i like the way macnamara lokks vs tigres....i always liked tommy...but he just has that swag....he's not fazed no matter the opponent.
watched NYRB game against Santos Laguna at CCL, and pretty impressed by Kyle Duncan. He has all the tools to be a good players, who just need experience to be more mature.
Halftime. Solid play be Atlanta. The pk on a back-of-the-shoulder barge was extremely soft. On the other end, a call for D. Martinez was 'missed'. Mikey Ambrose is a huge step down from Gressel. Lots of tactical fouling by Monterrey. Shea, Robinson, and Nagbe have been good. Atlanta are having a hard time finding the right measure on their passes.
Nagbe was abysmal. Not sure what drew his praise. Dude is a ball watcher/traffic cone and didn't generate any offense. Robinson had to cover for his defensive ineptitude, Parkhurst's lack of ability to cover space, and Pirez' adventurousness. Held the dam together until it eventually broke. But shouldn't throw the beaver out with the dam water. He was a rock, again. And some stealth slick passes while being tidy. Now he has to withstand the team's adversity defensively and overall without letting it hurt his own personal confidence.
Atlanta without Almiron is a vastly inferior team against quality opponents. Pity is no Almiron and highlights the importance of pace, quickness, and work-rate in the modern game. Almiron had it while Pity is just average. Pity had a 1v1 jailbreak and Jona Gonzalez just ate him up stride for stride and shut him down. Those were the kinds of chances that Almiron feasted on. You can't win against quality opponents without ball winners in the middle of the park. Atlanta had no ball winners to trigger their transition attack. Pity is easily nullified unless he has 2 or 3 other technical players that he can combine with.
Watched until the 2nd goal. Nagbe had a game high 17 recoveries and defensive incidents, far more than anyone else on either team. His midfield partner, Remedi, had only 5. Traffic cone, indeed. The field was an absolutely horrible, pock-marked mess. This made intricate passing very tough to pull off. This would have been a great game for the introduction of a big man to pair up top with J. Martinez. Instead, Atlanta were left relying on Shea for touchline aerials. Atlanta were horrible in their set-pieces--in both delivery and set-up. Shea or Gressel need to be on the ball for the deliveries. De Boer failed to rotate the team for its league debut, played virtually the same lineup tonight, then waited until the 90th minute to make a sub. NYRB, which did rotate, also lost, but they outshot their opponent 14-10 and 6-4 on target. Pirez and Parkhurst as the outside CBs in a back-three struggled somewhat with the pace of Monterrey's attack. Shea was good. He won defensive and offensive aerials. He was effective in both winning the ball and passing out of the back. He was good in possession. While he is quite fast, his lack of quickness meant he was sometimes left in the dust in stop-and-go duels. Robinson was ace during the time I watched. He played in the middle of a back-3 this time around Maybe Hamid had a point about Guzan. Poor roster management. No Tata and Almiron. No subs until the 90th minute. No pace. No big man.
Kenny Saief (FC Cincinnati) and Joe Corona (LA Galaxy) are now MLS flavors. We shall see how the compete in MLS.
Atlanta desperately needs to add a CM, and a LM/LB. They offloaded McCann, which was a good chunk of change of roster space. I don’t know how close Atlanta is to their cap space, but that needs to be a priority to fill those two needs.
Atl have Nagbe, Gressel, Remedi to play central midfield. They need quality cover for Gressel on the right. Pogba can play LB.
Saief hasn't been the since the injury and subsequent surgery complications. Maybe a change of scenery will help revive his fortunes.
Other than Almiron and the coach leaving and pity joining what other major changes have occurred at ATL?
They offloaded Garza and McCann, and although Garza was always hurt, that left Atlanta with a hole that they need to still fill. Mainly though, FdB needs to figure things out because he should be close to the chopping block soon enough. Personally, I cannot stand 343 formation.
Lletget > Corona as a playmaker and overall. If LA moves Lletget back to the 8 to accommodate him that would be a misstep, again. Just need to commit to the 10 plan. Atlanta is using a lwb as of right now. A center back hybrid wouldn't work for that position. They need an upgrade from Shea and to work Bello in along the way during fixture congestion. But yeah, they shouldn't be married to the 343. And it's a poor formation when they're out-gunned, like they have been in 3 out of the first 4 matches.
The 343 is a very tailored line up that I would only utilize if I felt that it was the best way to maximize my talent. Further, probably the most important positions in a 343 are the wide mids. They need to be truly two way outside midfielders. Julian Gressel can play that because of his work ethic, but there is no good alternative on the left side. And it’s unfair to ask a 17 year old Bello to fill that responsibility. And it’s simply idiotic to put the two worse players (Shea and Ambrose) in the two most important positions.
WS US-eligible Team of the Week 1 player(player score)score's rank in his team -------------------------------Mueller(8.0)MOTM--------------- -------Baird(7.7)1st----DeLeon(8.3)MOTM-----Morris(8.5)2nd----- -------------------Feilhaber(8.4)1st------Bradley(7.8)2nd----- --Hollingshead(7.6)2nd-------------------------------------Cannon(7.1)3rd--- -----------------Steres(7.2)3rd----Zimmerman(7.2)5th--- ------------------------------------Willis(7.6)1st Player of the Week: Morris, Feilhaber, DeLeon U23 Player of the Week: Mueller Duncan Cannon Man of the Match: DeLeon Mueller Sapong Arriola Goals: Bradley(2) Morris(2) Arriola DeLeon Feilhaber Mueller Sapong Steres Asists: Acosta E.Alvarez Anibaba Baird DeLeon Dwyer Harvey Lewis Serna PK Save: Howard Drawn PK: DeLeon Last Man Tackle: Marshall
Honorable Mention: FW: Sapong(7.6)MOTM Zardes(7.0)3rd AM: MOTM Mihailovic(7.0)5th CM: Canouse(7.8)3rd Roldan(7.8)4th RAM: Arriola(8.4)MOTM LB: Duncan(7.5)1st LWB: Morrow(7.4)3rd CB: Anibaba(7.0)2nd Opara(7.0)5th RB: Zusi(7.1)4th GK: Howard(7.6)2nd Robles(7.1)3rd Melia(7.0)5th
I used the .10 rounding from the diagram, which gives both a 7.8. I then used ranking within the team as a tiebreaker. Arriola played RAM.
Diomande subbed in for Ramirez then scored. Playing time could be impacted. Wonder what EJ thinks of the opening week for Known-Privileged-White-Boy, Morris. Lima got touched up by Piatti. He needs to get off to a strong start to the season to nab a GC spot. High scoring US-eligible GKs and CBs were unusually thin on the ground this week. Arriola is moving from strength-to-strength. LB hopeful(WS-6.9), Danilo Acosta, looks off to a good start in his new home. Hollingshead continues to drive winning performances.
1st goal was obviously luck but second was fantastic. Aside from the goal is what worries me. As a winger you want to pass well and create and from what I’ve heard he didn’t do that too well. BUT he is coming from a long term injury and that takes some time to get back into the flow of things. This 1st week definitely gives him a confidence boost let’s see if he can continue this form for a few months before the gold cup. I’m rooting for him