The people who care are the ones who make the decisions and have the $. He's staying unless we really really fall apart. Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
Since DC United has already set the record for this under Olsen's watch, I guess you're right. He's not going anywhere.
He was a young and inexperienced coach then. If that happened now, I think he'd be out. But the owners know they aren't giving him resources. I think it's unfair for them to hold him to the expectations that other mls coaches are held to. And they seem not to.
At this point, I've become a realist. I keep hearing things will be different when the team is in the new stadium. I'm holding out hope for that. For me, most of the play the last two weeks has been good and it certainly has made for exciting games. People said they were tired of defensive conservative "Bennyball". The past two games have certainly not been that and with a few improved shots or ref calls we'd be talking about how great the team is playing. We have turned off on a few important defensive plays and certainly missed lots of good chances ourselves too so there's blame to go around. You have to finish off teams when you are ahead.
As a supporter I try to separate short term and long term. Long term, all of the problems that have been raised here are valid. But in the short term, as in this season, a playoff berth is still possible, and we've played well the last two games, albeit with unfortunate results. We play three of the next four at home before three in a row on the road in September. Those four games in August will determine whether this season is still worth talking about.
I mean, I guess it shows how much DC United has fallen and all that, but I've been relatively pleased to be screaming that no one on this team can finish, rather than no one on this team has any idea what they're supposed to do in the final third. I think the last two games show progress, although I'm little concerned about much the team leaned on Nyarko's speed to get the attack going. I mean, if I had any faith in him putting the ball in the net, it wouldn't be a problem, but there's a reason DC could afford him. Oh, I meant to say, I think Mullins may be the striker that DC needs (mostly. And I guess I should add "at our price point"). He, like everyone else, needs to improve his shooting and that's a pretty big deal for a striker, I know. But he seems to fit well into this offense. He's been strong enough to bring down a ball between a couple of defenders and hold it, but he's also fast an aggressive enough that he can make the occasional run behind the defense and be a credible threat to keep the defense honest. He seems to be on the same page as Acosta - not Saborio-Acosta levels of creativity, but I'm not seeing him fail to make the runs that Acosta, and other midfielders, are expecting. Okay, he was selfish and missed a golden opportunity last night, but in general, I think his decision-making is pretty solid in that he's not passing to the triple-covered player or trying to take on multiple defenders at once. I know it's early and, clearly, the shooting thing needs to be fixed, but I can see him having a pretty long and decent career in MLS as a "low cost, second striker" if he starts banging in goals at a slightly higher rate.
Dude - I'm with you, but do realistically think that a club that does not want to spend money even on pocket size foldable season schedules is going to have two coaches under contract?
And then? What's the big achievement? Getting crushed by NJRB once more? We will not make more than 4 points in the next 3 homes games (plus 0 in Montreal) - 5 points best case scenario
If we were *that* bad. That was historically bad. Maybe I should have added without the open cup win. Even with this low of a budget, I don't think management or even ben would be content with that.
Objectively speaking, it was a reasonably entertaining match for a $20 ticket. As a supporter, it's just not good enough. It's great that they played hard until the end, but it says a lot that our goals both came from defenders. One thing I enjoyed seeing: after the ref allowed the foul on Acosta that led to the second goal, it was less than 30 seconds later that Philly had two guys lying on the ground. Seems like our guys still care.
I was going to post something after the Montreal game I attended, but I thought I'd save my vitriol to determine what might have changed since then from the match against Chester Cheesesteak. I was very impressed in the first half in the Montreal game with what I saw with the trio of Mullins, Acosta, and Nyarko. Some of that continued in the Philly game but not so much. Getting back on topic with this squad, our Philly results and our future. We still have a situation where none of our players can finish. Acosta, DeLeon, and whatever table scraps we end up hiring have to put the ball in the bag. What is getting more disturbing is that not only are we not finishing, our few attempts result in balls that don't even go on frame. While NDL had a decent game against Montreal, he's basically struggled since his rookie season. When you have a season like that, I expect the player to get BETTER... or at least make a position to put himself to get the opportunities to improve. He hasn't figured that out, and it's either on the role he has been coached or his simple mis-ability to take chances (and not put balls on frame). Vincent is a straight up telephone pole. His play is far too conservative, and having watched him now for awhile I can see on his face that he is a timid player. Let me understand this... you're a midfielder... you need to go to space... and build up the attack. Every game I have seen him play, he gets a pass sent to him, and within seconds, he IMMEDIATELY passes the ball to someone else. Does he even dribble? I am not asking you to run down the field and beat 4 players by yourself, but passing the ball back to your defenders is not how to get the attack going. You are welcome to take it up field a bit, and pass to say... gee I dunno... ANOTHER FORWARD..... It was even more apparent in the Philly game, Twice we were on the attack looking for the 3rd goal, a ball come to him after a good bounce from us trying to slam it into the box after a corner. Does he throw the ball back in? No... he passes it back to our defenders, allowing the Onion to come back out and regroup. Even worse, he gets a go ahead ball within the dying minutes and oh my god he's running forward... Look at all that space, and since he is obviously in a role he hasn't done much, he panics, tries to pass it forward... mistaking NDL for the referee... Watching Vincent just keeps reminding me how much I miss Chris Rolfe. Mullins is worth keeping. It was great to see him chest bump and he was getting in everyone's face in the Montreal game. At least someone gives a $hit. How is Nyarko a beast that he is been, not on friggin crutches right now. He is getting flat out man handled, attacked and yet nothing comes of it. The lack of calling dangerous tackles is going to put him in the infirmary at some point. And then we have Olsen. While he might put the pieces together at the start, as the play develops and CHANGES he can't adapt. He simply gets out coached or doesn't see the picture. While Hamid saves our back-bacon against Montreal we are up on their ten men, 2 Montreal attackers are flopped in our box trying to draw a foul. That means (and stop me cause I have never been that great at math) ONLY EIGHT PLAYERS ON MONTREAL ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FIELD!!!!!!!!!! But what do I see as the ref says play on? Hamid is looking to throw the ball up-field, and there are 5-6 of our players not even past Centre HALF! Seriously... any other squad would have thrown all the players past mid field and should have smoothered the Montreal defense.. In the Philly game he subs in Igbo, instead of Saborio. Was it my misunderstanding, or did in the last match with Montreal Saborio basically had the game finished, only denied by angles and a sliver of post, while Igbo couldn't even go to open space and get a shot on net? Getting Kemp and Birnbaum to finish the job is not a solution for us going forward. Getting Acosta to try to win headers is not a solution either... In the end we are barely squeaking into the playoffs at this point.
Oh, and another thing from this game: Hamid should just hand the ball to the other team if he is going to kick the ball upfield. Literally every time he did that, it was a direct turnover. He's not that accurate and should just stop.
I am actually NOT going to agree with this, but what Hamid needs to do is pull a Craig Forest or better yet an Oliver Khan and start SCREAMING at his mates to get their ass in gear. At this point he has earned that right for their screwups..
I think this is an unfair assessment of Vincent. He was a striker/winger in college and in the USL. Legit, this is his first ever game that I'm aware of where he was asked to play as a lone defensive midfielder. That is a lot to ask of a player who hasn't seen much time this year at all. Ben probably told him to play safe and don't turn the ball over. I thought he was fine, Marcelo is obviously better but Vincent did okay. I do think it's clear that the Marcelo/Jeffrey/Acosta trio is substantially better than Vincent/NDL/Acosta trio.
Vincent usually plays out wide and in his USL career was basically an attacker. Playing DM in place of Sarvas/Jeffrey was, I think, new to him. I thought he did fine, considering.
If I was looking for big achievement I wouldn't have bought season tickets this year. Since I did I'll be hoping for the best. There will be plenty of time in the offseason, and probably sooner, to discuss the many things that need fixing with this club.
I'm not even sure it's that high. And I'll cut Hamid just a little slack -- while maybe it's not his accuracy, by now he should realize that booting the ball upfield is a futile effort and an almost guaranteed turnover.
If your target forward is somebody who's short, don't bother. If the guy on the wing is short, don't bother. That about sums us up.
To be fair also, it's other teams in MLS that turn and burn up the field into open space to hope to receive a ball from their goalkeeper. DC United? Not so much. They draw a deep breath and pat themselves for not getting scored on before jogging back to position hoping the ball goes to someone else and they have to start running on defense again.