The part on the replay of the goal, where Twellman yells with amazement and joy again? Me, too. That good.
Fiiiine. He's all right. @andyslc met him, so I'll need his approval first. Gotta pass the friends test. My other two friends that came last night gave him a thumbs up.
I tough and gritty win by RSL. I'll take it. A few nitpicks though. Why the hell does Mike insist on sitting on his final sub? Luke as almost a liability out there last night and it was clear that Kyle couldn't keep up. My worry is that we're not quick enough to keep up with most MLS teams in the defensive midfield. When you're not quick enough it leads to cards that could play a factor in future games if we advance in the playoffs.
Relevant point from Bobby Warshaw: I like Kreilach for the "playing players out of position" discussion. Players don't have positions; they have skillsets & knowledge. You shouldn't assign players to positions, you should align their skillsets to what the team needs from that spot. Petke nailed it with Kreilach.— Bobby Warshaw (@bwarshaw14) November 2, 2018 This also applies to Lennon. A guy is only "out of position" if you're asking him to do something that he's not well-suited for.
When Mulholland was kicked in the head, it could well have required him to go off, meaning playing the remaining 1000 minutes of added time with 10. With that said, such things are rare enough that I tend to agree that holding to last sub is often a bad idea.
I like Kyles' arms going up before the Karate Kicked ball hits the post. Very nice. Also, 40 degrees and rainy at 8:00pm on Sunday for the game with FUKC? Thanks MLS. My wife was like "why so late?" I said that's what you get when they think you are the game that no one wants to watch back east. Bastards. It would be a lot better if it was against a team wasn't also familiar with the cold. But I guess MLS is clean out of LA teams. HELLS YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which, IMO, we are. Brooks has the skillset of a winger and a forward. His positioning on defense isn't very good and he's been a liability in numerous games. This is the same argument I heard Jurgen apologists make.
Did I just read a criticism of Luke? Well, to be fair, his touch has never been good, his passes were off and he has never been the fastest player. And yet, the last time we saw RSL play with this much heart? NE. Who played that game? Uh huh. Sometimes the game is as much about "competing" both individually and as a team as it is about great skills and tactics. If RSL had a team full of Lukes, well, we'd lose...every game. He has his obvious weaknesses. But, like the NE game, I saw the whole midfield willing to work for each other defensively; I saw Luke take a verbal piece out of Sava when he mentally dialed out on a play because he was whining and LA got a dangerous chance. I saw a team that played together as a team and, despite being out athleted and out skilled, found a way to win. Last thought...check out the Sava caused own-goal and watch Luke's late run into the area. You can see the defender adjust and lose sight of Sava and the ball - and then he got hit in the noggin for an own-goal. RSL didn't get those runs from ANY of its d mids all year. On Sun, I'm really hopeful that we see Luke start again. He pumps up his teammates and the fans and help make this particular edition of RSL play better than the sum of its parts.
You have to point out that Brooks "he's a forward" Lennon was the second best player in a white jersey last night, too.
Without question. His runs created all 3 goals if I remember correctly. He's going to enjoy the film-session!
I think Luke did pretty well this game. Better than the NE performance. He started with a real junky pass but seemed to improve from there.
We were up pretty high on the opposite side of field but still saw it pretty well live. stadium has some big screens so we saw the replay. Hella goal.
It's still technically morning somewhere I was LIVID when I saw the starting lineup. Jokes were flying on my group text between the family that we would be down 2-0 by the 15th minute. Two CB's that have NEVER played together with a guy who has missed almost the entire season sitting in front of them? What could possibly go wrong? The game plan made sense, though, with these players. We were going to be physical as shit, especially in the middle, and make LA have to beat us wide with speed. Which they have, but for whatever reason have a tendency to tuck players in too much. We weren't getting ran over, but the play was very much in favor of LAFC early. They couldn't get that last pass to go through, but it was coming. We were looking to spring counters, which I understand, but the midfield wasn't doing an awesome job of preventing LAFC from getting at our defense. What we did well, though, was fly forward when we had the ball. Especially Brooks. The run he makes on the first goal is great. Only beaten by his ability to take the ball played behind him by Savarino and still make something of it. That was a special play and EXACTLY how Petke's tactics work. I personally like them. I like scoring. If we give up goals for attacking, so be it. We need to score. Luke sucked ass for A LOT of this game. he puts in a ton of effort, which masks it, but he was not good enough. Yes, he has heart and will work harder than most anyone on the pitch, but the drop in play from him to Sunny is devastating. And it's not like Sunny is a lazy player. The effort in this game lies with two people - Mike Petke and Kyle Beckerman. They were focused and laid out a game plan. Well done to the leaders. Our first goal was insanely against the run of play, but their first goal was also weak as shit. I'm still not sure how that was a foul on Herrera, let alone a yellow. Then the fans turn into morons. Now you could maybe argue the game should have been halted before. Fine. But that goal was coming. A level score at half was honestly good for us given the disparities on the field. Lets talk about first half stoppage time, shall we. I cannot stand referees that play this "stoppage time in one half is different than another" game. There was a literal 5 minute stoppage with two goals and some slow aspects of the game. yet there is only 5 mins of stoppage? How the ********? I would love if someone would ask Petke if he thinks there is a time limit on when he can use his subs. Bradley's sub at half was ideal for them. Brought on a player that gives us fits and gave him time to do it. I wish we would have changed the midfield at half. It worked in the end, but I still think a Sunny for Luke sub should have been made then. Especially with how we gave up the second LAFC goal. We were stretched for one of the few times in the game and they made us pay with a great pass. All that said, KB is not the player that should be pressing the ball at midfield and he should, you know, actually press if he is. The CB's were miles apart. Luke was... on the field? It was bad. Hell of a finish though. And then the team showed some true heart and desire. Petke took last years break with the Man United game and possibly replicated it here. The team looked so hungry out there. it was awesome. Not enough can ever be said about Kreilach's goal. That was special. Really weird, but special. One thing I haven't seen talked about too much on that goal was the build up. We were really good in this game that, when we got the chance, we got the ball forward and then got supporting runs with it. And then we were composed on the ball to not rush things. Rusnak didn't have an amazing night statistically, but on this goal he helped keep the ball forward really well. It was awesome. The third goal was Savarino 2018. The kid is special and honestly underrated for how well he has done - the dude won player of the week like 3 times in a row? He is good. Other teams are afraid to get close to him because of how good he is on the ball. This kid is special and it would be wrong of me not to give credit to Waibel. That is a gem. Sunny and Glad should have come on sooner. I don't care that we won, it wasn't because of clock management at the end on the subs. LAFC blew a couple clear cut chances in the second half, some across the frame, some wide, a bunch within just feet. We were lucky. To say we weren't 'would be a lie. But you create your own luck, as the saying goes, and we certainly did. We made it very difficult and credit has to be given to the players for giving their all. Like I said before, this game was fun. That LARGELY had to do with me thinking we would lose by multiple goals. But it also had to do with the belief of the players. Something that, if they can bottle right, has the potential to be special. I like our matchup with FUKC if we're smart. I don't love the other side of the West but we'll deal with that if we get there. This is all house money, so lets enjoy it.
I feel kinda bad saying "Herrera had a bad game" like every week... I do like him, I think he has a real future on this team, and I'm trying really hard to be positive towards him since he keeps starting. But it really felt like Rossi got into space behind him basically at will. It didn't usually hurt us due to a combination of Silva, Onuoha, Rimando, and pure luck, but that's not a recipe I'd like to bet on in the future.
To be fair, Rossi may be the fastest player in the league. Keeping him from getting into that space will always be very difficult.
About a quarter of the way through the season, LAFC lost rising defensive midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye to injury, and rather than replace him, they just added another attacking midfielder (and acquired two more forwards, too). It makes them fun to watch, but also exploitable on the defense, and when you break the high press, you can run at them like what Brooks did several times last night. I thank them for that decision.
This is fair, and a benefit of playing Feilhaber and Nguyen in midfield is that they're both good at hitting those balls into space. A different left back may not have fared any better.
Like I said before, I'll take one for the team in this case.* *Chances of me keeping his attention considering supply/demand of a guy as good looking and not-douchey as him = not in our favor ... But I'll do my part with an unselfish attitude [emoji12]
Seemed like a chill guy, Had a great time that could have been due to the result I wish more people would have been able to make it.
I'm glad you were there! Thanks for making the drive and sorry you had to see me more drunk than I ever have been in my life. I was scared to say anything the second half because I thought it would be like SOCCER GOOD. GOALS GOOD. WE NO LOSE.