Feeling's mutual. Most of y'all's posts I could just read the Dynamo press releases and figure out what y'all will be saying. Oh, is corporate line for this year that Torres Is Great? Ok, run with it. What was it last year, depressing flop, quickly unwanted on loan, we should be trying to sell? Run with that too. Also amused at all the people who were skeptical after the preseason now being holier than the pope on the team, to the point you'd think we won in Portland. "Mean Juve is too critical." In the preseason I was reading too much positivity into how that went. Make up your feeble minds. I feel like what I am trying to do is maintain an even, honest keel while y'all alternate between way too hot and cold. Torres has produced well so far and good for him. I think this is far more about the wings and other players, and that he's kind of a mediocre player benefitting from it all. It's a complicated argument that we could actually be doing even better with another forward, but I guess small brains can't handle it. We apparently can't just try Manotas, who started 1/3 of the season and outscored Torres, like we have Cabezas over Alexander. As with the previous two seasons this lesson will be learned the hard way.
People want to pretend like the improved cast of characters means nada but these are the same people rehabilitating Alexander also after his similar nightmare last season. Maybe it's not about "Torres" or "Alexander," if you're trying to tell me they are magically awesome now. Maybe it's the team is so much improved around them that you could stick a stiff or two out there with Quioto and it wouldn't be too embarrassing. But then maybe in those moments when we start playing poorly and it matters if Torres can get open and hold in the run of play, or Alexander cover ground and win a ball, it matters whether you stuck a stiff out there with the upgrades. It matters if Manotas or others could play better. Maybe if you think about the same discussion regarding Alexander y'all get where hmmm maybe if you get in 6 upgrade players then you could throw a marginal sub from last season out there and the overall product would still be an improvement. But if I have last year's starter, why would I do that? I believe the response is that Torres or Alexander do x which fits the system but I think that's malarkey, Manotas could hold a ball last season too, and we have a few better mids than Alexander around, including Boniek. Y'all are doing nothing more than buying the self serving circular fallacy that the team that wins this week is your best chance to win next week and the week after that. That's really risk aversion parading as selection strategy.
Cubo is a better and more creative passer First time finishing in the box I would say equally skilled, but you never saw Bruin attempt free kicks! Movement off the ball and combination play - give Cubo the nod. Bruin was physically bigger and could knock defenders off the ball and his hold up play was OK but he was inconsistent in doing all this. Cubo is smaller in stature but in three games looks like he has decided to take his smashing and get back into the game without crying so much about it. His hold up play is now showing some soft feet and better 1,2,3 touches to combine with advancing players when he checks back to the ball. Cubo's moves with the ball much better than Bruin. Bruin was abysmal at one v goalie and Cubo has yet to get that opportunity this year but I would anticipate that he has the skills and poise to be better. Both are slow for forwards in MLS. Bruin could challenger for headers but he was no threat in the air for passing or putting it in on goal. He is physically challenged in winning contested headers but when Cubo gets to the ball first, his skill in passing with his head is much better. Overall I would take and in form Cubo over Bruin any day. BUT I only have 2.5 games of in-form Cubo. Bruin scored over 50 goals for the Dynamo and was very durable. Lets compare the two again after more games with Cubo. JC, I wish we have Alexi Sanchez instead of Cubo but we don't, so stop wringing your hands about it. Let's hope that we continue to see improvement because selling him to a Mexican club would help us buy someone better. I also fret that we are delaying the development of Mauro but until Cubo drops in form, he plays.
at this point in time my opinion Cubo ~ cultured over priced average striker Bru ~ blue collar worker who brings the lunchpail every day but isn't a starter anymore because the league has gotten better
Not that you care, but you lose credibility with statements like this. I think this board is now mostly ex-STHs or non-STHs who aren't exactly FO hardcore fans. It's called being objective and rational. Team is 2-1 with 6 points from 3 games, a solid start
Thank you Juve for coming here and educating the poor unwashed masses. IMHO, your biggest problem is the assumption that you make about other posters. Your holier than though act grows very, very tiresome. I and several others have said repeatedly Manotas may make the attack more dangerous. He's faster and more mobile. You probably don't get the header that sprung the Quito goal against Portland from Manotas. Further, I think it's a given that Cubo makes smarter more experienced runs off the ball. Those runs have contributed to two goals this year. You may be right that Manotas > Cubo or you may be wrong. If you stopped accusing others of being simpletons who swallow the front office kool-aid all the time, people may actually listen to your constructive arguments.
i don't disagree with the above 2 statements at all. two issues tho': - Cubo is only overpaid using 2010 MLS 2.0 standards. he's currently getting paid his current rate on the world's transfer market. MLS doesn't exit in a vacuum. - Cubo is average by world market standards but not average by current MLS standards. Not every team has a Giovinco. Better example: Bradley Wright-Phillips had been mediocre his entire career before he came to MLS. You don't need to be Neymar to score 40-50 point guy in this league (using the old system of 2 points for a goal and 1 point for an assist). i think i accept Cubo because i know #1 the Dynamo are never going to plop down huge money for a guy and #2 we know not every striker will come play in this weather/market. i mean do you really think we have a shot at Zlatan or Rooney. in Houston? its either Cubo or Jamaicans/Hondurans/Championship level players coming off a major knee injury. i'll take 15-18 goal Cubo on saturdays,sundays, and any of the occasional mid-week games.
list of starters this past weekend: morris dempsey bwp gulbrandsen adi elis quioto cubo badji cristian ramirez urruti cristian colmam kei kamara lee Nguyen lloyd sam patrick mullins nyarko justin meram ola kamara federico higuain josef martinez nemanja nikolic luis solignac movsisyan jose villareal gerso fernandes dom dwyer jimmy medranda wondo marco urena carlos rivas cyle larin cj sapong fredy montero jozy tosaint ricketts jack harrison rodney wallace david villa mateo mancosu i mean some of you make it sound like this league is the knockout rounds of UEFA Champions League or the World Cup's final 8. it's not.
My take on the game. Didn't watch it. I was in Vegas with the Mrs. and while everyone was high then low and totally dejected, I was at Ceasars watching a live performance par excellence. Rod bloody Stewart 72 and still going strong - a must see performance. On a down note - I kinda expected to come home a winner but
Sorry but the whole reason I got a tad grumpy on this as it progressed is that literally no one seemed to buy or even be intellectually open to it, which I took a bit personally. Only yesterday do I see hints that two of you are even open to the possibility this could be a slight mirage. The "mirage" argument is not crazed and has a predecessor just last season in Will Bruin. I recall after 3 games last season there were some giddy but also some guarded responses to Bruin being somewhat productive in that period of time. "Just wait." And Bruin shortly after went cold. So "just wait' was actually right. But if I do that on a player with even less scoring history with this team after just 3 games this season, it's nuts. I think it's because I said it and they didn't, as well as because it cuts against the grain on a team which is now winning, and upsets the kool aid tank. I get he's producing and grant those arguments, but I would discount out the free kicks. I don't think he's our best free kick taker -- I think that would be Quioto. I also think if you discount out the kicks then he's a one-goal striker who often struggles to play his actual position, and who has disappeared for stretches in the second half of Seattle and Portland where the team then also struggled. Meanwhile Atlanta and other teams have forwards scoring bushels. I think unless he's scoring 15 goals his DP option should not be secure. I don't think he's DP dominant and part of what concerns me about the wave of passion here is we stick ourselves with a stiff for another two years based on a streak. The response to that is to then mention stuff like the header he had on the goal a couple weeks ago. Fine as far as it goes except at the time it felt like an exceptional instance and not what he generally does. Most of the time I feel like he's losing that header or failing to maintain possession. People then separately complain about possession and closing out games and such, and don't connect it to particular players on the field......Alexander, Elis to some extent, Cabezas second half, Torres.....if you don't track our struggles back to the specific people on the field who contribute to them, how are we going to improve? I think Torres is scoring. I also think he's hurting the team. I also think at least one trigger for me on this is I remember seeing Manotas running with the first team this "spring." Those of you who came in for the regular season are like, well, but he's scoring. I felt like it was better with Manotas this spring. I remember Torres blowing a few shots this spring in his forward role. So that's probably part of where I am coming from.
You're not being objective and rational if you basically act like the "mirage" theory is impossible, particularly for those who said the same thing about Bruin last year. I understand "changed man" or "system fits him" but feel like people are not saying "they disagree" so much as "you are dumb and should be ignored." If you don't understand where I feel that's a bit subjective and personal as opposed to open thinking rational analysis, then I can't help you. I do not understand how saying a player who has only scored one goal ever in league in the shirt during the run of play might be fooling some people.....is that radical. The goal scoring history supports itself. At minimum, I am just saying woah hold off on signing that option, put the kool aid down a sec, and wait and see how long this lasts and if our striker can actually score striker goals. The amazing thing to me, that no one has picked up on yet, is he's a striker who's never scored a striker type goal here in league play. That one goal is basically a winger's goal where he drops out of spot into space. Very nice but I can't rely for offense on Torres hitting 30 yard curlers in Quioto's channel all season. I need him knocking goals in within the 18 and ideally up there with the wings finishing their crosses for a change. If you watch closely we get a lot of wing crosses and like no finishing of them. That frustrates me as lost offense on a team I think is even better than it looks already. The rest of you don't seem to care.
In the end, this would be basically my analysis, and one thing my criticism is intended towards, is maybe the answer is none of the above. And that includes Manotas. My fear is if the fans and GM get all caught up in somewhat misleading hoopla then the better long term decision for us -- something new -- isn't made. I understand some people saying Torres is moderately priced for the up to date market and will probably score 10 but feel like I heard the same thing about Bruin. It's really a disguised complaint about the team to say, we can't do better at the price, so if he produces some roll with it. I want better and I've made lists before of affordable players who produce. It doesn't have to be gold plated. I also feel like no one is adjusting expectations for the offense. We can have a video game offense if we want. Expectations of how many striker goals are acceptable should be adjusted accordingly. It remains my theory Manotas would have more than Torres does.
In my mind: Manotas (largely based on potential)- Faster, pure finisher and better technical striker of the ball, combines pretty well with teammates. He needs to continue to work on his hold up play and off the ball movement. Torres- Hold up play is good, can finish well when in form, combines even better with teammates and moves well off the ball. He needs to continue to work on his fitness and consistency finishing (though seems much improved) . He has physical limitations but he does do well positionally and draws fouls from defenders to help us advance our lines.
Don't worry so much about things that you have absolutely zero control over, and you won't be so fearful.
I likened Cubo vs Manotas to a good ol' NFL QB debate. Someone is going to have to sit, but in the end it's a good problem to have as a team when you're winning. You don't believe me then compare Elis, Quioto, Cubo, Manotas to some of the foursomes at FWD in previous years.* *foursomes that included Kyle Brown, fat Landin, Roland Cerritos, Ale Moreno, 2nd go around Joseph Ngwenya, 1st go around Nate Jacqua, the white Nate Jacqua, Ching's last years, Dom Oduro, etc. I mean there's a reason Will Bruin is up there in all-time leading Dynamo scorers. There hasn't been much quality at FWD in our short history.
Don't take this the wrong way Nigel, but that is a horrible bet. You could have gotten much, much better odds before the season. I almost thought about betting before the season started because I believed in Quito and Elis from what I saw, thought Cubo and Manotas would be potent, and figured the team could get a #10 in the summer and then you never know what can happen. But then I realized, the Front Office so didn't do it.
I think that's naïve. What generally happens is a more delicate balancing act on their part. When we win they shout me down for any criticism. When they lose, like last weekend, you can read some people saying THAT is why they aren't STH this season. Like it's not the same team they were calling me a buzzkill about the week before. Or the same team that in preseason they were skeptical of, then excited about when it won, then back to skeptical when it lost. You can see where I'd feel like there's some combination of inconsistency or gamesmanship in how I get handled week to week as they wander back and forth vaccilating about it all. I am the one who stays in roughly the same spot. I think it's their financial investment demand that makes it an emotional thing. When it starts to go well, this is the thing they loved enough to pay hundreds or thousands a season and they don't want it bad mouthed. When it goes poorly they overcorrect because of the experience with wasted money. I don't have skin in the game to distort my opinions. I just call what I see. I probably have my biases but they aren't because I'm caught in a loop of justifying buying tickets this year or not.
It's complicated. I think Brian Ching is a level above these guys, which is probably why I grumble at how Torres handles his target functions. He would have 10-15 goals playing 2/3 of the time. But I agree in terms of quality in depth we haven't had this level of talent before. The closest would be something like Ching/Jaqua/Ngwenya in 2007. Also there is the matter of how you tally up Wondo in talent comparisons. How does it count if you didn't do it here much but Jeebus did you do it someplace else. My one other quibble would be the lack of a real target striker on this roster, which means that while talent-deep it's tactically fairly shallow. There is no 6'+ lunk to cross balls to late chasing points. Particularly considering the way we struggle in second halves, we could use that diversification. To be fair even the good ol USA seems to have forgotten this selection choice. How many games have we won or tied late in CONCACAF with even someone as screwball as Gordon coming off the bench to head em in.
I also think we have a little bit of Kinnear's pigeonholing issue, you could do something creative like Quioto Elis Wenger up there, stick Manotas in a wing spot, Elis in a striker spot, etc.....other than playing Wenger a few minutes as CDM WC hasn't really played around with his toys much. Like I said, I am somewhat concerned about that because it's an old team through the back 8, as well as a team playing high energy style, that I am not sure you can just Xerox the lineup every week and also Xerox the same result.