Isn't sad that a 33 year old journeyman who we signed accidentally is our best answer at striker? Meanwhile next week's opponent has Kenwyne Jones as their 3rd string striker.
I take issue with your description of Le Toux as a "journeyman." He and Landon Donovan are the only two players with 50 goals and 50 assists in MLS; he has been an MLS All-Star; and Player of the Week. One year with the Union he was involved in over 70% of their goals. It is this quality of combining with his teammates which makes me want him on the pitch. What I didn't appreciate is his foot speed. (Tissot is very quick also.)
I am Tallguy and I endorse this post. Le Toux is a stud and he was a bit unlucky to have bounced around as much as he did. As I recall he was a salary cap victim in Seattle, and then bounced to three then-dysfunctional franchises at Vancouver, Montreal & Philadelphia.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy we have Le Toux to fill in. I always respected his game. But calling him a journeyman at this point is just a fact, not an insult. And honestly he's not even a lone striker by trade, although he's doing a valiant job filling in for a role Kasper failed to plan for.
As you can see in #50 above, I have never called for Le Toux as a lone striker. His strength is his ability to combine effectively with others, hence the 50+ assists. Pair him with Mullins, or drop him into the midfield behind a striker, and he will be most dangerous.
Bouncing around to a lot of clubs and never really excelling while being technically proficient (which means scoring goals) are the twin definitions of journeyman for what it's worth. He's scored some goals but he has a single open cup as a significant accomplishment and never made waves at any good team.
Lone striker or just striker? And do you think anyone believes Kasper has a plan beyond short term- burger or hot dog for lunch, long term sneak out at 11 on Friday?
In terms of the guild system during the Middle Ages, Burch is a journey-man. LeToux is a master. An older one, but still a master.
I thought it was a good effort, really unlucky not to get more goals. Nice to see Letoux score for us, after scoring against us all these years. Also impressed with Tissot.
At one point during halftime they cut back to the feed of Russ/Devon (who were unaware) and Russ was grooving to something. Didn't affect the game but mildly entertaining
I don't think that's what they did at all. I groaned when I saw the lineup, but didn't realize that Acosta/Kemp/Mullins were unavailable. They gave a helluva good effort and created a lot of offense for what was out there.
United is 23W - 69L - 21D since 2011 on the road and pretty much every W has come from bottom 10 teams. I haven't checked lately but that is easily bottom three in the league among all teams in that same period. If it feels like we're bad on the road, it's probably because we've been bad on the road for years. In a single year alone, teams have earned 73% of the points we've gotten on the road over 6 years. Part of it is our attitude that only home games matter and that is compounded by a league wide attitude that away games don't matter.
Not this league, the entire sport - every single league and all international competitions are famous for saying you should hope to win at home and tie on the road. That and the general soccer coach's (everywhere in the world) mentality of "not losing", over winning - is something that always has driven me crazy about soccer - if the game wasn't so fun to watch that attitude would have soured me on it years a go - and it's probably why I care so little about other countries' leagues.
Soccer is a fundamentally defensive game. Accepting that fighting for a draw away from home is an acceptable result comes with the territory, IMHO.