As you know, I'm more than ready to give Olsen stick for his lineups and tactics. Tonight, he got his subs just right. Until Mattocks came on, there was no threatening movement with the ball by the team. Sure, Acosta and Rooney were putting on their regular show, but the rest of the team was spectating. After the Minnesota goal, Olsen actually took a risk, taking out Opare who is useless in moving the ball forward and putting in Mattocks. That forced Durkin into a CB pairing with Birnbaum and dropped Rooney into an empty bucket with Canouse. It worked. Then he put in Brillant for Arriola, permitting Durkin to move back with Canouse and put Rooney just ahead of them. Acosta was pushed wide, but with Rooney on the pitch, Acosta really can be put anywhere. A couple of observations. Mora has more pace than I thought. He burst down the wing like Arriola, didn't think he had that extra gear. Birnbaum has been playing very well of late, no mistakes and he cleans up the messes. The absence of Asad and Stieber mean the left side lacks width with Segura in there. However, Segura has played very well that past 3 games and before that as a sub. He had been a valuable addition. His goal tonight was one scored by a player who decided to grab the game by the balls. He just didn't quit or look for the easy pass, he just held the ball, turned and caught Shuttleworth leaning the wrong way. Sometimes that's all it takes. Mattocks looked completely snapped in and his goal was as clean as it gets, a real center forward's type of goal. Hope Hamid's knock is minor, if not we are royally and cosmically ********ed.
I think the difference between Durkin and either Opare or Moreno is a few years and more time in the weight room. Durkin's still a kid and all the parts don't connect precisely all the time. His minutes this year have been valuable, but he is a work in progress. At this point in their respective careers, Moreno is the better choice for the starting 11 due to his age and international experience. Can Durkin be a better player than Moreno eventually? Probably, but he isn't right now.
How nice to see the team play with Rooney behind a striker. That's how it should be, IMO, but, despite his winning goal tonight, I don't see Mattocks as that long-term striker. Too inconsistent.
I don't see how you can say that. He's got 9 goals. Had two for the Jamaican national team. All strikers are inconsistent, but if you look at his goals output per minutes played, he's as good or better than anyone else on the team including Rooney, Acosta, or Asad. Mattocks is the most consistent scorer on the team. Just compare him to Acosta. 9 goals in 1228 minutes for Mattocks, 10 goals in 2034 minutes for Acosta.
Agree with all this except i felt that the formation changed from 4-2-3-1 to 4-1-4-1, not a 4-4-2. Acosta and Rooney were both in midfield together with Canouse behind. I called for a Mattocks sub immediately after they scored. They weren’t attacking anyway,and esp not after they scored. May as well go all in.
Back from AF. 3 points, and not much else. Poor game, tremendous sufferance in the end, with a lot of balls constantly given back to Minnesota. If Minnesota was decent at shooting, we would have lost this game with a 3 goals margin; thank God they suck. The tiki taka of the poors ain't working, we need to shoot that f@cking ball more often and from any position. The whole team looked really tired, Wazza looked cooked, Acosta was not at his normal level. Hamid made two huge saves in the first half, Brilliant was really solid and wiped out a lot of nasty situations in the second half. Mattocks need to play more often; he's fast, he's brave, he gives no points of reference to the defenders, he's pretty skilled. He's not CR7, but no doubt he is a good and useful player. Red Bull on sunday (if we play) will be another story, if we play like tonight they'll walk on us. I still don't get the stupid friendly next wednesday, this team needs REST.
Rooney is where the play goes to survive. Pretty much everyone other option usually leads to a turnover. Until that dynamic changes I don’t see another option especially without Assad and Steiber. James
One more thing, I spent the first half standing in the very first line behind the goal; If I put down my head a bit, there was a powerful small of sewer coming up.
I spent a couple of decades attending program meetings at NRL, and the stench from the sewage plant was the worst I encountered and I've been deployed to some real shitholes. Or who knows where else it comes from.
Bought + to watch serie a. I'm out of town so I downloaded the Android App. Whatever the radius is I got the stream. Video and audio quality vgood, soccer quality v bad.
Observations: 1-I hate MLS refs. 2-Particularly this one. 3-His west-side AR wasn't so great either. 4-Or even good. 5-Unless it's Rooney or Acosta with the ball, no-one on the team recognizes great runs by Fischer. The number of times he could have blown their defense open from the left side is staggering, but then the ball got played laterally or back. That caused us a problem which led to MN's goal, of course, because he had to run back from their 18. 6-Zach Thornton nearly hit us with balls twice in warm-ups. Maybe that's where Hamid learned his distribution shortcoming? 7-The half smoke all the way really needs a fork.
1. Totally agree 2. Petrescu is his own brand of terrible and is prolly the 2nd worst in PRO 3/4. Watching on TV tonight, it was hard to catch the the ARs flaws 5. For all of the good positions that Fisher has put himself in and he's got to be our leading crosser by a country mile, but the tentative and offensively challenged Joseph Mora now has one more assist than Fisher. Mora currently sits on 1 assist. For all the runs down the flank that end in crosses, his final product needs to be a shit ton better. 6. I am a fan of the half smoke. Arepa Zone needs forks too, because they always over stuff the thing and thats a good thing, but eating beans and shredded beef with my fingers in not the best.
Turns out I wasn't able to go like I initially thought, but for the record DC Braveheart graciously offered his ticket to me. Props to the guys for getting the win without making me feel bad I couldnt go. Ugly game, but they were just tired. They dug really deep for this one.
Mora has 2 assists; he had one before last night. The half smoke is a challenge to be eaten without a fork, but it can be done! Petrescu was awful all night. Misidentifying balls out of play (both ways)...that one corner kick for Minnesota early in the second half was clearly not touched by Hamid (Quintero didn't seem all that interested in taking the kick for a while after that)...the Canouse yellow was terrible (looked like all ball to me)...and Acosta definitely got cleared out in the box in the first half where Petrescu said the defender got the ball. Ugh. Canouse in particular was struggling in hitting Fisher on those runs last night. He was solid everywhere else, though. If they're healthy/available, Canouse/Moreno needs to be the d-mid pairing going forward. Durkin is going to be a great player, but he's definitely 3rd in the pecking order right now behind those two.
I like Petrescu, he's the second least terrible PRO ref. His modus operandi has always been to let the players play and he often likes to call out simulation with a flourish (as he did with Acosta in the second half.) Misidentifying balls out of play isn't his job. He ********ed up the corner kick that Hamid missed by a yard or two; people make mistakes. Thankfully for all, it didn't result in anything. I believe the Canouse yellow was for dissent. If Quintero had gotten the call that you want Acosta to get, you'd be enraged. Good no call IMO. Given all of the shitty refereeing we see in MLS, harping on a guy who called a pretty good game is not helpful. I can almost guarantee that Geiger will screw up whatever game he gets assigned this weekend, because that's what he does. What ever happened to Abby Okulaja?
Hamid didn't want the ball after his injury. Durkin couldn't comprehend that. Brilliant came in late and didn't understand that either. They're so programmed to pass it back that they can't beat the habit sometimes. Hamid wanted the ball the ******** away from his area to end the game and they almost refused even when he was going off on them.
Yeah, that was very noticeable in stadium - Hamid was getting irritated at multiple players (Fisher, too) for passing it back to him. I could hear him up in 106 yelling at players to pass the ball up field.
Eh, I wouldn't have been mad if Petrescu had given Mora a red card for that tackle at the end of 2nd half stoppage time, so I don't know if you could assume I would be enraged if Quintero had gotten the call I wanted Acosta to get. A penalty is a penalty - I'm not that big a homer. Also, Geiger > Petrescu. There's a reason why one was in Russia and one doesn't sniff those types of assignments. Finally, I'm not sure that Canouse yellow was for dissent, but MLS's box score does no favors. It seemed like it was for the tackle, and Canouse was justifiably mad about it.
You're completely insane if you believe that. Geiger's nowhere near the best ref in PRO. He gets FIFA games for other reasons. I was definitely holding my breath after that Mora tackle. And Rooney also had a retaliatory hit after he was dispossessed for which I would have expected a caution.
Geiger is definitely better than Petrescu; at least Geiger will apply the same standard WTF call to either side, and in multiple games. He's consistent in that regard. But, like last night in the second half, where Arriola had position on a ball and the MN defender was scrabbling at his back and Arriola was shielding the defender from the ball, and he calls the foul against Arriola?? The yellow on Canouse, I'm sure, was because he felt it was as aggressive as the challenge on Acosta from a few minutes earlier. I think they were about equally aggressive; of course, the difference is the one against Acosta was the defender challenging -through- Acosta to get the ball, whereas Canouse injected himself between the ball and the player...