That all may be true. My point was about the Colorado game only. There isn't anything wrong with winning games 1-0 on the road when you haven't won in months.
Check out Boloni's post in the season thread. This is Olsen's MO regardless of when or where he is playing. Even in our early season wins.
Last year at the end of the season? We were scoring goals in bunches. Anyway, again, I was making a point about this game, not ben's overall style or tactics. On that I agree that he is too defensive. We have no idea what he would do with an adequate roster. He's never had that.
The current 'in season thread'. The one where we aren't scoring or winning. My post, that you responded to, was making a point about Ben's mgt style.
I gotta disagree. If you haven't won in 8 or 9 games straight, one of which was a game you were leading by three, and you're missing major offensive cogs, playing with one of the best keepers in the league, on the road, at altitude, with another game against a conference opponent coming up in 4 days, looking at a long plane ride home... in the 70th minute, you shut it down and start defending the damn one goal lead, no matter who you are. I know your larger point is this is what Ben would do in any situation. But the only thing you can pull out of this game is that Ben did the smart thing. The idea that he's tactically naive is overblown. He uses the tools at his disposal and he considers the circumstances. If we were hot offensively, he'd just as likely push the tempo. We've seen that. We've even been bitten by that. I'm not saying he's a genius who never puts a foot wrong, but he's also not as one-dimensional as an MO like that implies to me - with respect to you and Boloni. Boloni's post is great, but I'd draw a different lesson. The poor shooting reflects the fact that....our penetration phase this year has been more like a contraception phase. Our MO, when we're playing the way we're designed to by the coaching staff, is direct, period. Even when we won last year, and outplayed the opponent by the eye test, we lost the possession battle, sometimes badly. In essence, the possession numbers are an indicator of the team's MO under Olsen. The shooting and opportunities created are the critical difference between last year and this, and those aren't really about Ben coaching defensively, they're about players in the final third connecting and performing, and being on the field together, rather than the training room separately.
I'm not sure if I posted anything in the full season thread. Point me to it if you care to. In this thread, I was pointing out that his overall strategy in the Colorado game after the goal was fine and gave this roster the best chance to win that game. Not each specific sub, but the overall plan of not pushing hard for the second goal was fine. Dull, sure, but pragmatic.
Apparently both DC United and Colorado sponsor Special Olympics soccer teams (and probably most of the teams in the league do as well). Anyways this was their last game https://www.dcunited.com/post/2017/...olorado?utm_source=Social&utm_medium=Facebook
I never disagreed with bunkering at minute 70 in the Colorado game, but I'm not going to give Olsen credit for doing it because he does it for 90 minutes EVERY game. You guys keep giving him credit for brilliance though.
I'm not giving him credit for brilliance. I'm giving him credit for making the right tactical choice in the Colorado game.