Hey your galaxy drew 8 of their first 10 matches in 2009 and eventually made it to MLS Cup (where you guys lost to RSL) so don't get too cocky just yet...
Anyway, back to the game, it was a game of 2 halves, but it could be looked at a couple of different ways. - Typical Revs, poor at the back, able to possess well up front but not score, finally turn it on at the end when they're down (as opposed to turning off at the end when they're up), and show the potential that they have, but can't display with any consistency. - The 2nd half was very flattering, as the Revs took advantage of a team that was coasting, and it wouldn't have gone so well, it might have been much uglier, had the Galaxy kept up their intensity. For me, when a team is this inconsistent, able to look so good or so bad at any time, it's about the coach. The FO/owners may not be the best, but I honestly think the team is not playing to it's full potential of the players we do have. The defensive mistakes are just so typical of the season, and there doesn't seem to have been any improvement from game 1 to now, they're still doing all the same stuff, repeating the same tired old mistakes. I wonder if we'll see teams come in and try to put crosses in on us over the next few weeks. I wonder what JoGo's injury is, did he go with the tried and true bad hammy, or did he change it up?
A loss out there was probably expected but the second half comeback was encouraging. The revs were essentially dead for the first 60 mins or so and once Lee came off, the mids start bossing the game and generating solid chances. Of course the galaxitives having an unlimited budget for over the hill DPs ended up being a nice advantage for them, but it was a scrappy performance overall. I love Gerrard in Liverpool colors, but he is past it in MLS. The revs basically took him out of the game, making him a non-factor til the end when everyone was gassed. LA is overrated - they will fade as the year goes on. Of course a point would have been better but I am proud of the guys in this one, battling it out, a crossbar away from 3-3, even down to 10 men.
I think you misread what I wrote. I was sarcastically commenting that I was 'happy' Heaps took out Nguyen with 30 minutes to go, meaning, I was actually not happy. I wished Nguyen was still playing to give us the greatest chance of coming back. Secondly, while the revs have roared to life late in games this season, apart from @houston and perhaps @Orlando it has never been THIS dramatic a turnaround. The revs were virtually lifeless by halftime - they were a whole different team after Nguyen came out - night and day. When Heaps put Femi, Teal and Agudelo up top, with Daigo pulling strings in the midfield, chances were created, their difference makers all but disappeared and re revs bosses the game, creating chance after chance. Even Rowe looked more comfortable and contributed to the attack from his deep lying position. The problem was, Heaps did this too early - he should have waited til 75' or so.
The team rallied but the club really needs a striker someone who can bag goals. Not too confident in Agudelo with the European season coming to an end we need to look for a striker
I was going to comment about this a couple of weeks ago. The Revs looked like a youth team or Don O Van's latest team. You get the ball, you give it to Rick! The US mens team does the same with Bradley. When we have possession of the ball, everybody looks to get the ball to Lee. Yesterday when Lee came off, the ball movement improved and we became more dangerous on offense. We were looking to move the ball, not to find a player. I'm not blaming Lee for this. I think it's a coaching decision on how to play; one I've never been a fan of.
That was very obvious yesterday. We have all descussed here in the offseason how cheap Kraft is Looks like most of our predictions came true.......unfortunately
Really? I thought we needed some tool from Ellay who is channeling his inner Sounders fan to tell us that! All we need is to axe for a new owner! Man, why didn't we think of that!
That game highlighted the difference between owners willing to spend and owners not willing to spend.
All right, so I agree that watching the first half was like getting splinters in your eye. This point that Twellman harped on, about not being able to deal with crosses in the run of play was something we all knew about before this game, and if we knew it, Bruce Arena damn well knew it also. So it was only a matter of time before LA tried it, and whaddaya know - it worked. It was like that middle school bully thing - "Hey kid, what's that on your shirt? (flick) - except that we fell for it every time. We were lucky not to be down 4 or 5-0 at the half. But here's the thing. Galaxy, the MLS darlings, the team without a salary cap, has been crushing teams with better records than ours all season. Other than being repeatedly sucker punched in the first half, I thought the intent and the ball movement were fine. As before, the #9 - in this case JA - was completely ineffective. So now in the second half, they come out playing much better. I will concede that Galaxy took their foot off the gas, but I felt that both Rev goals were pretty. I felt that Heaps' tactical adjustments were inspired. I thought Fagundez was great, and both Rowe and Agudelo to their game to another level. Even without his goal, Rowe was stellar defensively. I don't think the improvement was the result of Nguyen coming off, and I have no problem with Heaps doing it. LN was getting kicked constantly with no fouls called. In fact, Galaxy was getting away with a ton of little niggly cheap shots. If Heaps wants to protect Nguyen down 3-0 away to LA, I'm good with that. The fact that the team was able to adjust again reflects that they were well-prepared. So it feels like a loss, but not a humiliation. BTW, I had forgotten that we had the rights to Lleget. What exactly did we get for that?
The worth thing about the game was that Shuttleworth made 3 fantastic saves. We could have given up a touchdown. Maybe if we gave up a touchdown, Kraft would notice.
We got 50 grand. Woo. Hoo. Another smooth move by Burns to make sure he keeps his job for another year. Not like we could use a guy like that. We also got DC to pay us for a keeper we weren't going to sign, so the "value-add" just keeps getting better and better.
Yeah, that's one thing I was going to say, I've seen someone complain something along the lines of Shuttleworth is part of the problem with this team, and I know he's had a couple of bloopers this season, as have most all keepers, but he's nothing close a problem spot, I'd say he's kept the close score in a number of games this season. Could we get better at that position? Sure, there are plenty of better keepers in the world - De Gea and Courtois come to mind - but keeper is near the bottom of the list of spots we need to upgrade. He might not be challenging for the national team, but he seems like a pretty good MLS level keeper at this point.
Other than washing out with West Ham, I had never really heard much about him until yesterday. To be honest, I wasn't super impressed with his performance.