Apparently Vancouver didn't bother to watch tape of the Dynamo and how teams have stymied Elis. Can't imagine a worse way to defend against the Dynamo than with wingbacks pushed up the pitch and 3 slow CBs. Vancouver is bad right now. You can see glimpses of potential, though. Hwang is phenomenal on the ball. While we're getting mediocre players on the cheap, Vancouver swung him on the cheap. Thought a better team would have shredded the Dynamo on the day, though. Don't like that back 4 at all. Boni continues to roll back the years. Martinez was pretty useless.
Hwang would be my response to you have to pay to get your 10. 10 is an inherently more expensive job than 3rd keeper but we should already know from Manotas vs Ibra vs Giovinco that "paying" is more about securing the name brand as opposed to a guess. Name brands can go badly sometimes. But it's using the name brand as opposed to a market guess. We have managed with Elis and Manotas. We have made swings at 10. The issue is the combination of low batting average scouting and bargain attitude. Name brand payroll would make the batting average look better. But so would a decent GM.
Re Struna, you mirror my Memo comments across. A truly good defender gets rarely beat. That is his version of production. By my count this is twice in 7 games. To be fair, Lundkvist has now been beaten about 3 or 4 himself. Compare that to Figueroa where it's like, well, maybe on that one cross he could have stepped sooner......see my point? If you defend well but regularly give up an isolated glitch goal I am still unenthused. It's like Willis makes a fair amount of decent saves but gives up a lot of marginal goals and it all accumulates. Part of what separates keepers is making the world class save you're not supposed to. At this level your average schlub could make some decent reaction saves or they wouldn't have a job.
So I rewatch the penalty and second goal for Vancouver. Penalty: Lundi losses Montero in the cross and goes high to knock the ball down... misses and may for barely touch him in the stomach, but should have never lost a guy when it's just you and him on the back post. Getting called 10/10 times. 2nd Goal: I bashed Struna for getting beat... which he did, but watch his left hand calling for inside back up. AJ didn't cover him properly on the inside getting back and as soon as he cut back in he knew he was ********ed. I still think Vera's horrible pass to ********ing nobody caused this 1v1 and the guy that picked it up drug Kiki far enough outside to cut back in...wide open touch to the backside of goal. AJ should have gotten there to cover him.
Struna did call for help, but he's calling for help from a slow outside back, and in any event in that situation you err on the side of caution. Give the guy the outside, force him to the line. Never, ever let him have the inside position on you and a crack at goal.
Except that Vancouver didn't even have to pay that much, relatively speaking. The transfer fee was $1.8 mil. Difference is, they actually scouted him. I'd bet the Dynamo never even heard of him, despite me telling them for years that there is a ton of talent to be had in Korea.
The Dynamos sophisticated analytics algorithm tends to miss players who haven’t been on youth national teams in Honduras, Colombia, or Venezuela.
I agree and he over committed to keeping someone more agile then him outside. Regardless of AJ being there he go beat.
Going into this International Break, it appears the big ups so far is that our attacking trio is now a quad. Memo has now pushed Quioto to having to earn his playing time and is not a lock starter. So well done Memo. Pantera Negra is gonna keep Pantera Negraing MLS defenses! And what more can Manotas do to earn his corn?!? Standout play from him so far here in 2019. The Swede and Struna and Figueroa have all stepped in to their roles on our defensive posture or in Swedes case, stepped up his role, allowing for Beaz to catch his breath as he indeed is in the later days of his mileage meter on dem legs. Boni rolling back the years has made Martinez a non lock starter as well. Which I am thrilled about. I don't like tweeners in the spine of my midfield, and Martinez is a tweener if there is one in football. He certainly is not a visionary, passing, unlock the opposition #10 a la De Ro, nor is he a stopper, chew the game up and hold the ball up box to box midfield warrior and he isn't even like our old Camargo, a box to box attacking mid that is tidy on the ball and finishes well. Now that we have added Vera with Boni's play, Martinez will be at Wilmer's side hopefully. Then there is the addition of Hairston and Tommy Mac, both know their positional play and read the game well. Both have obedient first touches and look to link up with their teammates. Both have done well in their initial showings with the way Wilmer has deployed them thus far in league and regional play. I would like to see Wilmer keep Tommy as an off the bench role player for helping close out matches and with Hairston, I think he could be tasked to take DLG's role out at rightback. Also, Fuenmayor looked solid in that one game he played with Struna out.
Beasley apparently had surgery, so Lundkvist looks like he may get a heavy run of minutes. I feel like there's some narrative/sense in the fanbase that he's getting better, but he's more or less directly responsible on two goals (Montero penalty, Rusnak goal in the RSL game) in three appearances so far.
Left knee scoped out 4-6 weeks. Unclear if that includes or excludes re-start of fitness work. If recovery time means like time resting then we're probably talking more like 2 months. This is the losing side of the bet on a player his age. Lundkvist has improved but basically moved up from complete mess to occasional liability, as you suggest. He's still shipping goals about every third game. I think if we were honest with ourselves we'd look further around the roster for solutions.
I want Lundqvist to really do well. Having said that, I think he had a nightmare of a game last week against VCW. Just horrific. Hopefully he will turn it around against Colorado.
You'd be amazed, or maybe not, by the number of people that will vehemently disagree with you. I said the same thing on reddit and got lambasted. I think a lot of fans only really understand the attacking end. They see him getting forward into the attack and decide he's great. They ignore that his defending is shambolic.
He has been doing a better job of marking and winning balls. But he still seems to not be truly suited to defending and he glitches every three games or so and gives up a goal. Gets throughballed, whiffs on a tackle, flinches on a fake. Actually, he's good for a glitch or two per game it just doesn't always cost. Reminds me of Corey Ashe on defense but this one can cross but not run as fast. He's a net liability -- even improved, because he gives up so many still -- and as importantly he carries finished player cost. As of last year that was literally the second most expensive player on the team, after Elis, more than the other forwards, Martinez, the pedigreed-but-old defenders like Senderos that we had last season. Against that background anything but dominance is a bust. I think he is treated like an expensive boondoggle a la Landin -- thus "given every opportunity" -- and that's why LB is not fixed. To give up would be not just a personnel admission but a financial one. If a cheaper player disappoints they disappear far faster. This is the opposite of how Kinnear ran his show, which was if you were a big ticket and you came in and struggled we did a mutual tearup pretty quickly. Landin was his but was rare in being given a year or so to flail. That is now routine, Lopez, etc.
I agree. I thought his attacking was off also. Folks remember one good cross and forget two or three crosses blown out-of-bounds, and forget corner kicks that don't get past the near post guard. Or bad turn-overs. Folks seem to overlook everything that does not result in an immediate goal.
If I were his agent I would strongly advise him to stay the hell away from a Dynamo professional contract.