I think we need to figure out how to keep the ball out of our own net before we worry about putting it in the other. Doesn't do us any good to have a striker who can score a goal per game if we're giving up 3-5 goals per game.
Haven't seen the full but you outta feel for Colonel Van O. RSL just loves o hang him out to dry. There are players on this team that shouldn't be on this team next week let alone next year. Very, very curious to see what happens Saturday. At some point Petke has to lay down the law and say get me some players that want to play and commit to this team. What a dumpster fire.
Compared to other recent games, tonight's game was more of an accurate measuring stick as to the gap between where this team is at and where it wants to be. Other than 3 or 4 spots in the starting 11, the talent just isn't there.
At the same time, shoring up the defense helps the offense as well. When you're always trailing by 1+ goals, it causes us to have to try and throw bodies forward, which winds up leaving more gaps for teams to exploit on the counter. Shore up the defense, and that puts the rest of the team in less of a panic, which allows for proper build up play. Gotta love how the FO thought our defense was fine going into this season. It was clear it was going to be poor given the history of the guys we signed or kept. I didn't expect it to be quite this bad, but I knew it would be bad.
To be fair, VanO was terrible tonight, he hung himself out to dry. I agree with dropping guys, not sure we can do it with the way contracts work.
For whatever reason I still feel inclined to watch every game so it's a good thing I had to miss tonight due to work.
Even in the last few games when things looked a little better, the defense was still shaky. It's a shame that there's a lot of fans that will just look at the result and say things are fine, without actually analyzing what went on during the game. I really hope we have a quality CB coming in the summer window. If not, I don't see any hope of salvaging this season. I already feel like we're going to miss the playoffs, but I was really hoping we could've turned this ship around and at least started a positive trend.
If you meant the title of "worst team in MLS right now", then yes. But "this is the deepest RSL team ever." All I know is half the time they suck, a quarter of the time they are bad, and the remaining quarter they actually can string 8 passes together and the defense not look like a trailer park after a tornado. Although I wasn't around in the early days, it seems like this 2017 team might give them a run for their money in suckiness. I think I wish I could aspire to embratsu now - but at least two years ago there were a few weeks between the WTF games.
29 goals allowed in 15 games. That's the second worst in the league, both in number and per game. Worst goal differential in the league to go with it, so it's not because we're being aggressive and choosing to risk more goals in exchange for more opportunities to score.
I'm sure part of it is having to chase games for so long. The more we have to push for a goal, the more opportunities the other team gets to exploit us. I bet the numbers would look a bit different if we were giving up a goal in the final 20 minutes of the game instead of all the times we've given up goals in the first 5 mins, and the first 30. Not to fully excuse the offense as well since they could and should be performing better, but when we're leaking goals left and right, it winds up forcing the midfield to sit back more to try and help cover, which makes the transition to offense worse. It's likely why we've seen a ton of boot ball as well. If the midfield is sitting close to the defenders to keep them in check, the only real option is to launch it up field and hope for the best. All of this is on the FO. Horst and Schuler never should've been signed. Wingert should've been let go. We should've went in for a young promising outside back, or someone in their prime. Also they need to be good on offense. Between Acosta and the new guy, that'd give 2 options for rotation or outright starting spots if they performed better than Beltran and Phillips. We should've went in for a top CB 3 years ago to go with Glad. Having a CB group of good CB/Glad with backups of Maund, young CB with potential, and Schmidt, it would've looked a lot better than Glad, Maund, Schuler, Horst, Schmidt. You're not going to build a quality defense on the back of mediocrity. The FO barely gets a pass on the offensive pickups as well. Yura on paper appeared to be a good signing, but so far he seems determined to not be worth the cost. Savarino looks to be a solid pick, but we also signed Silva and Barrett when we could've looked into other options. Rusnak is good, but we've still not addressed a successor to KB, and Sunny is erratic at best. Mulholland is a good guy off the bench, but the fact that he's been getting so many starts shows just how bad the midfield has been. It's like every time I see a solid piece the FO has picked up, I see another 2-3 signings that any competent FO would've never signed.
During RSL's first season, we went 5-22-5 for 20 points. Right now, RSL is at 4-9-2 for 14 points, so to be the worse season of all, RSL would have to really embratsu hard and lose all remaining games. Unfortunately, the way things are going, that might be the only thing worth hoping for.
From Petke’s postgame: [About Houston’s defenders] “No disrespect to them, they’re not great—they’re good solid players—but the one thing they are is Men. Every one of them.” Even Dunny: [About RSL] “No desire. No desire to win—to keep the ball out of the back of your net.” It felt like a pickup game where only one team was keeping score.
Such a terrible game. Did we decide to not work on passing during this week's training? Our passing was terribad and resulted in costly giveaways. The team didn't look anything like the team we saw on Saturday. But, to Houston's credit, their team can actually finish the chances served to them on a platter. When Plata was lining up for the free kick I was really hoping Rusnak would take it. Plata's free kicks have been horrible this season, and getting a goal would just make him want to keep taking them. Of course he scored this one, so we get to look forward to more free kicks played into the stands. Our offense is anemic and toothless. Yura can't trap the ball to save his life, so it takes him 2-3 touches to set himself up to dribble or pass. We continue to play through balls and over-the-top balls that Yura has no chance getting to, or puts Plata out to far wide to be effective. It's just bad. Hopefully that all changes when Fernando Torres arrives during the summer transfer window.
I would say that our offense is really close to being pretty good. They created a good number of solid shooting opportunities, but then the guy who is supposed to shoot botched it, or the final pass wasn't on target. Our offense might be MLS quality if 1) we weren't playing from behind against packed defenses and 2) they could become finishers. I felt that we had as many chances to score at Houston did... just one team actually took theirs. Our defense sucks. Plain and simple, and yesterday, it was finally shown. A team hit the target when given the chance. Schuler was IMO the worst defender on the day... the guy got beat regularly, and he directly lead to the Schmidt own goal. In fact, Schmidts bad day in a few ways were due to Schuler. And partly being a step slow for an outside back against Houston's speed. The Corner kick goal against us pissed me off more than I think any of the others. We have the box full of defenders, and NOT A SINGLE FREAKING GUY decides to even step toward a player with the ball dribbling into the box. They litterally let him walk it in. The team had given up at at half time with the 3rd goal. Speaking of that, I felt the first half was a pretty unfortunate turn of events for RSL. Houston had some lucky bounces, and RSL was overall doing pretty well aside from some weak defending. But it seemed each goal they gave up, the team gave up more. The second half was a team just hoping for it all to end. There was no longer any fight in them. They had already lost. We need Glad and Acosta back, and we need another real Center Back. Period. This is getting dumb. The comment about Minnesota being on track to have a worse defense misses the fact that Minnesota has fixed their issues. Ours are just beginning. We are headed for a record unless this group can figure their crap out because we know reinforcements aren't coming after 3 years of hoping for them. /Long Winded Rant
The "Tony Beltran is our Savior" folks seem really quiet. He kept the first OG goal onside. Got skinned A LOT. I really don't get the approach this game from Petke. Houston has speed a lots of it. To go out there and say "we're gonna run at you on short rest with these players" was a recipe for disaster, IMO. A smarter coach realizes the limitations of his team against the other and packs it in. We gifted space and, because of it, lots of goals to Houston that were completely avoidable. Yes, the players deserve the brunt of the blame for that "performance". But our coach went into a game in which he could have shown a bit more intelligence and fell on his face
The really troubling thing with this roster is that I really can't point to any part of it and be confident it'll show up with any sort of consistency. GK is the strongest argument, but the creeping fear is Nicky is teetering on the wrong side of his talent and VanO is simply too old to count on for a long time (my opinion). Ironically, some people tweeted at Andy last night and he reassured us that "reinforcements are on the way". He didn't seem to like my reply of "yay, more wingers!" I'll be fine with stomaching this epically (possibly historically) bad team if the freedom is given to Petke to build a team under his vision in the summer and, more importantly, offseason. What concerns me, though, is that we have a GM that has shown some serious limitations in signing direct needs of the team while hemorrhaging money to veterans that shouldn't get the pay they are.
Andy has been talking about reinforcements coming on Twitter all season. We have Savarino, who I'm happy we have... but wasn't the pressing need. When the kids come back from the U20 World Cup... we'll have to bench a starter quality winger while still searching for someone capable of starting in central defense. Funny that just a few years ago we had gone years without a true winger. Now we are drowning in them.
So...that game was over the moment Plata abandoned his team on the corner kick goal. I believe it was Maund who was losing his mind right after the shot, and that is EXACTLY what I would expect a teammate to do. Petke will watch that video. The team will watch that video. I will call it now, either Plata sells the best apology EVER, or he is gone before the end of the season. A team simply cannot recover from giving up a goal like that easily. You want to know why they got dump-trucked? The team's defensive intensity and confidence that they would have help evaporated the moment Plata quit. The fact that he then stayed on the field to try and get HIS goal will hurt him with his teammates and coaches. Some dumb fans will claim he needs to play because he is scoring. I think he has become a cancer and needs to be gone ASAP.
Look, I agree Plata was awful on that play, but it wasn't just him. Alex proceeded to take like 3 extra touches after Plata turned off. NOBODY in a white shirt closed the space. KB stood on the six and did a great job shielding VanO from the ball. As did a few others in the six. Yes, Plata is the main culprit, but the rest of the team watched it play out and did nothing. The team was shit in this one. Don't put this on one player. The whole group should be ashamed of that performance and benched/punished accordingly. As for moving Plata: I'm all for it. Supposedly his agent is working with two Mexican clubs that are interested in him. Make them pay a decent enough transfer fee that we can keep Savarino and, hopefully, Lennon next season. I'll take those two over Plata all the time. Oh, and if any team calls asking about Yura, PLEASE MAKE THE MOVE
Thank heavens for my #embratsu, because I just laughed harder as this game went on. I was really disappointed that it didn't end 7-0. My thoughts: * I wasn't actively following RSL in Yura's glory days and I have never gotten why people love him so much. Is it because I don't have the past clouding my vision? Dude seems all right. Nice guy. Fantastic slow job when he's getting subbed out. As far as being a goal-scoring machine? I haven't seen it and I'm not sure why he's signed to the hefty contract he's signed to. * Plata was one of my favorites a couple years back, but I feel like he's lost his passion for this team. As much as I want him to return to the form he was in before, I'm not confident that we'll ever see THAT Plata again. Might be better for everyone involved to give him a fresh start elsewhere. * I know most of you aren't as high on Justen Glad as I am, but I think it'll make a big difference to have him back. The back line just seems to gel better when he's back there. * On that same note, I think the team will look a lot better when all of the national team call ups are over. Lennon is a freaking beast, Saucedo shows a ton of potential, and see above re Glad. While I will be the first to say WE SUCK right now, we will suck less after we get the full roster back. * Being a fan of this team is like being in a really unhealthy relationship (as we've all said before). You know it'll just keep breaking your heart, but you just can't turn away. I'm still watching every game and I've accepted that we suck, and I still love the team as much as I hate them. * I think DLH gets a bad rap here. I think he's doing some great things for soccer here in Utah and doesn't get enough credit for that. I do think he has blinders on for some of the current staff that needs to get moved and I hope that'll get resolved eventually. * RE the game last night, my husband's take was this: Houston was more fit, more physical, faster, and more technical. The only way to succeed in a case like that is to move the ball quickly before the other team can get into position to defend or else you stand no chance. Did we ever stand a chance? * We aren't good.