So 11 games into the season what have we learned about this team? Defense has not understanding of each other and lacks concentration. Watson is a ball watcher Koffie is not a suitable sub for Jones The roster is filled with inconsistency: JoGo, Rowe, Teal, Lee, Fagundez, Shuttleworth Coaching has been suspect. I think Femi really is the only surprise this year. Nobody ever thought he would have an impact and he has been a pest every time he has played. Honestly I never thought I would say this but I can't wait for Tierney to return. I think he and Caldwell are the only two players this year that gave you what you expected at the beginning of the year and have been somewhat consistant. Does this team have talent? Yes. Are they playing below expectations? Yes. For a few years everyone has been pretty much in agreement that the core players are good and just need to add a few key players to get over the hump. I am at a point now where I think this team may need a shake up. Even if it means a major trade involving a Nguyen and few others. This team is not clicking. Is this Heaps or the players? Two years removed from the MLS finals and the Revs are 1 win in 11 games with relatively the same roster. I personally believe Heaps has done all he can for this team and its time to move on. I would love to see Kries replace him. We all know that will never happen.
I keep hearing about Watson being a ball watcher but are people seeing this in games other than the LA game. I have seen him defend many crosses at the far post this season and thinking to myself that last year those were not defended as well. I'm wondering if he was not 100% and still hampered by the injury that took him out of the previous game. If he was sucking it up to help the team because the coach wanted him to then the decision to play him over Barnes is on Heaps. I am not defending his game this past Sunday, it was not good, but I don't recall seeing this problem before Sunday. Also, in my mind Kofie is not a replacement for Jones. He is a replacement for Kouassi and one that was found last minute, just before the season started. Given those parameters I can't complain.
My choice would be to see what a different coach could do with these players, rather than break the team up. Heaps expends way too much energy jawing the refs.
Lleget wasn't going to sign here and we weren't going to get more than the $50K (MLS wouldn't allow us to stonewall the return of a US International). He wanted to go to LA - there was no way he could be "The Boy" in NE (thank gawd for that). Have you read "The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong" ? It's all about stuff like this - there's a whole chapter on teams that are successful by not possessing the ball. Yeah, I thought so too. And he never adjusted after any of the goals, kept making the same mistake. Keane separated from him so easily on his goals. In fact, it was such an embarrassingly easy performance for Keane, that I thought his "majesterial" celebration was rather embarrassing - since he really didn't need to do anything outstanding at all to score on the play. The "look at what I just done ..." reaction was pure showboating. I love what Watson gives us in offense and ball possession and movement upfield, overlapping, etc., but his defensive mistakes (bad marking, mis-communications, red cards, pk's, ...) are killing us. I'm ready to give McCrary a chance - a guy who is known primarily for basic marking is what we need more than anything else in that spot right now. ---- Our defense isn't this bad, just like our offense wasn't "that" bad when they weren't scoring. I think the struggle to score goals eventually causes the defense to break down, as everyone gets more and more focused on making the attack work. So, voila, as soon as we start to score goals, our defense is springing leaks. But, what we have seen all along is that our defense is just not that committed to tight marking. We play a semi-zone and mark tight at specific times/spaces, but not consistently. Balls crossing in from the corners, deflections, balls pinging around the area, soft clearances all seem to leave us with our marking lost. This is reminding me of the way Heaps played - always ready to go on the attack, in good position most of the time, but running solely on instinct when things got scrambled - that's why he got even better when he played in cdef, he could play with passion, attack the ball and clear it out of danger much of the time, rather than be always be technically sound. Looks more and more that he's got his defenders playing the same way. Unfortunately, quality players and sophisticated coaches know how to take advantage of that. The Gals game plan wasn't to cross the ball to where Keane was paired up with Watson - it was to cross the ball to the open space and rely on Keane to slip easily away from Watson as the cross was launched. That's not even a very sophisticated plan.
Sure, why not take the money or the draft pick or whatever else we can get for nothing? But the thing is, this is what, the third time we've done this? Good for Burns for exploiting something of value, but if he put half the effort into finding tangible resources, like a difference-making player at the high end of the food chain, we wouldn't be having the conversation in this thread. The Galaxy are the kind of team that is always looking to add, even if the guy they bring in is "depth," but is someone a team like ours would have in the first 11.
He is a ball watcher but his other big talent is getting PKs for the other team. He looks athletic enough, I just question if he will ever learn not to make one mistake or another? I don't think at this point that he has the head for the game
I think we need to start talking about a "Femi effect." I never understood when the Revs signed him, I never understood why they were giving him minutes, I don't think he's as skilled or talented as his teammates... and yet, when he's on the field, suddenly the Revs start looking more dangerous and scoring goals. Or maybe the "Femi effect" is just another term for the "Nguyen paradox."
It really says something when the most positive story of the season is a 3rd-round draft pick forcing his way into the lineup at striker, and in 7 games has 0 shots on goal. And that is not a knock on Femi. He has a great story, I like him as a player, I hope he continues to develop and someday he scores many goals for the Revs.
Not that long ago, maybe a month or so, someone was quoted as saying Watson has a very high soccer IQ. Not seeing it so far..
Pretty much the entire team 'ball watches' on defense, it's hardly just Watson. The problems with the team's defending go well beyond one guy.
One other point on the 2nd goal that I'd forgotten about until I watched the highlights on ESPNFC yesterday, the ball was crossed in, and Caldwell just weakly headed the ball into the middle, to the feet of dos Santos. Caldwell should have either headed the ball much more strongly and further away, or he should have flicked it on to the outside, away from the middle, not back into the middle. And before that ball was played in, both Koffie and Fagundez were far closer to dos Santos, Watson had actually been in the middle marking Zardes. When the ball was crossed, Watson stepped up, perhaps hoping the ball might go to that spot, and when Caldwell headed the ball, Watson tried to close down dos Santos, while both Koffie and Fagundez were nowhere close to picking up the free guy outside the area. As I just said, the defense has foundational problems, it's far from just one guy. Well, I guess I should say it's far from just being one player, but if I were to blame one guy, it would be the coach who hasn't addressed the major issues in our defensive third.
I don't know if it's a matter of effort or not, but basically I agree with you. You'll never get as excited when we win a corner kick again! Although, I have to say I find it amusing that so many people think it's this great opportunity. That's the great thing about the book - it's strips away the basic assumptions by looking at the numbers (although it gets quite heavy into the math at times). At this point, he was one red-card, which was an undeniably hot-headed move, and one PK given, IIRC, which IMO was somewhat soft, even if technically correct. OOTH, the poor marking is happening way too often. Well, Goncalves and Watson have international experience and have played on other teams. It's hard to imagine that either hasn't learn the basics of defending. And, while there have been almost constant changes in the back 4 this year, they only used 6 players in the back four positions, and have been very steady in dmid and gk. If I had to guess, I'd say that Heaps is having them play a "zone-ish" system and that opposing coaches are pretty good at exploiting it. It looks like the outside defenders are being told to protect the middle when they are on the weak side and they are getting burned by players running in behind them. I think it's an overly-simplistic system that is leaving them exposed. They've also been susceptible to mis-communications between the cdefs, but I feel like that's been steadily declining as the season goes along.
I think this is exactly what happened on Orlando's second goal in our home game against them. Woodberry was left to defend the middle and whoever it was that scored for them got a jump on him with a trailing run into the box. Is there a better system, or do the players just need to stop making mental errors. If you are ball watching at the pro level it shouldn't be because you're tired, it should be a mental thing. @metoo I wasn't trying to suggest earlier that Watson is the lone reason the defense has been a sieve, but people have to start correcting their own individual errors at some point for the D as a whole to have any confidence in each other.
I wholeheartedly agree that Watson has been at fault on a number of goals, and that he needs to correct his own mistakes, I've merely been saying that he is far from being alone in that dept, and because this issue seems to be rather epidemic, I would push the blame beyond the players, up to the coach. The whole team is defending poorly, and when that's the case, it's not about each individual figuring it out on his own, there are structural problems that needs to be fixed. If that means replacing Watson, I would have no problem with that, but I think that if nothing changed, we had the same line-up except to say put Tierney or Smith back in and take out Watson, the problems would continue.
I partially agree with that but the players making mental errors is not on the coach. It's gotta be a two way street: coach makes the game plan, players execute. Falling asleep and letting someone drift in over your shoulder is not down to the system failing. Focusing more on the system, we have seen a lack of discipline from the midfielders lead to goals (like Dos Santos' volley on Sunday). Do we have a partial zone system for everyone? Do we need to go man to man for the back 4 and have the midfielders drop back into the open space defensively. What should they change to make it better?
I've seen you say they play "zone-ish" before, and I don't know what you mean exactly. Pretty much everybody in the profesissonal game plays a zonal system these days, does anybody straight up man marks any more? Playing a zonal system doesn't mean defenders a spot in the middle of a zone, and leave opponents free, you still have to track runners, pick players up in front of goal, and close players down as they penetrate. The Revs just aren't playing well, they're losing track of players, getting pulled out of shape, and having mental lapses.
If a single player continues to make mental errors, I would put that on the player, if an entire group of players all continue to make mental errors, over the course of a couple of months, I put that on the coach.
I'm no authority of pro defensive strategies, but in other sports there are plenty of different kinds of zone defenses, including "match-up" zones. It just appears that this one isn't putting a great emphasis on tight-marking.