One of the strengths of this formation is that it uses the exact same personnel as our other formation. So teams will have to prepare two gameplans, or else we just switch back to 4-2-3-1.
Not much to complain about this game except for the football lines. 2 games at home - one against a weakened team and a big Taylor fire up, and a great win against a team that looked like they thought it would be easy. Now 2 games away and the return of Kamara. Heaps' decisions on a starting lineup and gameplan and how the players react will be quite telling. #AllToProve
I think the telling thing about this team is that our defense struggles the most when our offense struggles the most (which leads to some lopsided scorelines, often to tune of *-0). When you're having trouble scoring and your defense is looking shaky, the natural tendency is to be more conservative, not throw so many players forward, keep the ball, etc. But, I think all of those conservative tactics have been working against us. When we play the ball back to keep possession, teams increase the pressure to force us to boot the ball up-field. When we attack carefully, so as to not turn the ball over, teams can get organized behind the ball (even when they've been using high pressure) and become even tougher to break down. I think the change in formation is much less important that the change in mentality. We're going on the attack with less hesitation and more commitment - which means defenses need to be more committed to defending us and can't high pressure as much. The way for this Revs team to play better defense is to play better (i.e., more committed) offense. - we don't do well playing in our end, so let's play in their end. - if we're going to lose the ball blasting it forward after we've carefully passed it around our midfield and defense, why not lose the ball in their end, at least trying to get to goal? We've dug a big hole, so we basically have to meet every challenge now. At this point, we can't afford to go on the road and play conservatively like a road team typically would. In most games, I look at the team that needs the points most (and needs the most points) to be the aggressor. Usually that is the home team, because of the expectations of the home crowd and general approach of maximizing points at home. But, from this point, we need points more than anyone we'll be facing - and we have to play like it.
Agudelo is a (sort of) New Yawka, after all. I thought the effort was great too - it hasn't been mentioned enough. I thought, at the time, that the only reason Koffee didn't get yellowed was because he was already carrying. After watching it a bunch of times on replay, I think both players made an honest attempt at the ball (Bravo made a late [successful] attempt at the ball, but Koffee had no chance to react or pull out at that point). It was a bad, but unfortunate collision - a no call in my book. The mystery to me is why the ref didn't show the red until Bravo was off on the sideline ready to come back on? Did it take consultation with the linesman to convince him of something Bravo did?