We're missing 6 for international games. Portland is apparently going to be short as many as 9 for this game.
The three game win streak has gotten us up to... a 7% chance of making the playoffs according to sportsclubstats.com. To put it in perspective, even if we were to go 4-2 in our last six (and four of those are road games), that gives us about a 50/50 shot of making the playoffs. And the only way we can guarantee a spot is if we win out. This was over a long time ago.
Felipe released back to SKC after last night's game, meaning he'll serve his suspension in this game and be available for LA next week. https://www.radioagricultura.cl/dep...-la-roja-por-expresa-peticion-de-su-club.html
devastating loss to be up with your season basically on the line. not good enough, skc. haven't been all season.
Portland played B. Fernandez, who has 11 goals in 16 games since coming to MLS and Ebobisse who has 9 goals. In stark contrast, SKC started the game with the goalless wonders on the wings and the skill-less Hurtado at CF. How the fu$k was SKC going to get a goal last night? If by luck was the plan, well I guess that worked. Take a minute to reflect on where this team is. A critical game on the road and PV started a front three that have a total of 2 combined MLS goals. Chasing the game, he brought on a an often injured swiss army knife player, a kid that had never played an MLS minute, and unused sub (who had as much impact as the new kid). The most dangerous attacker was our new LB. Take Russell and Gutierrez away and this team is Vancouver.
Jesus, as opposed to who should have played? Salloi and Gerso are both much better goalscorers than they have been this year. Gerso started the season well. There was no reason to believe in this last offseason that they would be insufficient forwards. Those two and Russell make a very reasonable wing squad--if you disregard how this season went. So your complaints about playing them are ridiculous. Vermes played who he had, and it's not on the lineup here why no goals were scored. Just really bad form for two crucial players. The onus is on Vermes for digging them out of their holes. I guess a case could be made for Nemeth? But his season has also been terrible since very early on. Hurtado is an acceptable player out there too. Our squad is insufficient, this is obvious. Elements of that were obvious in the offseason when changes could be made. Elements like massive seasonal failures of Salloi, Gerso, and Nemeth were not obvious.
Exactly, Salloi and Gerso are both at the top of the league for G-xG difference, both are having incredibly bad seasons in that regard, but at this point with the international break who else do you start there in this game? You take international caliber players out of any team and they're going to look worse off. I mean LAFC looked down right pedestrian with Vela out against Minnesota the other week.
You missed the point (again). I'm not commenting on PVs selection for last night. I'm commenting on the awful state of the roster and what he had available for selection in what was a very important game. Of the forwards on the roster at the beginning on the season (Salloi, Gerso, Russell, Nemeth, Hurtado, Rowe, Croizet) who besides Russell hasn't been absolutely terrible? Rowe is gone. Croizet is banished. Gerso and Salloi are two of the worst forwards in the league in goals vs shot attempts. Nemeth is in PVs dog house because he doesn't run around like an idiot all the time. What's left? Hurtado, who is a backup at best and Russell, who is the only competent player we ever have on the front line. Point isn't about who he stared last night, but about the roster. PV wasn't starting Nemeth. So, in the attack we were missing Russell and nothing more. Contrast the two teams and how they addressed a late season push. Portland brought in B. Fernandez (who has scored 11 goals in 16 games) and SKC brought it a left back. The roster is bad. Really bad. And like I said, without Gutierrez and Russell SKC are much, much closer to being Vancouver than LAFC.
You missed my point right back. Salloi and Gerso were absolutely players worth banking on when building the roster in the offseason! It's really, really easy to act smart in hindsight and complain how they suck. Yes, the number 9 issue is a big question. They continuously have dropped the ball on that for season after season. That's where they should have done better than Nemeth/Hurtado. The midseason window which you're harping on was never an option, and definitely not for a serious and expensive forward. They spent all our resources on long-term players, some new signings (which didn't all go that well, like Fontas), etc. I'm just not sure you're very reasonably understanding how this roster is set up and where our true issues are.
I had a twitter back and forth with Bobby Warshaw about this ( i think he does a good job at MLS analysis). I was asking him, as a non fan of SKC, if I was simply missing something crucial that was lacking in the preseason. His take was that after watching us dismantle Toluca, he and everyone he was talking with at the time, were convinced SKC were on the verge of an historically good MLS season. We looked to be the best possession side yet assembled in MLS. He said that now, after all this, he still can't say why we were mistaken in the view. Sometimes stuff just goes bad, and it is a huge mistake to discount the number of injuries and importance of those injuries to this season. Seriously, consider early on, Nemeth looked like the 9 we were lacking. Gerso looked like a monster on the left. Russell looked like Russell, and the ability to plug Salloi in for a bit of class and Hurtado for a bit of pace looked devastating. Our starting midfield was brilliant, and it looked as if we had exciting youth in Busio and Kuzan, and once a proven decent player like Rowe figured out the systemas well as an occassionally impactful player in Croizet, so very nice flexibility. Zusi did not seem to have lost a step. We had a top end of MLS keeper, and a backline that played the ball as well as anyone in the league ever has. My take is that this was a side built around Fontas and Besler, everything relied on a backline that could dictate the pace and flow of the game. Fontas didnt have anywhere close to a full season in him, lacked more pace than we'd thought, and lacked the nous to make up for it. He was a disaster, but we'd sold Ike off because of a belief that he would propel us to the next level. It was a mistake, but it didn't really look like a mistake, until it was glaringly obvious.
Makes you wonder what this season would have looked like if we had Opara instead of Fontas. Could have easily affected things more than is intuitive to think.
Except that what Vermes was building fit a player who was more like Fontas on the ball than Opara. I mean,. last year we saw what this team was like with Opara, and it fell barely short. Taking the next step seemed to demand a little extra something, and a platform based around two highly skilled CBs seemed to be it. I admit, I was on board. In retrospect, the ability to play defense would have helped a bit, as well.
Yeah, we all saw the reasoning at the time, but, I dunno, in my mind, that's kind of what makes the Fontas signing so terrible. Signing a defender who sucks for $1M is a terrible move on its own. But it was worse than that. It also gave us no chance to hold on to Opara, and even went so far as to trick us into thinking that unloading him was just good business sense. Vermes really needs to take some notes. Our entire team is built around a relentless forward press, but that system completely relies on a stalwart defense. For a centerback in our system, passing the ball and setting up counters/attacks should be seen as a luxury only; extremely good defense is a fundamental requirement. Everything else breaks without it.
Right. That press, without some serious engines in the midfield and without some athleticism in the back, is asking for trouble. I don't know that we can solve that in one offseason. But we can definitely mitigate the problems and get closer to last year's team with a midfield upgrade and some less dumb defender acquisitions.