Sunday, May 7, 2017 4:00 PM EDT Atlanta travels to Yankee Stadium as Smoltz takes to the mound... Er, wait a moment. Atlanta United will pay a visit to the Bronx as they take on Patrick Vieira's Man City "C" squad. United will look to undo their seeming hex against teams from the northeast. The good news is Atlanta should be well used to the narrow pitch based on their own field dimensions at Bobby Dodd Stadium (at Historic...), but the bad news is they've struggled to break down quality defenses under such conditions. Expect the team in baby blue to pack it in and build from the back as they strive to make Atlanta overwork for a few shots on goal. No Martinez (injured), Peterson (injured) or Asad (suspension) this week, so the mission is all the more difficult. Not feeling hopeful about this one. The good news is Martinez is back to training. Meanwhile, the name brands at the helm of each team gave the match-up a little publicity across the pond. Why Atlanta United v New York City FC may be MLS's most important game
If Larentowicz is healthy I'd expect to see him starting with Carmona and Gressel at CAM. Although Julian hasn't exactly been lighting it up, so maybe we'll see Kratz get his first start. If the defense loses markers like they did last week, David Villa will have a field day.
Parkhurst may be past it. Our defense is bad. Very bad. Not sure if there's a communication barrier back there between keeper, captain, and fellow defenders, or if the players are just lacking quality. Whatever it is, our defensive unit has giant holes in it that our makeshift offense is failing to paper over.
I'm not sure how much is Parkhurst, to be honest. He's the last man back and frankly the problem has been he's seeing much more action than he should, IMO. Pirez has grown more and more reckless for my money, a situation not aided by the pairing in front continually losing shape. It all seems to be the inability to deal with the opposing teams' main playmakers. Giovinco, Villa, Acosta... When Atlanta's central players go chasing they lose their shape and scuttle their best chances to recover and attack in transition. Almiron was all over the field when he needs to spend more time in the middle, and as a result we lost a lot of opportunities with clearances or hopeful passes up field that had no true targets. Simply could not sustain possession. Are other teams learning how to play Atlanta now that they've footage of them as a team? Are we seeing why some of these players were available for AU as opposed to playing somewhere bigger and better? Is this a matter of growing pains combined with playing some of the toughest part of their schedule thus far? Or as the adage goes does the truth lie somewhere in between? One thing I know for sure, Atlanta hates playing on a narrow field against a team that can boss/control the midfield. It's their kryptonite unless they can score multiple goals early enough to force the other team out of their gameplan. How much of this is personnel or tactics I can't say, but thus far when Atlanta faces those situations they struggle desperately. The good news is that the team has in fact played many of the tougher sides/destinations thus far and if they can keep their heads then things should improve after this weekend's match.
I think Parkhurst has played pretty well this season but it wasn't his best day, especially the third goal. He stopped and watched the ball after the flick-on, allowing Morales run past and receive the easy pass after Mears got beat 1v1. He was better on the second goal where he mostly had Villa covered near-post, but the ball went behind him to the uncovered trailer. The first goal? Well, Villa made them all look silly, just an incredible moment of brilliance by one of the best ever.
Honestly, I think you just throw this game away. Playing at Yankee Stadium is not even soccer, the pitch is so small, its like a youth 9 v 9 game. No possession, no passing which does not suit us well. One concern was the strategy to immediately foul Almiron to avoid allowing him to carry the ball. If refs wont protect him, it could be a problem.
Re: Parkhurst - he's the captain, and particularly the captain of the defense. His job is to organize things in the back. In conjunction with the goalkeeper (Kann, by the way, is getting better as the season rolls along, IMO) the central defender(s) are supposed to coordinate the other defenders. I've yet to be convinced that Parkhurst has a handle on the defense as a whole. Individually, he's pretty decent. A bit slow in recovery, a bit short for the aerial play, but not terribly so. Of course, 100% of the disorganization may just be down to the other players not heeding his leadership. Either way, GunnerJacket is right - our defensive shape is miserable.
The one thing I'd offer about this, though, is that the pitch at BDS is quite comparable in dimensions, so if anything AU should be familiar with such tight confines. Side note: Your main point is correct, though, and that's one reason I'm a HUGE advocate of MLS holding NYCFC's feet to the fire about getting a proper home sooner rather than later. I think this is a critical point. I'm not excusing Parkhurst but I think there's a phenomena with completely new teams whereby it can be difficult for anyone to be given the full respect as captain/leader because none of these guys knows each other or how each one will be as part of the team. Ideally they all buy in from day 1 and just go from there, but with every personality having 0 history with the league or the team it would not surprise me to find some folks are not exactly toeing the line.
How close are we to being maxed out on cap space? We could benefit if we really decided to cash in at least one top level defender. To add, I would try to see about a trade for Peterson, Jones, Krantz, Heath, and Loyd to see if we can just get 1-2 difference makers on the back line.
Noooooo. He seems to be about our only depth on the wing. We have a glut of CMs, but ACMs and wingers? Not so much.
If we are counting on Peterson, we're in trouble. At some point, we are going to have start playing our HGPs. Carleton receives all this hype but we won't even include him on the rotation. Then there's Lagos who just made the u20 roster. We need to get these guys some time on the field instead of playing aging USL quality.
I think the bigger question might be when Lloyd will be able to contribute, if at all? Otherwise that will go down as a wasted pick-up.