winning 3-0 is great, and i think fully deserved, but honestly, it should've been 4 or 5. rsl were not good and we should've definitely gotten a comb today.
I think RSL were better than you are giving them credit for. If Plata were a bit more accurate of a shooter, it would have been a different game. Though, I'll give you, if Dom were a bit more accurate of a shooter, it would have been a humiliation... Gerso's best game in a KC shirt. I thought he was a smart transfer at a reasonable market price, but if he plays like that more often than not going forward, he is an Ilie-level steal. Medranda looked surprisingly solid on the other wing, too. Though I'm wondering, with the amount of space and time they had on the wings, if both of their good games weren't a result of RSL having very poor fullbacks. Best moment of the match for me actually wasn't a good one. Brooks Lennon burns Seth out on the wing and Benny steps in, makes the tactical foul outside the box. Earns the yellow, proceeds to chew out half the defense, and then makes the first defensive header on the ensuing set piece. Feilhaber stepping up and taking that leadership is exactly what we need. I don't think Lennon got an inch out of Sinovic for the rest of the game.Benny's head being in the right place, especially in a game where he was targeted as hard as he was last night? That's the side of the coin flip we're paying him all that money for. I don't think anything else needs to be said about Ike Opara. Holy shit.
This happened right in front of me. And it was awesome. What's also awesome is Benny scoring that goal against RSL. They hate him. That had to hurt.
I couldn't believe how RSL put literally zero pressure on our first goal. Zusi receives the ball and stands a couple yards off his defender, then Feilhaber casually saunters into open space with no one marking him or closing down on him at all. It's a training exercise from there. Excellent goal, looks cool coming off the post, but good lord: that is the least amount of defensive pressure you will ever see on two USMNT players in a competitive game of soccer. That goal serves as a pretty good anecdote for this game: we looked pretty good on the night, but that was much more because RSL was terrible than we were really good. Despite scoring a pretty decent goal, this was a very off night for Dom, who missed several breakaways and a routine chip shot. And what the hell was with the ref? I thought Shuler and Zusi both deserved reds for awful, late, studs up, between the legs, from behind tackles. Shuler's didn't even draw a yellow. There were several text book professional fouls that didn't draw yellows, yet some of the yellows being handed out were for some of the silliest of nit-picks. At least it was relatively consistent on both sides, I guess.
Would also like to add: Gerso and Medranda have been looking pretty good lately. I've been hard on Medranda in the past but he's been impressing me quite a bit lately.
I didn't have too much problem with the ref. Yeah, the early Schuler tackle deserved a booking. I thought Zusi made a bad tackle but I was pretty sure it was studs down. I was nervous about the card color for a second cause you never know, but it seemed a just call.
Both have looked good, my only complaint is that I wish one of them would have a bit more killer instinct in front of goal. There was a moment when Gerso had the ball going down the right, got into the box a little bit and could have taken a shot, laid the ball back to Medranda in the middle at the top of the box, he too could have taken a shot as the RSL defense hadn't fully recovered. He then played a ball through into Dwyer on the left side but by then the RSL defense had recovered and Medranda played the ball too far in front of him and the GK collected it.
Ditto on Opara though. He is in complete full beast mode these days. He is cutting off passes and making perfectly timed tackles all game, every game. We finally have someone playing up to Collin's best days, without the recklessness that Collin sometimes had.
I know they hate Benny, but Dom isn't making any friends in Salt Lake either... From the RSL Forum: And honestly, Dwyer can F*** off. While it's probably not enough to call a foul on his goal, he clearly had full intention to play Wingert instead of the ball. Then, you've got to love the fact that he full on dives, despite SKC being up 2 and having full control of the game. Seriously, F*** off.
I guess my definition of a dive is different than most other peoples'. I consider it a dive when there is no contact or when the contact is so light that it's obvious the guy fell down on purpose. Dwyer gets hammered every game. Defenders are physical with him on every play. If they are talking about the play when Dwyer was running into the box and went down after shoulder-to-shoulder contact, I wouldn't call that a dive. It wasn't a foul, and a good no-call, but there was definitely plenty of contact. COULD he stay up more than he does? Yeah, probably. But I think he has the mindset that if he always stays up no matter what, he's never going to get any calls even on legitimate fouls, so he has to go down just because MLS refs are so bad generally.
I can't remember the last time we were getting behind an opponents defense like last night. RSLs back line were awful IMO. Glad we took advantage of it, though we probably should have had another goal or 2. Dom really blew that chip. Sweet goal from Benny. He had to have enjoyed that against his nemeses. As already mentioned, he looked fired up all night. Good to see, wish we could keep him in that mentality every game. Roger really turned around from last week. He had some Benny-esque through balls last night. About as good as I can remember his passing. RSL had a couple pretty good chances, but we hold another clean sheet. This defense is seeming less anomaly and more back to a few years ago. I'll blame Melia's poor distribution last night on the weather... Overall, the back 6 are really looking locked in. only 3 goals against after 8 games. Every other team in the conference except Dallas is at least in double digits. The front line looks a little bit better almost every outing. I am beginning to be more optimistic. It's nice to feel like your team actually has a chance to score. Another good test midweek this week.
I enjoyed the game. Thought the team played well. The highlight real of Dom failing to score easy opportunities in the box this season would be startling. The one last night where he was behind the defense one on one with the goalie and forgot that you have to dribble the ball was my fav. The ball will not magically follow you Dom. You have to dribble it with your foot to advance it. If you run without dribbling, the ball will just sit there and you will look ridiculous.
Your definition is what is generally called "the actual definition." People just want to sound as disdainful as possible of any embellishment or exaggeration, so they go for the most extreme word related to the issue. Dom really has little groove right now. But! He's scoring goals on one of his off streaks, and that actually makes me optimistic about when his on streak returns.
What makes our defense elite so far this year compared to last, is Ike, and Ilie. Ike Opara is almost as ridiculously good this year in real life, as his FIFA 14, 15, 16, 17 (etc) game card is for fans of that game Maybe that's my best description of Ike so far. He is "video game good". _________ (If you never have, read the comments on Opara's card on FUThead for some good laughs) http://www.futhead.com/players/190558/ Samples: "You can't spell Opara without OP" "Yes I have the ball... only the defenders between me and the goal.... *dribble*.... nobody between me and the goal now... nobody can catch me now... *dark shadow emerges behind him* "You thought you can escape me? I am darkness, I am strength, I am speed.... I AM GOD "That smug f***in smile like he already know you strikers are f****d" _________ Opara is so fast on recovery that I no longer get that pit in my stomach this year during opposing breakaways. I just look forward to Ike winning the footrace and stopping the attack. Ike is so tall and strong that I laugh with glee on any air balls in the box. There was one scene in the second half where Ike, "the tree" just stood his position, keeping the RSL attacker from backing up to get to an air ball, then Ike just casually heads it over to a nearby SKC player. Everyone knew the RSL guy had "no" chance, and I credit the RSL player for at least trying to make it look close. Ike's distribution is getting much better too, I don't hold my breath as much fearing that bad square pass in our defensive end. Opara is the biggest difference maker so far in 2017 in my book. _____ Ilie is in my opinion an unsung hero. He is always in the right position at the right time, whether it be on defense or offense. When on the ball, his decision making and ability to correctly slow or increase the tempo of the play as needed, is spot on. Ilie can dribble, pass, and intercept with confidence in any situation, and it shows. Uri 2.0 indeed. ____ Our defense has Ike and Besler up the middle, Ilie as shield, Roger being Roger, plus Benny getting into two way MVP form like 2015, and that is a deadly gauntlet of defense to go through. Then you have Mustivar off the bench in mid as fresh lockdown legs late. Add Zusi, who is improving with each game at RB, and Seth having his best season in a while at LB, (both contributing well to the attack with goals/assists) and you see why every MLS Fantasy player is taking as many SKC defenders as they can.
Some time after we made it 2-0 I had said we should pull Dwyer off and put Blessing on in his spot with how much we were getting behind RSL's defense and his speed there were a lot of opportunities to have (especially with a midweek game).
Yeah, and that's a problem in more ways than one. Saturday at the game I was talking to a neighbor about how weak our diagonal runs and far post runs are. Our attackers seem to get to the edge of the 18 and just stop. Dom especially does this all the time when a winger is taking a ball up the wing. Instead of cutting a diagonal and causing havoc for the defenders, he'll just pull up, get marked, and wait for a perfect ball. To his credit, he has the ability to wrestle himself into a good position if a ball comes in, but his (lack of movement) in the box allows the defense to set up more than if a defender had to trail a diagonal run. Same can be said about far post runs: how many times have we seen a ball come across the 6 to an empty far post? If someone makes that simple run, we've got a chance. We've seen a lot less of Dom Island this season so far thanks to Gerso and Medranda, but to really capitalize on it I'd love to see more swarming tactics around the box. At times it seems like we know how to get to the 18 but don't really know what to do once we're there. Almost like we're waiting to react to what their defense does so we can capitalize on the second ball instead of the first.
It was one of the cool moments, but this was a game with a lot of them. Agree on Gerso, who will score six of seven this year on sheer will. He's made for vermes style, isn't he? Medranda was also money. Zusi, Espinoza, Opara, Ilie, all great as usual this season. Mustivar put in a fantastic 15 or 20, whatever it was. Seth struggled, at times but gave as much as he got. One question: What am I missing in Salloi? He looks like the lost child at the supermarket. Could somebody please pick him up and tell him what to do? His best moment on the broadcast was a play Dom made that they attributed to him. Could he have looked any more lost on Gerso's closer? He must have serious quality for PV to keep giving him minutes, but he screams "I need another season with Rangers" to me.
Dwyer isn't diving. He's plummeting. By the 60th minutes, he's so deep inside the head of the central defenders that even if he tried to dive they'd hack him on the way down. I am pretty consistent on here in my issue with Dom (I may have mentioned that he's a tad slow) but he is fierce, he gets his goals (he is on his way to ~15 again I'd think) and I would hate to play against him
The guy has skills, but needs to get nastier. It's as if he doesn't want to offend anyone out there. On the plus side, I think he reads the game pretty well and can make the right pass at the right time. However, if he doesn't learn to defend aggressively, I don't think he will last very long under PV. Another season with the Rangers and a lot of time in the weight room will do him some good.
Have you seen him in the right place at the right time? I haven't this season with SKC, but if you've seen that with SPR then it's all good, he's finding his way. What really doesn't make sense is that I don't get that feeling at all with Blessing. Blessing helps from the second he steps on the field. At least he looks like a threat. Yet PV is giving minutes that could be advancing Blessing to Salloi. There must be some crazy good stuff happening at practice.
See other than the one chance that he put well over the bar I don't feel that Blessing's done a heck of a lot to help. And that's not meant as a slight at him, he's only played 36 minutes.