What was Burns supposed to get for a 22 year old that had played one career first team game? The kid wasn't "unknown," but he also hadn't done squat. He spent six years in the West Ham reserves. Six years..............with one FA Cup appearance. [A game they used a real "B" team that lost 5-0 to Forest.] Hindsight is really 20-20 on this one. And he happened to play one position in which the Revs don't need help. What they need is defenders. [Of course having both a starting LB and backup LB out for a game causes a huge problem for any team in MLS. London Woodberry is a problem there. He was dumped by Oscar Pareja, even though Pareja loves his homegrown kids. The kid isn't mobile enough to play fullback, and he was torched whenever he played as a CB. Watson at RB was incredibly frustrating in Dallas. Good at times, horrific at others.] The Revs are one of the most frustrating teams to watch in MLS. They also show why statistics are nonsense. They are actually doing quite well in "chance creation." They just can't finish off the chances. If Agudelo can find his form (and/or Davies and Bunbury get healthy & find theirs) then they'll be fine offensively. For some reason I just have faith in that. [Leicester City, by the way, one of the worst teams in the Premier League according to the fancy statistics. Worst team in the league in possession statistics, and bottom three in "chance creation." Shows where we can shove some of this statistical analysis.] Road games in MLS are tough. The records for visiting teams in "cross-country" games are abysmal over the last couple of years. Losing on the road to LAG isn't time for crisis management. Ya got 3 straight home games now. Chicago (very winnable), Dallas (in a funk), and Seattle (8th place in the West although getting better). Crisis time is if the Revs don't get 4 points out of that. And 6 points should be the expectation.
No, that's true. We somehow had his name on a list of "discovery" players, although there was never any attempt to sign him or even talk to his agnent. Then LA went to sign him and they had to pay us for his "rights." As usual, Bruce Arena had a hissy fit and whinged that everything was soooo unfair to the poor, poor Galaxy who are just trying to put a competitive team on the field, but everyone keeps putting the screws to them. For that reason alone, I tip my hat to Burns.
The revs don't need to sign DDG or Courtois to improve at that position. However, keeping Shuttleworth starting without giving Knighton a run of games is settling for mediocrity. That's what Bobby is, a mediocre keeper on a mediocre team in a mediocre league.
I pointed out that BS was not playing up to 2015 standard. As you mentioned, he's had a couple of bloopers this year. Add that to the defensive blunders and ...hey, we lead the league in goals against! I never made mention of upgrading the keeper; that's absolutely dead last on my list, behind upgrading the equipment manager! I find it interesting how the majority of people react to the different positions on the field. A team loses 2-1, but the keeper made 3 great saves. So the response is, it could have been worse. The striker that scored the one goal; then misses 3 other chances. He was unlucky. But the defender who makes one mistake and gives up the game winning goal. He needs to go. As I commented in another thread, all sports are basically who can minimize and/or recover from your mistakes usually wins. It is a team game.
Clint Eastwood a.k.a revs fans: "We need better players, ASAP." Empty Chair a.k.a the FO: "We have gotten points in 8 of the first 10 games. Relax, these games don't count anyway."
From my read, the primary mistake on all 3 of the first-half goals was Watson. Drifted centrally and forgot about Keane on the first goal. Not quick to close down Gio on the 2nd goal. Then Watson switches flanks with Woodbury, so Keane switches flanks to be 'marked' by Watson again, and scores again on a far post tap-in where Watson drifted centrally. Not that other players didn't also make mistakes, but it looks to me that Watson had an awful first half. FWIW I was only able to watch the 30 minute 'condensed game' since both my wife and her mother curiously chose to not watch the Revs on Mother's Day.
Heh, I know I mentioned both of them as a bit of a joke, but I hardly said that you'd have to get someone at the level either of them to improve the position, I said "there are plenty of better keepers in the world" who are better. I don't think he's great, but he's better than mediocre, he's a pretty solid MLS keeper. I think he's had 2 bloopers this season, one of which I can remember, when he didn't come out hard to get a through ball, I think because he would have had to plow through one of his defenders to do so, and I believe there was one other that I can't remember the specifics of, are there more that I'm forgetting? How many goals should he have stopped this season, and how many mistakes do people think should be allowed before a keeper is dropped? I don't think a mistake or 2 is reason to drop a keeper, and I don't believe in platooning at keeper, or nor do I believe in just giving the 2nd guy a run to see what he can do. If Shuttleworth was making mistake after mistake, sure, I'd say drop him, but I haven't seen that from him. Edit: Oh, and as I'd meant to add, my greater point was that keeper is far from the number 1 issue on this team. If I felt we were solid up front, and solid in the back, then sure, I'd say we should be talking about replacing Shuttleworth, but I'd say keeper is way down the list of positions the FO should be concentrating on.
Disagree. Last year's MLS Cup Playoffs proved that you don't have to spend like drunken sailors in order to compete. The Revs just spend their money poorly.
As I said in the game, my only quibble with this is that I don't know that the 2nd goal was his fault, he may have looked at fault because others were out of position. I thought the same was true of the goal last game when JoGo was stuck in the corner, and Farrell was covering space, leaving 2 guys for Watson to try to cover. Just because player A ends up as the closest guy to a scorer doesn't mean that player A was at fault, he might have only been there because, as teams have to do, he was trying to make up for player B's mistake, and couldn't get there in time. As I said in the game, I don't know that a player standing beyond the D, in the middle, is necessarily the outside back's responsibility, and Twellman pointed out in the halftime highlights, Koffie was just hanging out 5+ yards away, covering nobody. The way so many people make the same mistake when defending, it almost seems like they might actually work in practice on ignoring players off the ball, and everybody should only be watching the player on the ball.
In what way have they spent their money poorly? They seem to have assembled a team - a team short 2 forwards, maybe - of competent MLS journeymen and pre-journeymen. It's not impossible that 1 or >1 may rise to become more than that. Are they overpaid? Would it not be in the interest of the team to get out the big post-Jones checkbook to bring in a star player with stature and charisma? Is the Jones effect impossible to replicate?
Watson is killing us on defense at almost the same level Rowe kills us on offense (not counting his one good shot). The rest of Rowe's game is crap
Nobody said anything about spending like drunken sailors. Why don't the REVs have a player of the quality of Keene or Gio? I think it is because the owners don't want to spend the money for them. They score goals when given chances and often make goals out of half chances or less. To me that is the missing piece. I think the defensive lapses will get straightened out. This team can't score.
Revolution fight back but fall short after "emotional conversation" at half May 8, 2016, 9:17 PM EDT Josie Becker MLSsoccer.com
I think the Revs have a talent evaluation issue and possibly a low soccer IQ issue from player up through FO. Lack of scouting, budget,etc does not help.
The team played very well for long stretches of the game. But we got punished for our mistakes, and couldn't cash in on our legitimate chances. One positive is that Heaps made a tactical adjustment that paid off. A sign of things to come?
A sign of things to come? More like another example of an oft repeated story we've seen many times before. We've played well for long stretches while failing to put away good chances, been punished for silly mistakes, and staged furious comebacks when down, many times before, yet no changes were seen to occur in the next game, and this was not the first time Heaps has pulled off a defender and added someone up top either. For me at least, I wouldn't expect a change, nor will I believe one was made, until well after we've seen seen such a change put in place.
Yes, let see it work against a team that isn't sitting back on a 3-goal lead before we declare everything solved...
Am I correct in my reading of the standings which effectively say the REVs are in last place in the East? By points we are 8th but by PPG we are last AND the two teams below us have between 2 and 4 games in hand? The only team in MLS with a poorer PPG is Houston (0.89 PPG vs. 0.91 PPG for the REVs) and they ALSO have games in hand. Now I'm pretty sure most people here would look at Houston's situation and reach the realistic conclusion that their situation is dire. In fact, I bet most people would say "dire" is an understatement. They'd probably say their season is ****ed. But I sense from the posts that about 1/2 of the posters here believe this is a good team just waiting to break out. Revisiting what Patfan posted before he took off, the REVs will need to take 40 points in 23 games to match last year's 50 point total. That's a 1.74 ppg pace from here which is pretty much a rate, over 34 games, that won the shield last year. It was fun to watch a mini-comeback, doomed to ultimate failure but it's time to realize the negatives far outweigh the positives with this team. Any help, which can't be added until July at the earliest, is going to be too little too late. Since the REVs are repeating their meme of not being prepared for the season and not adding talent fast enough I'm comfortable repeating the meme: "Raises for everyone! [in the FO]"
They can't score goals, but they're paying Agudelo and Bunbury nearly $700,000 this year. They can't deal with crosses, but Goncalves and Farrell are being paid $650,000 combined this year. That's almost 40% of their cap space tied up in four guys who haven't given them a whole lot thus far. Maybe. Maybe not. The highest-paid player on the field in last year's MLS Cup Final was Liam Ridgewell at just over $1.0 million/year. If you're not going to pay for a Jermaine Jones or a Robbie Keane, you can follow the Portland/Columbus/KC model for the same amount of money that they were spending for JJ. Maybe less. See above. Admittedly, they caught a tough break when they lost Kouassi before the season even started. But if he had been healthy, and they had also signed a $1.0 million forward and a $1.0 million central defender, they'd also be in much better shape. I'd tend to lean the exact opposite way. I'd take the chance that Agudelo eventually figures things out, only because I've seen him play well before. The Revs defense has been poor ever since Andrew Farrell started playing center back.
There are lots of variables here but isn't a devil's advocate argument that you could wait for Farrell to figure things out because he has played well at CB before? I don't get why we wait for Agudelo who has just finally started showing signs of life the past 2 games, but we don't give Farrell the benefit of the doubt when he puts in good shifts at CB more often than not.
Random thoughts: - Fagundez's shots were _terrible_ this match, so I don't want to give him a pass. We need Mariner to coach our strikers. - Rowe scored and played excellent defense. Crucify. - Watson makes me nervous every time he's near the ball. Never believed he was an answer. I get frustrated with Rowe... completely frustrated sometimes, but not this game. Everyone had a lousy game for most of the game - I even think Caldwell was shaky and sub-par - but Rowe's determination and activity helped the team more than an occasional bungle hurt. I wish the bungliness didn't become part of his play over the past few years. It's like during the run of play he's got good situational ideas in his brain, but the path from brain to nervous system to bodily motion is slower than the action on the field allows. His Rev's career started so so well and I _want_ him to do well, but he's got to find a way to take his game off of his plateau and to the next level. Is there a next level? I dunno. Maybe another team? Or is he is what he is at this point? A bungler with an occasional flash of brilliance? Seems like we're willing to Wait on Aguedelo, Farrell - and I've been Waiting on Rowe. Anyone else we can wait on while we're at it? How about if the players were all just a 'smidge' better, or if we had a higher caliber player or two that opposing teams had to deal with as well, that maybe these players waiting in the wings could shine? I'd comment on how it sucks to feel that the team is so incomplete season after season, but then I'd be starting a conversation that's already in a number of threads. So I won't say anything about that. Nope. Won't write it. Kevin D.
It's the nature of things for attackers vs defenders, attackers are allowed to be more up and down, while defenders are expected to be steady. That said, the playing situations for both players are also very different. For Agudelo, he's been in and out of the lineup over a season now, not getting any consistent time in any one position, and things have been so bad up top, I believe people are more hoping Agudelo might be finding form, rather than heaping praise on him. I don't think anybody is claiming that Agudelo is "the answer", most everybody seems to agree we need a top notch forward added to the roster, but in the meantime, people are just hoping Juan might find a way to be a decent answer, that he might perform better than all the other options have been tried, and been found wanting. That is very different than Farrell, who has been a mainstay at his position - how many games has he missed in the past 2 seasons? - but hasn't really shown any consistency, nor has the defense been consistent (well, not not consistently good) since he has been in there. Farrell's had a lot more time to get comfortable in his position, and gotten a lot more patience from the coaches, compared to Agudelo. Obviously everybody hopes that both players could become consistently good, a had they both been playing the same amount, then people's harshness and/or hopefulness would likely be more similar for the 2 of them.
This is a pretty damning analysis. We have to put up a performance comparable to the season-to-date PPG pace of Dallas, Philly (what), or RSL to get us to match last years performance. We're 32.3% of the way through our season and have yet to develop any consistency. There's time for a run, but historically as everyone knows we are not entering the prime part of the season. Something has to get figured out and quick.