We deserved that … This mix of players we have out there is not good enough … Good keeper and good defenders but it's too much to ask for a shut out every single game.
Whatever. 1-1 I thought CSN was going to commercial. I think they thought they were going to commercial.
Horrible defending the final minutes again. I was about to comment that this team is showing exactly why they get scored on late before that happened. They were content with a tie since they scored. Then it was a loose bunker. No tactics. Nobody aware of where they should be. Nobody stretching the field. Nobody able to clear the ball or use space. Meanwhile, very "loose"/nonexistent marking all around and inside the box. I hate how this team plays.
Third late goal this season that has cost United three points on the road. @ PHI, @ SEA, @ FCD— Uncle Steve (@streffsoccer) July 19, 2015
Ran completely out of gas, obviously. "Bennyball," if you will, depends too heavily on clinical finishing to be productive. You're not going to create that many opportunities, and so you have to finish the ones you get. Our two best opportunities fell to Aguilar's feet, and neither of them resulted even in shots on goal, much less goals. Great cross by Kemp. Own goals are what they are, but full credit to Kemp for putting the Dallas defense under enough pressure to force that to happen. The difference between Kitchen and Halsti in the midfield became very apparent late. Kitchen makes it his business to be an option for passes. Halsti hopes he's an option. Halsti can be a compliment to Kitchen, maybe, but the Halsti-Arnaud midfield will never hold possession well enough for us to be useful in this system. R.
I don't see us doing any better with our new strike partnership up top. We need a creative midfielder who slices and attacks.
The takeaway from this one is easy. Cut Corea - now. Two minutes into stoppage time he had comfortable possession in our offensive end and instead of holding possession he made a half-assed move to goal that was easily stopped and taken the other way. If he does it now he'll do it again and we don't have that margin for error.
Halsti didn't do squat either except commit a couple of turnovers, surrender an unnecessary corner and allow Castillo to run circles around him a couple of times. To be fair I think the Korb injury must have thrown Ben's entire sub strategy off. Not a lot of depth at fullback these days. I had a bad feeling about the Halsti sub when it happened. Moving Kitchen out of midfield was a mistake. For one thing Kitchen in the middle was the closest thing to an obstacle for Mauro Diaz. Second of all Kitchen hasn't played right back since 2011 so I'm not sure it's a great idea to re learn the position when Castillo is running at you
Apparently Mishu can play right midfield in MLS, but not right back. But if so, why was he even included on the road trip? I'd have put Arnaud at right back when Halsti came in. Halsti and Arnaud are too similar to pay together in midfield from the limited minutes I've seen of Halsti. Kitchen has to be in there with either Halsti or Arnaud. Still, sour grapes mostly for the bitter way we lost. Incredibly, DC was within an ace again of pulling out an improbable road point. FCD deserved to win for sure, but that was a crushing way for it to happen. Especially after Seattle. Still, there you go. Itwasi, nice to see your tweet posted.
Giveaway after giveaway at the end of the game, really poor. Halsti did not help the situation, he was awkward. The Coria sub I thought was strange, but Rolfe was gassed. I was a little disappointed in Dykstra on the winner. He was going to his knees when he should have been big. Not that I would expect him to stop it, but he played it poorly, it went right over his head. Doyle and DeLeon aren't doing it for me, and the rest of the team didn't try and actually play the damn game until they were scored on. Nice 15 minutes, Davy, but how about we play to win instead of simply mucking everything up. United seems happy to play at 3/4 speed until the need to move ass arises. That's lame.
The more I think about it the more I feel like the Korb injury was the catalyst for our demise. Korb was really handling Castillo pretty well and De Leon was an effective outlet. Once De Leon had to move to right back it hurt our defense and attack on that flank. And it only got worse with the Halsti sub because now you're not only compromising the right back position but you're hurting your central midfield too. Really underlines why you should always have one solid fullback option on the bench. Anyone remember Samuel Inkoom? Would be a nice player to have right about now …
Meh, they were getting smoked the whole game, just a little worse in the second half. The demise is the mentality that it's okay to just hang on and we'll see what happens. I understand a road mentality, I'm in favor of it, but that doesn't mean you can never hold the ball and play your game.
Only saw the game from the point just before Dallas scored its first goal. Did see the entire Halsti sub -- I've reached the conclusion that he's not worth over 300K and I'm beginning to think Jeffery is no worse. He's slow, was beaten continuously for pace by the Dallas midfielders and really plays in a languid way. That style doesn't fit well with DCU at all. He was subbed in to shut down the Dallas midfield, yet he played at a pace that appeared he had been on the field since the opening whistle. Does he have a top gear? I haven't seen it yet. He seems more like Boskovic without the skill or field awareness. I thought he was around a $200K player, but the salary list indicates much more and he's just not worth it.