Who: D.C. United v. Columbus Crew SC What: MLS Round 3 Where: RFK Stadium When: Saturday, March 18, 7PM Why: ******** the Crew Form (Old to Recent): DC: DL CLB: DL Standings (W-L-T) DC: o-1-1, -4 GD, 10th in East CLB: 0-1-1, -2 GD, 9th in East Injuries: DC: Acosta (Ankle, "Day-to-Day") CLB: Who knows Notable Absences: DC: Goals CLB: Kei Kamara Never forget
Goff reporting that Vincent is indeed out with a meniscus issue. (Having torn the meniscus in my left knee last summer and, hopefully, having avoided surgery so far, I would never treat a meniscus issue as minor.) Also from Goff sounds like Acosta should get some minutes. However, this does mean Marcelo is back at DM for the foreseeable future. Both teams have looked like ass at times early on. C-bus will be missing their dud DP central defender and will have to start a rookie. This should be a 2-0 or 2-1 win for the good guys, but who the ******** knows after last week's fiasco.
I will be interested in who is in the 18. With Tissot and Odoi Whatsisname in Richmond, there does not seem to be a backup left back. Backup right back could be Robinson, or put in Boswell or Opare and slide Franklin back over to right back. Anyway, I think it's informative to see what options Ben leaves himself. But now I see Richmond doesn't open its season until next week, so not an issue today. So, will we get a shot on goal?
With ASN shutting its doors will the regions outside of Northern VA/DC still get the games on the local Sinclair stations?
ACOSTA IS BACK !!!!!! Starting lineup : Hamid, Kemp, Franklin, Birnbaum, De Leon, Sarvas, Harkes, Acosta, Nyarko, Sam and Mullins ... Bench : Worra, Boswell, Jeffrey, Büscher, Le Toux, Ortiz and Neagle.
Columbus looks to be lining up in a 3-5-2. Possibly forced by Mensah's suspension. That back line of Nicolai Naess, Alex Crognale and Josh Williams doesn't look very scary. Not a ton of experience. We better score some goals today. Also, they benched Ethan Finlay ... so one less threat to worry about.
Ortiz has the right instincts and needs more time on the field and with Acosta. We don't have a replacement for Mullins (duh - we knew this shit in November). We need to change formations and I don't know if we have the coach or the players to do it. Neagle is a starter, as is Nyarko. DeLeon was good today overlapping with Sam. My lineup going forward. Hamid DeLeon Birnbaum Kemp Sam Sarvas Nyarko Acosta Harkes Ortiz Neagle So - basically a 2-5-2 with fast wide wing players and Ortiz and Neagle who can drop into midfield when necessary. james
Horrible reffing. But more horrible play from United. 0 goals in 3 games is not going to make it. Crowd as light as Ive seen for a Saturday game in a long time- probably just as well. Bummer all around
Having Acosta and Harkes in the middle of the field highlights just how bad Marcelo can be on the ball. How many times did he take too many touches in the middle of the field and get dispossessed? Ted Unkle is a preening ass. A yellow on touching the ball away after an offside, without a warning? Okay buddy, yes, we all paid to see you. Not being there means it's hard to see exactly what's going wrong on defense, but boy we seem to be soft in the seams between our central backs and outside backs. Again, if Sarvas + one of our two central mids can't close down opponents quickly enough, we're going to get picked apart by good attacking mids all season. It might also be time to see Boswell? Three games is just three games. But that's two home games that a good team would have won, and we got one point combined out of them.
The pace of play was too slow by far. Pinging it around while allowing Columbus to set up defensively was frustrating to watch. Only Acosta, Ortiz and at times, Sam and Nyarko attempted to move the tempo. After watching this languid display, I would make some lineup changes. Sits: Franklin, Sarvas, Sam. In: Boswell, Jeffrey/Durkin and LeToux. Neagle remains my 30 minute sub. Sam assumes the LeToux role for a couple of games. Ortiz might be good, but he really isn't suited to play as the lone striker the way Mullins does. Finally, who is responsible for that shit pitch? I've seen pastureland in better shape than that mess.
I don't think you can sit Sam nor do I think he's done anything to be benched. You are correct that we can't do a lone striker without Mullins so we need to 3-5-2 or 4-4-2. I think 5 in the midfield will give our shit defense some cover. I don't want to see Jeffrey or Durkin for a while. james
My reason for sitting Sam is that one of Sam or Nyarko needs to sit just to change things up. Sam hasn't been horrible, but he hasn't been great either. Nyarko offers better defense and dribbling skill so he stays in the lineup for the time being.
Also, holy shit, who taught the near side AR offside? I counted twice where we were called offside when a CLB player played the ball back, and twice where the player in an offside position wasn't involved in the play... I can (possibly, maybe, only just) see the yellow to Harkes if he told people before the game that's one of the things he was keeping an eye out for. But I'm willing to bet that didn't happen. And Unkel...WTF is up with his thespic PK signals? As if it wasn't bad enough they were both shit calls, we gotta see you rehearsing for MacBeth, too? ******** that guy. Other than THAT, our buildup is, as always, glacial, excepting Acosta and Mullins. They were definitely better in transition to attack than we were, but without Unkel's assistance they didn't have anything in the final third. Not that we did either, mind, but I think we did have them in SoG.
I'm just glad we're not getting too into ourselves so early in the season. Early season success has typically meant we got cocky and loss-prone towards the end. Glad to see Ben has the team on a sustainable path with lots of upward potential.
Only watched highlights, but WTF was Unkel doing on that 2nd PK call? Dramatic knee and pointing to the spot? I give MLS refs grief all the time, but that was way over the top. Also, it's never a good sign when a fan can identify a ref by name.
Glad I was in the UK for the first two games. Today's game showed real weaknesses on this team, particularly up front.