News: 2017 Season Catch-All Thread

Pablo might not name names, but I will. Gashi had an awful game against Minnesota and frankly, I feel he is the most overrated player on the Rapids. His free kicks are spectacular. Yes. I agree. His shots when he has no one covering him are generally quite good.

But... He cannot create space. He doesn't create space for himself, or for his teammates.

In the field of play he is a liability. He gives up on plays. He has zero hustle. As soon as he is beat you can read it all over his body and he quits. He was solely responsible for a should have been goal against at roughly 6 mins with Minneapolis. Re-watch that "defense". Other than free kicks in that game, he was absolutely invisible. And this is a pattern that goes back to the last half of last season.

I'd love if Gashi would stop believing his own hype and still had any hunger for the game. Albania noticed. Some Rapids fans are noticing. Objectively watch, and you will notice as well.

Give me Serna over Gashi in the starting 11.

 

I think he looks bad for a couple of reasons. He isn't 100% healthy. He was out for the first game and then got subbed fairly early. Another reason is that he isn't a good winger in Pablo's ultra team defense scheme. If anything he should play as the #10 and be a playmaker/second striker. It would suit his skill set much better. He had some nice games last season playing in the middle. He'd do a much better job than Doyle. If Pablo would do that you could have Serna and Hairston flying up the wings and Badji/Doyle sharing the striker spot.

 

Article on the Rapids' site:
"Ageless Tim Howard ready to take over in net for key World Cup qualifiers"

Does it make sense to call him "ageless" when he just came off an injury that required surgery and had him out for 4 months?

(I realize the author of an article doesn't always, or even usually, come up with title. But the article even starts off talking about the injury...)

 

I get that. Maybe we should put him in the 10 because... well... who else?

But it doesn't take a good winger in any scheme, offensive or defensive, to do better than to literally watch a player walk by to get into great crossing position. Watch that sequence in the 6th minute against Minnesota. 6th Minute!!! Sixth. Whether it be fatigue or not being 100% doesn't count in the 6th minute. Laziness does.

He has become a sloppy, undisciplined, and lazy player.

 

Highlight:
Bruce Arena, Tim Howard, et al "Making America Good Again".

 

Oh Rapids Offense, if only you could improve a bit so we could call you anemic.

 

A few additional thoughts on the 2017 Rapids, in light of New England v. Minnesota earlier today:

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Minnesota's defense has conceded three penalties out of their 18 goals allowed. That's 15 goals allowed from the run of play in four matches. Break that down further: unassisted goals 3, single-assisted goals 9, hockey-assist goals 3. Taking away the unassisted goals, which can include some spectacular shots, Minnesota's defense can't read the build. That's obvious from the number of goals allowed, but Portland and Atlanta seemed to be passing wildly in the box on Minnesota, and even New England snagged two hockey-assist goals. In contrast, Burch-to-Hairston was the only successful pass Colorado seems to have completed in the box.

Mission control, Colorado has a problem. A very big problem.

 

Does this surprise anyone????

Bottom line... Colorado is a defensive team...a very defensive team...
They are trying to be more offensive and on doing so caused Their defense to choke. They are a long way from where they need to be. Time will tell.

 

I think everyone may be missing the biggest point here:

Minnesota United is the new Chivas USA (at least for this year) and they're in our conference. We're all but guaranteed not to place last like in 2015.

So there's that...

 

How exactly did they try to be an offensive team? I didn't see that. I saw the same miserable crap offense that I saw before. Maybe he told the outside defenders to get forward more and tried to call that an improved offense. Hell, I could have done that for a lot cheaper than it cost to keep Pablo around, whatever the price was.

 

They did double their goal total from the previous two games combined.

And they also didn't grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

The defense was unorganized for long periods of time.

The timing on offense was off but they still were able to put two in grabbing a tie from the jaws of defeat.

I know it was Minnesota and for some odd reason people seem to think that since Minnesota has been poor on defense we should have walked all over then but that isn't realistic for any team, just look at world cup qualifying. By that logic Honduras should have beat us Friday night.

 

I disagree with this last part. MN is just not a good team right now. If we are one of the "better" teams, then we absolutely should have beaten them (at home) without much trouble. This game was a lot of trouble and frankly we could have just as easily lost.

So, I submit we should have been able to win by at least 1-2 goals. Preferably multiple goals, but a win would be the minimal requirements. I am willing to concede that ringing up 5 goals (like everyone else has) may not be the right marker, but certainly beating them is.

rod.

 

It does look bad when their 3 other games are lost by 3, 4, and 5 goals, and then they tie the Rapids.

I guess we'll see how bad they are: after the break they host struggling RSL.

 

Not to pile on, but I also note that the Rapids only scored two goals on a MN team that was playing with 10 men most of the second half. The inability of the Rapids to put multiple forward passes together is glaring. Really, this offense is so far away from being respectable that I wouldn't even know where to start.

 

Or when they travel to KFC on the 9h.

It seems that Pablo's philosophy essentially is a "low risk low reward." Thus it depends not giving up any goals in a particular match while eking out a late goal for the three points. If they Rapids conceded a goal before they've scored they are in massive trouble.

With the lack of attacking signings this winter it appears that the RFO is approving of Pablo's philosophy. I wonder what will happen if August comes and the Rapids are not in a playoff position? Will the RFO plead guilty?

Last season's unexpected success come back to bit them in the behind? "Hey it worked for us in '16 so it will work for us now." The margin of error is so low for Pablo ball that they could end up with quite a few less points that in '16.

 

I am going to disagree that 1 signing will do it, the attack will not improve unless they some how sign a to 1v1 attacker away from EPL/ China side or get rid of PM (Which we all know will not happen) along with several attacking player acquisitions.

 

I am finding it crazy how much my interest has lagged recently. The lack of offense (and articles/postings) have become so obvious that I don't even read them anymore (sorry, Jason. Although I did read yours out of respect for row 6.) There hasn't been much analysis otherwise, which really leads the mind to start focusing on other things.

The saddest part is there really is no point analyzing anything else since the complete and utter lack of offense over-shadows any other analysis. Everything else just doesn't matter when we can't even get a view of the goal (let alone a shot, shot on goal, or God-forbid an actual goal).

Hoping this passes soon so we can get back to whining about multiple things.....

rod.

 

When he gets open, we need Tim Howard to shoot more, I'm half serious because when we play it on the ground out of the back we seldom get past midfield and when we hoof it over the top we either lose the 50/50 ball or else don't even have anyone running on to it. Defense first may have its place but defense only is not a set up you hear a lot about. (Just adding my 1/50 of a dollar to the International break malaise ...)