P/I/P: LAG @ Revs, Sat July 22nd, 7:30p [R]

Whoops - thanks, that is confusing! Where I was going with this is Philly is playing Wednesday (against Columbus), so that result also greatly influences where the Revs will be.

 

Haha thanks for the clarification, I had just got tickets to the Philly game and was thrown off when I saw Wednesday.

 

Go buy some lotto tickets

I guess it was an entertaining game? But it was incredibly sloppy. Teal really speeded up our tempo when he came on by being so aggressive. Really showed that Kamara complaining about the lack of crosses is BS. Teal comes on and immediately get's a cross and scores, and then gets another cross and score. 100% Teal has to start ahead of Kamara next game. He was just so much more active and mobile, too.

 

Interesting that folks here have two distinctly different and nearly polar opposite impressions of what Lee brings to the game these days. That dissonance has been in play for a while on these boards. A few folks saying he's terrific/contributing, other saying he is where the attack goes to die.

I have been of the camp that he misses many opportunities to drive hard with pace at the defense. The two goals involving Bunbury were driven by lightning quick ball movement up the field, which (to me) doesn't seem to be what Lee does anymore.

The two @TealBunB #NERevs goals last night were terrific team efforts: quick/controlled/aggressive/direct attacks. And cool finishing.

— A Casual Fan (@A_Casual_Fan) July 23, 2017

I will need to re-watch last game, and next game, with a focus on Lee, in order to test my current thinking on Lee, and see if he actually is doing more than I think he is. Sometimes you see what your already-held opinions condition you to see....

 

When Lee has the ball the game definitely slows down. It was nice seeing Rowe and Fagundez attack with such speed and pace vs LA.

 

Lee is definitely very skillful and a good finisher, but his style is to possess forever while looking for the perfect pass, while many of the other Revs want to go 100mph. As a result, Rowe and Fagundez make their runs really fast, don't get the immediate ball from Lee, and then have to recycle their runs and look kind of lost. IMO that's why we look better when Nguyen plays as forward - he gets the ball closer to goal where he's more apt to shoot, rather than farther away where he's more apt to dawdle.

 

Agree wholeheartedly with your post but do you think Teal is most effective as a starter or super sub type? To me he is a poor man's Theo Walcott - tons of pace but usually little in the way of finishing. As good as he was the other night, I still wouldn't start him. Speed against tired legs is the best way to utilize Teal IMO.

Instead, Heaps has a golden opportunity to manage Bunbury's drive to succeed. If I am Heaps I would channel Teal's motivated anger at lack of a starting role into a powerful super sub that can inject pace and crash the net the last 20-30 minutes of the game. With any half decent service and intelligent runs into the 6 like we saw against LA, that alone would cause havoc with any MLS defense.

Let him work his way into proving he is a productive impact sub - if you give him a starting job after one good game, his production will fall off, guaranteed.

 

Whaddayamean? He scored 2 goals in 30 minutes, so at that pace he's good for 6 goals a game! Problem solved!

 

Who sits to let Teal start?

 

Kamara, or Caldwell if we play two forwards.