To be fair, I did say MOTM by default that he played marginally less poorly than everyone else. If it was an actual MOTM award, it wouldn't have gone to a Galaxy player believe me. So think of it less as MOTM and more PWPBFG (Player Who Played Best For Galaxy).
Bleah... http://www.lagconfidential.com/2015...d-negatives-la-galaxy-at-san-jose-earthquakes I haven't had time to read the thread yet. I'll get back to it and then comment later.
I am so glad someone else noticed this/ Time after time they flat out missed corner kicks and dead ball restarts in scoring range in order to show a closeup of the player involved in the previous play, or a replay of the previous play. At least once I know we had a free kick, but by the time they rejoined the live action, SJ already had possession. How? I'll never know. This literally had my stomach churning. On top of the stupid blathering commentary that had nothing to do with the action, I was swearing at the TV... Now, my question is this. Unimas shows Mexican league games. Do they do the same thing in those matches? I can't imagine a passionate Mexican audience hasn't complained if they do. Or was Unimas the victim of a San Jose director and camera crew that simply doesn't understand the game? The commentary was no help - I honestly think those guys had no idea what pictures were going out over the air.
It was in my post. Robbie Rogers. Your bias is ridiculous. EDIT: Sorry if this is harsh, but I can't take another post calling Gerrard MOTM. If the whole team was bad don't call Gerrard MOTM. (Basically, I agree with @Chupacabra's earlier post). His bad passes and slow reaction time are Bruce's fault? Come. On. One play? That's ridiculous. Opta Chalkboard agrees with my assessment live.
So we have a bye week now right? I believe someone mentioned that, so we have time to talk everything wrong and right about the squad. Rather talking about last night's championship game that those filthy cliff dwellers won should we move on to the next match or CCL fixture?
Oh, your piece reminded me of one thing: Dave Romney acquitted himself quite well last night! Also forgot that Rogers moved over to the right hand side and did okay for a three man backline as well. Nice to see the team could adjust. But Romney seems to be a potential Opare (weeps) in the making.
Romney is doing quite well. And since he's a local boy, and I know someone who went to high school with him, it gives me a chance to get someone (and her family) else interested in the Galaxy.
Just managed to make it through the thread. I disagreed with a lot of what I saw here: Defensively we weren't that bad. We gave upa couple bad chances. Even Wondo's shot that went off the post had AJ right there throwing him off just enough. San Jose is a good team. They're dangerous. We kept them pretty much in check... even when we went with a 3-man back line for the last 43 minutes of the match. I actually like Gerrard playing deep and more defensive. We don't need him to press up all the time and go box-to-box. He can pick his spots and make an impact here and there, but it's really important that he helps us defensively, which I thought he did fairly well in this match. Our attack was weak because our guys weren't on the same page. Zardes was not as bad as you guys are making out. He wasn't good (in the attack), but Gio wasn't showing for him. I actually thought Gio was really poor in this match, and Keane, Gio, and Gerrard were not at all on the same page, which is what really prevented us from generating anything dangerous. Rogers had three key passes and Zardes had two from the run of play. No other player had more than 1. @rtdavide is right about the camera work for this match. I was actually watching the match with a friend of mine (Sounders fan), and we kept laughing because half the time we had no idea what was going on. BTW... my friend commented on the fact that Zardes worked so hard and actually had excellent defensive position in the midfield. His touch and passing were off today, but as I said above, he wasn't as bad as many of you guys are making out. Lletget made fewer bad passes, but was also less dangerous.
I feel pretty good about that outcome. But if you end up cloning Gerrard, Keane and Gio, we might have some problems.
One play by Rogers that was not only the worst in the match, but the worst I've seen in the last five matches. And that's saying something considering the errors that happen in defense. Any player knows, you don't attempt to dribble past a player while the opposition are still camped in your half. The ball was taken off him easily. It's a school boy error. Should have resulted in a goal. Plus, he was booked. Well, now I know you coming from a position of not really calling the game that well. Gerrard's reaction times were as fast as anyone else on the pitch. And bad passes? Were you really at the game? Gerrard barely misplaced a pass and always chose the right pass to get LA moving forwards. I remember one Hollywood throughball that didn't come off in the first half. And a two longballs launched forwards in the second that didn't find their target. Bad passes is a ridiculous thing to say about SG's performance. Almost like you're randomly making stuff up just to try and prove a point.
OK, this may be totally unfair. But I thought it was funny. I just checked the LAG YouTube channel. The first video shows a picture of Bruce and is headed, "We played better with 10 players than 11." And I thought to myself....Leo. Addition by subtraction. We played better short handed than we did with you on the field.
From someone at the game and not focused on the LA hype, I forgot Gerrard was in the game in the first half and barely noticed him in the second.
Then, as I said before, some of you need to watch the game again. Gerrard blocked two shots as much as any LA defender. Headed out twice, as much as any defender. Closed down players. Had one of only two shots by LA on target. Was involved in Lletget's shot on goal with a class bit of pulling the ball out of the air. Controlled midfield especially after going down to 10 men, despite more attention from the SJ players than most. Bombed forwards only to be let down by other players with poor passes back from one-twos. Narrowly missed his late free kick left. Most scoring systems have Gerrard in the top three LA Galaxy players. Frankly, if you forgot Gerrard was in the game, it can only be because you were hardly watching. 'Barely noticed him in the second half' where he hustled more than anyone else is such an embarrassing statement. To be honest, I question your analytical skills. (Of course, you're San Jose so you're naturally more inclined to watch your own players)
By the way, one thing that doesn't register on there is the fact Rogers, in addition to the poor play I mentioned and the yellow card is mostly at fault for SJ goal. By all means feel free to watch the highlights in the post above. He gets his head spun by over lapping runs before an absolutely useless attempt- far too slow- to block the cross. Watch it if you don't believe me. Didn't even stick out a foot. Looked utterly lost. (Also Rogers is almost entirely to blame for SJ hitting the post by first clearing the ball straight to a SJ player then getting sucked in towards the attacker leaving a ton of space on LA's left. Defender stats always look good if the opposition attacks down a certain side more than the other. Truth is, Rogers was to blame for one, and potentially THREE (!) (including how he lost the ball in your own half) goals. Not what I would call a MOTM performance)
Rogers also had three key passes on the night. Led the team. Omar was caught ball watching on the goal. Sorry, but I disagree, as do the stats. Yes, I was really at the game. As for "barely misplaced a pass", I recommend you check out the Opta chalkboard. Hint: you are wrong. I hope that we see the Gerrard our next game that you see every week. We need him. And with that, I'm done arguing with you.
Well as hard as it is to agree with you Rafa (you really need to get over your hard-on for Gerrard, he hasn't been that great since coming here) you are right about Rogers lackadaisical defending. He 100% should have closed down the cross (or at least tried to) on the first goal and his mentally lazy pass set up an "almost" second goal by Wondo. And you are right about his bad decision to try to dribble instead of pass when he had no cover and got stripped of the ball. I think the reason people are praising Rogers is because he had some good moments going forward, unlike AJ and Zardes who were totally ineffective in advancing the ball down the right side. But Rogers often lackadaisical approach to defense ("who, me?") is really inexcusable and has been our undoing many times. And Omar wasn't much better. AJ is struggling as well (more than I've ever seen before from him) but at least you can tell he is giving it his all. Leo, well, he's Leo. As far as Gerrard - he is an incredibly intelligent and gifted player. And in half the games he has had one or two difference making plays for us. But his inability to press all over the field constantly like Sarvas did is hurting us. And I have to admit Juninho wasn't very effective in the pressing department either vs SJ. We allowed them much more space and time on the ball in the final third than they allowed us. It even shows up in the stats - our final third passing completion rate is normally much better than our opponents. Not against SJ - they completed 66% of their passes in front of the goal, we completed a woeful 58%. Part of that was on our lack of precision and some bad decision making, but to be honest part of it was due to SJ's athletes chewing up our normally stellar attacking players. For example Wynne and Bernadez shut Lletget down (his moves normally work - not so much last night). In fact their entire back four including Goodson and Francis completely outperformed our back four. I know its an old refrain but its also true - if we had Omar and AJ in the middle and Gargan at right back it would have been a better match. When Omar and AJ are side by side in the middle they are both much more comfortable - they are so familiar with each other and when paired each player gives the other player added confidence. Back to the match - SJ match up well against us and completely outhustled us last night (again). SJ at home are a very tough out for us.
I would agree with this. And I think his defending in the last three weeks has been better than previous months. Of course, it's been a grand total of three weeks. So I'm not crowning him improved (hence, "bubble" player) until he shows consistency and remains uninjured. But I've been increasingly happy with him, whereas Gyasi is going in the other direction right now (mostly because I think he's pooped).
Wow, skydog's last post says it all for me really, and with more eloquence than I can muster. Many players had very bad games, which indicates to me they were not set up to succeed tactically. Kneejerks: Zardes: Had a rough match frankly, so I'm not sure what it says that he was involved in some of our best chances: the early header sent wide and Gio's SOG. He looked a gassed in the 2nd half and gave up possession frustratingly easy at times. I agree with the poster that said he may need a rest. Keane: A warrior, as usual. Still running down the keeper to force a bad pass when everyone else was giving up. Unfortunately, I think his play got worse the more he tried to force things, particularly in the 2nd half when he made some uncharacteristically poor decisions in counter-attack situations. Gerrard: Had the best pass of the match. Didn't really do anything wrong, per se, but as skydog notes -- we miss Sarvas' bite in midfield. Teams have noticed this. Lletget: Probably the most ineffective match I've seen from him. Kinnear did his homework. Gio: Pretty disappointing match from Gio for me. He was pretty invisible for long stretches. Our midfield wasn't great, but Keane found a way to get involved; we needed that from Gio, too. Bruce: When EVERYONE looks bad, you have to look at the coach. Why not look at some different options for this one? Maybe start Gordon up top with Gio at RM? I feel like we were missing the ability to bypass midfield and play to the head of a target forward.