don't think stub hub center has real drainage (at least in EPL field terms). It just ponds up. Cobi even alluded to this during the broadcast, and implied it was a conscious decision to the small amount of rain we get (on average).
Keane and Zardes in a 4-4-2 isn't a bad idea at all. How we're trying to run it is a bad idea. You can come up with a lot of formations that would have less quality and dynamism that work better than what we're trying because it's more balanced.
after watching this maybe we want to be more conservative next week? Husidic and De Jong in midfield since Keane drops back so much? Zardes has not looked good so far and Gio is lost as well. STILL! Lets not forget fat Sigi started basically the same 11 as he did last season whereas our 11 was almost 1/2 new and some out of position from last season. Seems like Bruce decided to take this a little more as a preseason game with some experimentation while Sigi just put his starting XI in
I actually think that a water-logged field helps to beat an offside trap. You can send a ball over the top and it will stop before it gets to the GK or end-line, so the fastest player running on to it will win it. It definitely helped Morris out.
Games played for the Galaxy from last night’s starting 11. Boateng: [3] Cole: [3] de Jong: [2] dos Santos: 10 Gerrard: 13 Keane: 108 Rogers: 57 Rowe: 14 Steres: [0] Van Damme: [3] Zardes: 88 Robbie Keane has played more games for the Galaxy than the rest of the starters, less Zardes, combined and that’s being generous counting pre-season games for Boating, Cole, de Jong, Steres and Van Damme
I'm trying not to read too much into this for the season based on the team's limited practice and game time. But at the same time, if you were on the fence about writing off the CCL against Santos as a total loss.....well, now's the time to get your expectations WAY down so you don't Feel The Rage when we go out with a whimper.
An experiment for Bruce would have been trying something different against Seattle when everyone knew Seattle were going to do. It's basically the same tactics he used last year against Seattle and other counter attacking sides (with a couple changes) and the same flaws were there. You could argue the scoreline was lopsided because of the unfamiliarity and conditions but we play that same team against Seattle, Portland, Dallas, Vancouver, etc. in the second half I'm not sure what we expect to happen. I get the argument of trying to build cohesion in a team of players that barely know each other but trying to have a cohesive disjointed team, is that even possible? I'm just confused what exactly they're learning. Also surely he's not going to be playing that 4-4-2 against Santos, that could end very badly. Shouldn't that be the match we're preparing for a little bit? Playing a 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 would actually prepare us better for that match. I know it's preseason but I just don't take the position that there's no lessons to be learned and just chalk it up to poor conditions and new players. Also I don't think we should overlook some of the particular failings and just sweep it under the rug. He's barely played with this team but Cole should know how to deal with a player like Morris better. That type of player he's played against literally his whole life in England. Also having watched all his matches at Roma that looked very familiar.
Set piece defending and organization has been a problem for awhile. I don't think it's a coincidence that when things aren't going well it pops up. Hopefully that will improve with time but I do think it's a coaching issue the fact it persists and we look disorganized on set plays/dead ball situations.
Oh and sorry, I didn't answer your question. I personally would play like this against Santos. ----------------Keane --------------Gio/Gerrard Boateng---De Jong---Husidic---Zardes Cole----Van Damme----Steres------Rogers ------------------Kennedy That would actually be a good match to have Larentowicz instead of Husidic. Let De Jong play more box to box which he can do. If Lletget is fit I would swap out Boateng and maybe flip the wings. Also the way both are playing Magee wouldn't be the worse option in the hole, even off the bench.
Larentowicz is still recovering from pre-season hernia surgery. I think he's supposed to be training again this week but based on fitness he's a no-go for the CCL.