I wonder who is going to get some rest? Oh wait, it’s just July, that means the same guys over and over again in the heat.
Can we please start Shelton (or even Rubio) and let Salloi go back wide where he’s been more impressive...
I thought being near the mountains in SLC the game would be played at cooler temperatures. Wrong! It’s still going to be in the 90s when they kick off. Squad rotation please or there won’t be much left of them for the game against Toronto on Saturday.
khiry shelton. man... he makes dom's finishing look world class. just awful. what the hell happened to our defense after our goal? what an absolute shit show that turned into. and melia's made two really good saves already. it could actually be a 5-1 hole right now.
What a cluster$#@& of a game. Not only losing for a second straight game, but losing two starters for the TFC game on Saturday.
we were an embarrassment that game, from the performance to the fouls. way to take an absolute steaming dump on the field, sporting.
well that wasn't inside the box at all, but I'll take it over it being outside the box and "triple jeopardy" not being in play and getting a third player sent off. (Course when GD comes into play at the end of the season my opinion may change)
We dominated! As for the rest of our statistical night, jeebus. Our last game had been the seasonal low water mark, but this was a serious drought compared to that. The Audi numbers generally love SKC. they reward possession and pressure and quick passing and chances created and good defense, etc. they don't really punish what we usually don't do well. But the team score against RSL was 644. Our horrible game over the weekend left us a total of above 1800. Our average this season is somewhere north of 3300, but falling fast. We've had at least 20 individual scores that were better or within a few points of this team effort. Consider that last night Ike was given a score of 601 (goal, sog, and only four misplaced passes all night, so good positives with only a few negatives). That means the rest of the team totalled 43 points. What's amazing about that overall rating is that that (in descending order) Rubio, Kuzain, Ilie, Salloi, Amor, Gerso and Roger (-577) all finished in the total negatives for the night. Salloi (straight red, yellow) wasn't heading for a good night even if he'd avoided the stupid red. He didn't do much in a positive sense. Fewer than 20 completed passes all night. SKC only had Ike and Tim above the average statisitcal performance for an MLS game line, though Russell and Shelton were just below that level. Shelton is interesting, because his numbers show a collection of little things he did in a positive sense and very few negatives. One unsuccesful short pass, one unsuccesful long pass. The only negative that should stand out is his 3 balls out of play. Audi doesn't have a way to quanitify the suckitude of those balls, though, as one was a f'ing sitter and the other two were shots from outside the box that never looked likely to be on frame. Croizet was a pretty solid performer on this night, with a score of 67. A 67 would often be our lowest rated player. Roger's nightmarish night produced a bizarro world performance, exactly the number we've seen from him this season, but in negative not positive. If you look at the weekend game, Vermes rested some horrible Audi performers. Based on this game, we should be looking at an entire SPR 11 against TFC. I have to admit, i did not see the August slump arriving so early. I thought we were well placed to weather August, even. My takeaway from this is that every team goes through slumps. Sadly, IMO, the way out of them is often a 9 who can take over a match or two, and drag the team up from the depths. We don't have that player.
I really want to address this Shelton conversation, because the answer is really apparent to me. Just by using they eye test it's very easy to see why this team has been so much better offensively, this season, as compared to the last 6 years. It's the movement and hold up work from Shelton that opens up space for the rest of the team. It's not a coincidence that Russell (A guy who had 30 goals in 182 appearances for derby), Salloi (A young developing player), and early on Guttierez (A guy who's scored 11 goals in the last 6 years) have been lighting it up and OVER PERFORMING EXPECTATIONS. It's not a coincidence all 3 , plus others like Zusi and Espinoza, have been over performing in the same season. I wrote an article outlining just a fraction of what Shelton does for the team. I will link it below. (Check the date I published this article). https://www.thenearpostrun.net/single-post/2018/04/12/Kansas-City-found-their-9 If your a stats guy lets dive into that. Shelton has not started in 5 games this season. Those games were... 0-2 Home loss to NYCFC 4-1 Home win against MNUFC 0-0 road Tie against PTFC 3-2 home win against Houston 0-2 road loss to Montreal Sporting has been shut out four times this season. Three of those games Shelton did not start in. The two games Sporting scored without a Shelton start was a 4-1 home win against an abysmal Minnesota back line and a 3-2 home win against Houston. 2 of the 3 goals SKC scored in the game was after Shelton subbed on in the 75th minute. These stats aren't outliers boys. It's tough for some to comprehend but our offense is inverted. It's widely excepted that the Attacking midfield and wingers create for the CF. On SKC our CF creates for the rest of the team, through his movements and ability to create space. I strongly believe that signing a #9, someone who would want the ball and demand the ball in spaces to score, would ultimately hurt the rest of the team. In fact for the last 6 years we've had a guy like that, in Dom Dwyer, and it resulted in weak offense with a rotating cast of wingers who could never consistently put the ball in the net. Those 5 games listed above are what we've come to expect from Sporting with evidence from the previous 6 years. What fans are essentially saying when they criticize Shelton and the offense is, "I don't like the way we score goal, we should do it a different way." Well we've tried that way before, and we all know the results. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" P.S. I'm at work right now so I'm rushing this post, hopefully it makes sense and they're aren't too many typos, lol. Forgive me.
I don't have the phone battery to read your piece, but I will. My question is why you assume we'd sign some poacher or whatever. Because what Shelton does isn't that rare or dramatic. Not in the realms of strikers who actually cost money. He is great for our shape, no doubt. Definitely better than Rubio on that front. I just think the team could be better balanced. Especially as the year wears along and our wingers become perpetually exhausted, a bit of steel up top backed up by a reasonable goal threat would take a lot of the pressure off. And it's not like Shelton wouldn't still make a great sub for any of the front line positions.
Your right, what Shelton does isn't rare, proper scouting and you could find plenty of guys similar to Shelton. However guys that do the same work as Shelton AND have the ability in front of goal to score 10/15/20 a season are rare to find. I don't think Lukaku, Kane, or Robert Lewandowski are available. Clearly those are extreme examples, but my point stands. Any striker who can do both are already playing in La Liga, Seria A, or the EPL. Essentially your going to get a guy like Shelton or someone like Claudio Bieler (who scored but did nothing else). Perhaps the staff could find a gem that has both parts, and that would be fantastic, but it's just not likely. Especially given the history of our Spending.
I mean, a balance can be struck. It would not take an excess of player to add some goals in. We could do better with even decent league guys like Sapong or Hoesen. Would the guy we signed have the pure, wild, athletic hustle of Skelton? Likely not. If sporting drop a million and getting some noticeable goals and assists from the center forward spot, I think that would be all we'd really need. Aside from depth/rotation issues in the midfield, heh.
If you invert a 9 he's a 6 and, essentially we were getting the goal production of a 9 from Felipe. who's closer to a 6 than a 9. I get your point on that. Shelton is not the first 9 to do everything but score. However, the most memorable recent memeber of this set would be Heskey (who did score a bit more often). There is value in that player. However, I'm not so sure about a couple points. Is Shelton's movement creating the space Russell is exploiting? Russell on a least a couple memorable goals wasn't exploiting space, but beating men and creating his own chances. On another. it was one of those freeze time and space balls from Salloi. I do remember at least one goal that Felipe scored because he filled in a space Shelton had just cleared out, though were it that simple our mids would have kept up something similar to his scoring rate, and they have not. the run v LA you gif in your piece is a good run, but it's one I taught my high school team in KC. It's solid play, but standard play. I think it's also that Felipe's mental game moves at faster pace than that of many MLS players. Salloi has benefitted somewhat from Shelton's movement, but again, it's his own movement that has made the difference. I think his movement, at best, gets partial credit. I posted this the other, and it was a joke, but great movement is Kane movement,. and shelton is clearly no where near that. In MLS, Villa movement is amazing. Shelton again is not in that class. Shelton holds up well enough, but is he elite at that? He moves okay, but again, not elite. His shot, otoh, is total crap. Anyone have his xgoals for the season? The problem I have with him is not that he isn't scoring. It's that he, on a number of occassions, have been placed in a great positions to score and has really failed. Those lead to points dropped. Are we winning because of shelton in the lineup, or in spite of him?