I have to say that in all the years he has been here, that rates right up there with the worst, if not the worst, of Pipa's performances. I don't think he completed a single pass with his left, over and over turning and spraying it right to a Dynamo defender tracking the runner. One promising free kick in the second half he had in a good area on the right barely even reached the first Dynamo defender, the nearest man to the ball. I don't even care if I probably agreed with him in his little spat at the end with Finlay. IMO, when you play like he did for 90 minutes, you're not in any position to start bossing your mates around. Last week, Doyle made what I thought was an interesting point in one of his columns, which was that the style employed now by so many teams both in MLS and throughout the world, pressing back fours occasionally to force turnovers in dangerous areas, is the new #10. For practical purposes, the position is on the verge of becoming redundant, and when I watch performances like last night from a certain playmaker, it's not hard to see why.
Trapp repeats Portland with a telegraphed pass to Steffen that they jumped on. Red card was easily deserved in my opinion. And our one goal was clearly offsides. Hooray.
Well, yeah, I think you're wrong. Wayzycha was fired because the team's performance dropped each year he was coach, we failed to make the playoffs the last couple of years he was here, and when we did make the playoffs, we had no success with him as coach. He was fired because we became a terrible team under him, not because our style of play was boring.
Nah. I don't fault Trapp for either. In the MLS Cup game, Clark still had plenty of time to handle that and get it away and just flubbed his touch and made a bad choice to go upfield instead of out wide. And last night, yeah, maybe not the best ball from Trapp, but Steffen never should have given it to Trapp in the first place. Steffen put Trapp in a position where the only real choice he had was to go right back to his keeper or risk getting cleaned out. And even then, Steffen still had a chance to just ping the damn thing upfield and decided to finesse it. I have to say... I didn't think this game was nearly as bad as most of you do. Of course, I watched the Jackets first, watched this game on DVR starting around 10:00, and was dozing off for a significant part of it, so that's probably the reason.
The difference in the game as the goalkeepers. The crew's keeper gave away a goal. Houston's keep made at least three goal saving saves. The offense needs to find a way to finish. We need a better goalkeeper. Higuain is very good at getting the ball into their half of the field in dangerous positions. The final pass is not there.
Disagree. I'm not ready to give up on Steffen. The final pass was there a few times the finishing wasn't. We should have put a few away early. I missed the replay on Ola's goal called back. Was he off?
The game was basically over after the second goal. Houston could do what they are built to do , soak up pressure while inviting us to move out entire team upfield. Then snatch the ball, hit a one time outlet pass and hit us with a 4 man counter attack against 2 or 3 defenders. Credit to our backline and Steffen for holding out as long as they did before giving up the third. Pipa was garbage and Trapp was bad again. Time for Thcani, Abu and Artur to play together.
I was just devastated by this comment under the MLS wrap up for the game: "Also, it looks like Columbus is this year's Columbus..."
Steffen also made 2-3 excellent saves. He just screwed up in the 1st minute. And his defense screwed him on the second and third. And our offense can't generate quality scoring chances for shit (compared to amount of time in the opposing teams final 3rd)/don't execute when they do.
Disagree on Steffen. Other than the opening gaffe (admittedly, a huge mistake that dictated the rest of the match), I think he performed well, making a couple good reads to shut down Elis on the break. He was hung out to dry on goals two and three by the defense. I don't remember Deric doing anything special last night. If our shots weren't rocketing over the crossbar, they were going right into his chest (just rewatched the highlights; he had a nice reaction save on Mensah but the others were pedestrian).
Spoon, here we come. Mensah was comically bad, maybe he had the wrong cleats but he seems clumsy and to lose his balance too much. I can see why he wasn't starting in Russia. It would be nice to see Artur starting in Pipa's place next week with a real D-mid beside Trapp. But there's no way Greggg will bench Pipa. With Finlay taking the corner kicks, I'd guess Pipa isn't all the way back from his hernia problems. If that's true, he should be resting instead of playing.
Equally depressing this early into the season... that bench last night was nothing to cause concern in another team (much less fear). There are not a lot of strong answers, especially offensively, if we need to count on it for late game adjustments. And what happens should we we pick up an injury or two?
The fact that we continue to play Trapp (and even made him our captain) when we get nothing from our CMs no matter who plays is enough for me to turn on GGG.
For all of those with the " We have new players - They will take time to gel" Exhibit 1 - Atlanta. Buy quality and they look good. Exhibit 2 - Minnesota. Buy crap and look crap. It's almost like there is a correlation between buying good players and the team looking good.
Please note, @TRUJDUB this the is level of 20/20 hindsight Kei post insight that is still acceptable. It's not just bitching and lamenting his departure, nor is it insinuating that he is the only player in the world that could ever do this. But it is true, we have not yet replaced some of what Kei did that helped make this system work in 2015.
An embarrassment of riches, my friend! It sounds like the lucky birthday boy got everything he wanted this year! A great way to start off another decade, no?
Ethan's corner kicks were pretty good and def a big improvement over our usual. Its a twofer, because he's not the best aerial target out there (nice goal last game though), so having him take the corners let's someone else get in the box.
I still think you should . I give him 1/2 the blame and maybe a little more, because he could have avoided the situation to begin with. If Steffen and Clark should be required to make sensible choices, so should Trapp. And putting your keeper under extreme pressure is not sensible. In both cases, the keepers needed to clear it up field, so what is the point of Trapp forcing them to make the clearance or a touch then a clearance, rather than Trapp making the clearance (if a clearance is all he could do)? All Trapp is doing is giving an opportunity to the other team to make a play. He needs to gauge when the offense is cheating towards charging the keeper. IMHO. If the only move you leave the keeper is a clearance than there is no need to risk the back pass to them in the first place. Just clear it yourself.