Cabrera: a game or two of Wenger to send a message to Quioto is fine but you're just hurting the team at this point. You're also starting your 5th best forward. Jordan: your defense is f*cked. TYVM moron. Other than Fuenmayor there isn't much around to even fix your mistakes. You could bring in a 10 and start the right attackers and this season isn't going to be a cup season based on the lazily constructed defense. Machado this season can't even man-mark but he gets bonus points relative to Senderos or Delagarza. I am revising down my prognosis. There is a decent chance we will be below the red line in the summer and that this will come down to the summer window/trades. The conference top 4 will be tough, and then there is a scary set of teams down at the bottom of the West. I know the Torres Cash move will be important but it looks like a dumb year to stand pat and the lack of upgrade on the defense is going to limit possible ambition.
Surely you watched that LA v LA game (or caught the highlights) and if you did you must have grasped that a slightly improved Houston side with a recycled O-30 #10 (Kljestan, Nguyen), even a decent one, is not keeping up. Suggesting otherwise is some weird mix of hubris and battered spouse. Hubris like they would be as good as you think. Battered spouse like we don't deserve better. If you have actual, attainable ambitions and not just a "this is all we deserve" attitude, we need a Valeri or Lodeiro level 10 and then we need another year or two to unf*ck the awful defense Jordan has saddled us with. You could fix the offense and you're still defending with this sad set of people. It occurred to me as I watched that, that we play like a road team at home. High effort and pressing for 30 and pray we execute and build a lead, then hold on. I think it is flattering to compare Cabrera to Kinnear because while Kinnear often sat on leads it wasn't like you felt like the game was flipping to the other team every second half.
Steeves looked decent. If Cabrera is going to continue his Quioto Vendetta he should consider going Manotas Steeves Elis. Or at minimum Steeves off the bench if we need a goal. But how the heck do you look at that bunch plus Quioto and Wenger and Wenger gets the start.
I think you're confusing "what you think we will get" with "what it will take to compete." I don't support your suggestions because I think they are two different things. I don't think if Nguyen is wearing orange the Seattle series comes out any different. I think the MLS-refuse-campaign has more than a hint of "they won't spend money so we should make do with ________." You think you are suggesting something bright to the FO in terms of jaded expectations but in trying to play that game of "well they might spend THAT much" you've lost sight of the actual level of upgrade it would really require. You aren't the solution for Jordan, you are actually implicitly tracking Jordan-Stupid by embodying his perceived choices. FWIW based on Elis and what he cost last season I think the assumptions on cost are wrong. If you want to keep up with the best, or even try, your real choices are, either go all in and spend the money for a name brand outsider, or go for an Elis type under radar pick -- who would not necessarily cost a million -- but the risk is they turn out just another Martinez. Nguyen is low risk but also moderate reward and I can tell you, you make that deal and you aren't beating a Lodeiro team or either of the LA teams or Giovinco. And if at his age he gets hurt or can't produce, we won't even make the playoffs.
Cabrera lost this game with personell selection before the game started Fuenmayor was bad. We saw this in pre-season - what did the coach think was going to happen? Most of his passes out of the back were turnover. Many tomes he looked lost. Did not win many 50-50 chalenges. Missed a crucial tackle that resulted the breakaway that earned the Beaselt red. I don’t want to ser him again until he shows us something consistently at RGV! Alexander. How is he a starter over Memo or even Boniek???? Helps us some inpossession but slow and less athletic and a bad matchup against NE. Caught and stripped for turnovers too much. Wilmer needs someone to kick him in the ass and snap out if this dream land orchestration and get him to face reality. Sit Wenger down and tell him he has to fill in at outside back. Move Quioto in his place. Bench Alexander and put Memo in. I will say Martinez was better tonight but he is no Nyguen Valeri Feilhaber Diaz etc. Manotas is not working as a #9 move him out wide if you can’t play Quioto. Ceren made a stupid move to try and dribble into 4 players - gets turned over to the fast break goal. He’s a vet and should know better. Disaster game compounded by. Coaching / player selection / subs lost this game
I think personnel decisions were lost more in the off season. We have less attacking quality this year than last year.
To add: Manotas cannot pass well enough this season to help build up. The wide game was missing with Beasley not being able to cross a street and then sent off. Elis missed clear cut chances again.
I love ERob, but I wondered what game he was watching last night when Glenn asked him about his impression of Fuenmayor and he said he had a good game. I saw a player who was terrible with ball at his feet and flat passed it out of bounds twice with little pressure. Unsteady would be the word I would use to describe him. I'll say this about Elis - he's most of our offensive danger to the opponent and he still is able to create good chances even with teams keying on him.
Fuenmayor played good except for the bad passing and defensive errors. Elis played good except for missing two clear cut chances. Ceren played good except for his contributions to giving NE goals.
IS it really all due to the fact that Cabezas isn't in the line up? It's part of the reason but the fact of the matter is we have a collection of misfits who really can't step up and cover for each other when someone is injured or when individual mistakes are made. Even so Cabrera is not putting the best 11 available out there. I don't want to see Fuenmayor till he has proven himself in USL. Machado back to the middle until Senderos can play there but we need a permanent solution there in the transfer window. Maybe Sergio Ramos LOL. Memo needs to be on the field over Alexander. Wenger has to be considered swiss army knife to fill in where needed: a left back or right back position and until Beasely and Remick AJDL are back or Garcia improves his play. Once that is settled he then can share time with Quioto coming off the bench or starting; depending on Quito's delicate nature. I don't know what to say about Mauro - he's more of a winger than a #9. All in all we are better with him than Cubo, but he's getting pushed around and losing the ball too much. Both he and Quioto are best as wingers out wide in a 442 were they haven't as much responsibilities defensively. In a 433 they are defensive liabilities. This is why Wenger has been starting.
still waiting on all that fan boy hype about manotas to materialize. hell, i'm waiting for anything about him to materialize. martinez clearly has no idea how to play his position in this system. he constantly looks lost and seems to only make decisions when the ball gets to him instead of thinking ahead before he gets possession. elis - you are the epitome of concacaf we are still sticking with our one trick and teams have clearly found an easy way to defend and counter. how long are we going to keep trying to hammer only one basic square peg into a round hole? it also seems now that we have a one trick play in the one trick offense and that is to force the ball to elis no matter what. goal kicks, passes out of middle, passes from the back line, etc all seemed to go to elis. pretty easy to defend a team that only has one idea ps i would have done the same thing Beaz!!
Steeves or Elis. Answering that question with Cubo is kind of like, to me, saying we should trade for the malcontent from the team who just beat us. This team already stinks enough from old leftover syndrome. You just saw what he did in crunch time and the playoffs. Do I care that much if he sets records if he is pointless money on the table time? I would grant that where I think we are missing Cubo, or Sanchez for that matter, is having players in the center of the field who could pass a ball on. A square back or ball to the top of the D instead of cross cross cross all day. Some class and cut back. It's not just that it's become an "iso" point guard cross and shoot offense run through Elis, it's that the second and third pass in the box to a placed shot as opposed to a volley off a cross have largely disappeared. That makes the offense more predictable and pits you against the head of the CBs as opposed to sometimes making them chase with their less agile feet. Like, what every team in the league does to us. Some of that is Quioto has fallen out of affections and Wenger is not that kind of player. And some of it is Manotas playing striker. Elis can play striker. Steeves can play striker. Manotas lacks hold up skills or finishing accuracy to be a striker. Like I said: Manotas Steeves Elis or Quioto Steeves Elis or Quioto Elis Manotas but I don't know how the heck you look at this unit and come up with Wenger Manotas Elis and then play 3 defensive mid types behind them FWIW if Ceren wants to be lunchpail but also pseudo-10 then he's probably better suited to that role than Martinez. Cabrera and Martinez should be able to come off their respective high horses and decide Martinez is not a 10, and that some other source of playmaking might diversify the offense. I say that halfheartedly, I think what we are missing in the midfield is the Alex/Sanchez element. Not again that I want to go back there, but it lacks precision or more of an early ball in behind the defense. A real playmaker. Right now it's three cloggers and no surprise we clog just as well when the other team gets back and we have to create in a half court situation. To me Cabrera gets the flogging for the offense, we are probably missing Torres a little, and will til he is replaced, but we put a few on the board some nights so there are patently enough parts and firepower. I doubt anyone looks at the roster -- even as it is in progress -- and says oh those are the 6 I would start. Alexander? Wenger? At this point I'd defer to the MLS player survey where they voted Cabrera least liked and said he plays favorites and has a doghouse hard to escape from.
Fuenmayor did miss a ton of passes (I agree, I don't know WTF they were watching) and while generally the best one at marking -- a big basic problem with this unit -- was one of the many defenders caught up on the first goal. I did not understand Machado's positioning on goal 1, there is no point to leaving the middle of the field in that bad an odd-man rush situation. You don't commit. You play for time. If you watch he is past the 2nd of 4 players and his only play is on the crosser who he is not close to. I don't understand committing that far out. Machado is then burned on the second goal. Machado has also been burned.......etc. this season. Garcia sucks. Leonardo is OK at best. On the red Beasley is beat for speed. I would have slide tackled where there is some slight percentage chance that either (a) you make some miracle play on the ball or (b) the ref at least has something to hang his hat on if he goes yellow. If you tug him down that's an easy red. I thought that was a little panicked and stupid, not "all he could do." In the big picture just letting the keeper try a play on the ball is smarter than a tug down that basically ends the game. You just watched LA beat LA 4-3, even 3-0 at half is not "over" if the numbers are even on the field. Don't make excuses for stupid, please?????? Senderos is hurt. Remick is hurt. Delagarza is literally knee knacked. None are that kick ass when well. I was going off on Jordan because I look at this and I do not see an internal answer. This is another 2016 defense that is literally incapable of the job. Who is going to take these parts, either? Most of them are so old or injured what trade value would they have? The thing to me is a long list of these guys had to be re-signed or like Fuenmayor were new. This is self inflicted. I see a lot of "offense talk" and yeah that could be better. But you fix that and I still think this defense puts the ceiling at roughly last season's performance. Set aside the Atlanta game where that ran circles around the defense for 10 minutes but then lost 4-0, and you have 2 GA a week. The pace is 50+ GA. That is unacceptable and in a league where LAFC has a Bradley Expansion Unit, and LAG look reloaded, it's going to be a tougher top 6. More pointedly, I think "continuity" is going to prove really, REALLY stupid. The league has improved and yet we look like a faded xerox of last season. We are waiting on injured players we signed on purpose who hog slots and won't be that helpful when they are rehabbed. The same unit exposed last season, give or take Fuenmayor and the Gapeing Right Back Hole, is what we are running out again this year. I liked how last year finished but some of the off days and how the season ended should have rationally been enough for the team to be retooled. Going with so much of the same unit smacks of risk aversion or some sort of jaded notion that I am not going to risk my job getting creative if that was good enough last year. Ironically, if this team goes back south because he was scared of tinkering with the unit that started to have some success, he deserves to be canned.
Rey - quit holding out for any high price Mexican starlet. Even if the front office was willing to over pay for the value - we all know Mexican superstars like GDS think that living in Houston is like being in the middle of one big truck stop so they are never gonna come here.
what's so sad about the above is that most of the current Dynamo roster couldn't even make a Liga MX bench like Cubo regularly does. so you're kind of proving my point hidden in your hatred of the *===> BEAUTIFUL <===* soccer that is played in Mexico. we ain't losing Quioto, Manotas, Ceren, Elis, Arturo Alvarez, Machado to any Liga MX teams anytime soon. what's even more terrifying is that some of our current starters would struggle to get on Liga MX 2 rosters. that's not good home fans.