I liked some of what I saw from Silva when he was with DCU, but his lack of effort coming on late, with RSL being down a goal and down a man was outright appalling. He should be buried deep on the bench once Allen and Plata return. On the other hand, the width created with Saucedo and Lennon was great to see. They really opened up the middle of the field in our attacking third as a result. Both players also put in some great crosses. You can also see the on field chemistry that the two of them have. Definitely something for fans to be excited about for the near (and potentially long-term) future.
I actually thought that was a great move. Saucedo and Lennon tucked in deeper which gives you even more midfield presence than going with two holding mids. You would likely have had to sacrifice one of those two to bring in Sunny and the two of them were the best players on the field. The only thing you potentially lose is some bite, but I'm not sure that factored into this one at all. Set piece defending was the killer.
Kyle really screwed us over today. The youth were VERY promising. Even if it wasn't great, at least the team was fighting and entertaining up to the second yellow (and even a moment or two after that). Bofo and Lennon are ready for this level. They just need time. It was fun to see both of them go 1v1 and make things happen. Rusnak is legit too. Now we just need to find a 20-something replacement for KB, and a legit CB. And a better 2nd option for Yura. And....... EMBRATSU!!!!
You forgot Rusnak. Plus whoever else will still be injured, or become injured before next game. This ref tonight was bad. I can understand Mulholland's yellow, since I can understand cracking down on chasing down players. Beckerman's felt incredibly soft. He barely turned and said something to the ref. He wasn't even yelling like he normally does. I love how the ref didn't even talk to Jones at all about the challenge. His second yellow was a stupid challenge for sure though, and one he never should've went in for. The second half was just terrible. Why would your first sub be Barrett? At that point the midfield was starting to look a little gassed, so I likely would've subbed in Sunny for Mulholland. Puts some fresh legs on while removing one of the players on a yellow. I also found it laughable that he waited clear until the 80th to use the 3rd sub. We could've used some energy sooner. I'm also not sure we had any sort of tactics in the second half. Most of the time we just blindly punted the ball up field to nobody and let LA come back and attack. Naturally, we get one good attempt that Barrett can't put away. Granted, Yura has a tendency to miss those as well, so who knows if he would've been any better. Gotta love just allowing a player a free shot in the box. Absolutely horrible defending that had nothing to do with being down a man. Even their second goal was something that several players should've cleared. With better play we could've held onto a win, or at least a draw. With how the second half went, we fully deserved to lose. The post game tried to say we shouldn't consider firing Cassar until May/June, which is laughable. They pretty much said because they gave him a contract, we shouldn't get rid of him so soon. I'm sorry, but nobody should have a given time frame. If things are going downhill, the best course of action is to get rid of him, and try and right the ship before it's too late. There's no point in waiting until it's too late to make the change.
When we signed Barrett one of our BS posters wrote that he is one of the best in the league at positioning himself and one of the worst finishers in the league. We certainly saw that tonight.
1. We all knew the defense would struggle tonight. Even when healthy they aren't very good. With the injuries I expected a much worse result than it turned out. Both LA goals were the result of plainly bad defense. 2. We were fortunate that we were basically playing against Galaxy 2. 3. Kyle's lack of intelligence when dealing with referees continues to disappoint. Biting his tongue is not a hit he will take for the team. I imagine he indicated to the referee that he should go f*** himself. Instead the ref f'd him. When he got the first yellow I told my wife he probably wouldn't last the match. His temper and lack of maturity crippled RSL. I thought Shuler's yellow was similarly a result of stupidity. 4. Lennon was a terrific surprise. Honestly, I didn't expect much from him. We have got to make sure he is a regular on the field. 5. I know some posters here just hate the tactic of taking it wide and knocking crosses into the box, but I enjoyed seeing it. It was the first semblance of a promising tactic I have seen from RSL in quite a while. I don't know if it was planned or not, but it happened. 6. Nicky's save on Jones' header was incredible. 7. One of my most frustrating moments was when Rusnak had the ball on the left side of the LA box dribbling around waiting for someone, anyone,to make a run. The back post was undedended, yet no one even looked at it. He ended up just taking a shot that he knew had no chance. 8. Next week's match has the potential to be a disaster. 9. Officiating like we saw tonight is why I stopped purchasing season tickets a few years ago. It makes the matches unwatchable to a significant extent.
Schuler's yellow came via a complete dive, it shouldn't have even been a foul, let alone a yellow from Stoica. Schuler merely put his hand on the LA defender's body and the defender flung himself to the ground, it was a total joke on replay. The first goal is on Barrett, just awful marking, I don't blame the defensive unit for that one. The 2nd goal was the one I imagined us giving up, getting stretched, being a man down having to cover too much ground. We again gave up the far post run without marking runners, a fatal flaw of Cassar teams, it was to be expected. Other than that and the Jones free header the defense was so terribly awful given the situation (being down a man), in fact I thought LA's attack was dreadful until after the 60' or so. I don't think any posters hate the tactic of crossing the ball into the box, in fact I think most would agree that the time when RSL was most potent in the attack was when we had an outside back (Russell) who could generate width and put in amazing service to the box to a target forward (Sabo) who was capable of finishing in front of goal on a regular basis. No, the reason most posters hate the tactic now is because we don't have players capable of putting in regularly good service into the box and we don't have a target forward who is capable of finishing in front of goal on a regular basis. I nearly fell out of my seat watching A: Bofo put in a great piece of service into a dangerous area of the box WITH PACE, and B: an RSL player (Lennon) making a dangerous run and actually getting on to the end of that service resulting in a legitimately good chance in front of goal. Yura did well to get his head on the ball and direct it towards goal (which resulted in the goal), but credit Rusnak for delivering him a good ball with some zip, if that's a typical Wingert or Beltran cross it wouldn't have had that pace and there's zero chance Yura is able to direct it on goal in a way that doesn't trickle to the keeper's waiting arms. Basically what I want is "play the damn kids", seriously, if Lennon, Saucedo, Glad, Rusnak, Allen, and Velazco are healthy they should be getting regular minutes as much as possible. I could not care less about playing Silva and honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Allen play minutes at right back over Tony if it allows us to get Saucedo or Lennon on the field more. Really though I just want Cassar gone and I want a coach that can see the potential in guys like those I listed above, knows how to utilize them properly, and gets them regular minutes. If we can get rid of guys like Schuler, Maund, or Horst, bring in a LEGIT star CB to pair with Glad, dump Wingert and Barrett, and move to a consistent 18 lineup with (s)Rimando, Beltran, (s)Glad, (s)Phillips, (s)Beckerman, (s)Sunny, (s)Allen, (s)Saucedo, (s)(New CB), Velazco(sub), (s)Rusnak, Lennon(sub), (s)Yura, (s)Plata, one of Schuler/Maund/Schmidt, Luke, Van Oekel, and one other guy I would be happy with that. (s) = starter, (sub) = first off bench players. We need to replace Beckerman at the end of the year, it's time to move on, we might not even have much success with this lineup, but I think playing those kids and bringing in a star CB would set us up in the next 2 years to be competitive.
Okay, not a long time fan of RSL, maybe 4-5 seasons only. Is this the worst start to a season in their history or was there a worse one?
I've gotta cut this into two sections this week. One for RSL, one for the officiating. The Ref (briefly) I disagree with Dunny a lot lately, but he made a really good point about Stoica in this one - he had zero feel for the game. The KB and Luke yellows were really soft and simply didn't happen to anyone wearing a white jersey. Go watch what those two do and then go watch how LA responds to the supposed Yura stomp and tell me what is different. Speaking of inconsistent - LA committed 11 fouls in the first half to RSL's 3, yet RSL had 3 yellow cards and LA had just one (given right at the end of the half). This doesn't make sense. It continued into the second half, as well. Go watch what was apparently a yellow card for RSL and go watch hard fouls on RSL. There were multiple instances of an RSL tackle apparently being card worthy yet the LA one not. Rusnak's yellow is a carbon copy of the tackle by Jones on KB that resulted in the double yellow cards to RSL. Rusnak got a card, Jones did not. I'm fine with the second yellow to KB being given. That's a yellow card. I would argue it's not worthy of a second yellow, but I know that's a slippery slope argument. The issue I have with that foul being given a yellow there, is that it wasn't given a yellow on numerous other occasions. The prime example being the foul in nearly the exact same spot in the second half by Lletget on Rusnak. Stoica played advantage (which instantly was offside and he didn't pull back for the foul) and then gave a warning to Lletget later. Last point on the ref: Alessandrini should have been sent off prior to the LA equalizer. His bullshit handball in the box was the most deserving of second yellow card offenses he committed. That was his second handball inside the attacking box. He was a HUGE part of their attack, so the ref actually handling that how he should have would have altered the game, I think. RSL With that out of the way, the RSL side of things. Tremendous start to the game. Whoever did tape for this game circled Romney (#4 LB) for LA and told Brooks to run in and at him all the time. It was really fun to watch. I'm not sure that will work every game, but this one it was a great idea. If RSL is going to play as direct and to the wings as we apparently are, we have to have the opposite side winger making runs into the box constantly. Yura was able to get his header off because he was isolated on the CB. This was because Bofo had made a run into the far side of the box. Without that run (as we often have seen from RSL before) the defense wouldn't be structured the same. It kinda sucks that Rusnak got called in with Slovakia because he is really starting to find his feet with this team. His movement off the ball grew as the game wore on and he looked more and more dangerous. I hope a week away with the national team doesn't interrupt that progression. Eating crow again: Justin Schmidt played a pretty good game. The issue he is going to have in this league is that opponents will do film on him and realize he does not handle pressure well while on the ball. He can hit a 60 yard ball pretty damn accurately with time and space (he got the ball into the attack that RSL eventually scores on) but even token pressure forces him to spray the ball wildly. That will be his area to improve upon if he's going to be really successful in this league. Ish already pointed it out once, but I'll say it again: Phillips was atrocious this game. His horrendous giveaway lead to the KB second yellow. Further, he simply couldn't keep up with Alessandrini. Granted, he is one of their best players, but it wasn't elaborate stuff that Alessandrini was beating him with. Sometimes it was really routine. Cassar rolled the dice on this one with how he reacted to the red card and thus has to own the result. I understood the idea of not taking off a winger or Yura for Sunny. He wanted to push more. However, that decision comes with an abundance of risk. We sacrificed the middle of the field after the 60th minute. We simply couldn't keep up with LA - especially Jones - and they made us pay for it. No, the goals didn't directly come from that, but LA never gets the ball as deep as they did on both of their goals without mowing over the lack of midfield from RSL. To elaborate further, not putting Sunny in asked Rusnak to play more of an 8 and told the wingers (who were already gassed from a first half of sprints) to cover yet more ground. AND it essentially put Yura on an island to chase down hopeful clearances. Jeff went for it, I get why he did, but he has to own the negative result of it. A direct quote from my brother: "Luis Silva is that girl that you took on a few dates while you actually had a girlfriend. You thought it was such a fun time and that, in different circumstances, you two could be something. Then you breakup with your girlfriend and call Silva up to go on another date. You then find out that the reason you thought it was so fun wasn't because of her, it was just the thrill of taking her out while having a girlfriend." ******** Chad Barret No, seriously, ******** Chad Barret Play the kids next week. All of them. Nobody over 25 can be in the lineup outside maybe VanO. What do we have to lose?
/Chad Barrett is a God mode on/ It's too bad that Barrett didn't get that equalizer. /Chad Barrett is a God mode off/
Actually that play WAS Chad Barrett in a nut-shell. Great pass, great run to a dangerous spot, inexplicable miss at the end. He is who he is. I really wish Yura had the motor and vision to make the runs Chad does.
MOTM on the LA Boards: Kyle Beckerman. Kinda hard to argue against that Also, even they made some passing comments about the lack of cards in their direction. That's saying something
Is there some history tween RSL and that guy? I felt he was looking to give KB the 2nd yellow. On the Shuler yellow the same thing. He had just lectured Shuler. Shuler then stupidly bodies the same defender who was hoping for it and dove.
I think that maybe KB said some things concerning the parentage of the referee and that could have been part of it. In other words, don't piss the ref off by running your mouth.
To be fair, blaming the ref would be pretty reasonable. BUT, the substitutions were flat our idiotic. Barrett should never see the field for this team.
We were making plans to attend the game at RBNY until the loss last weekend, then this loss against LA cinched it. Won't pay money to see a team that we have no faith is even trying. They don't care to try for Cassar. Now, given that the youngsters tried is great! But, Cassar was incompetent and ruined their efforts. And, we knew that he'd put the old guard back in, to the extent he could. I have no faith right now. I have loyalty, but not faith.
agreed on this... I was yelling at the TV to give the yellow for this because Alessandrini held his hand up purposefully. That was an intentional handball = yellow!
Nope... it's a bit tempting, but the owner is still the owner. A lot of my lack of faith is due to the occupant of that office. The team right now reminds me of the Atlanta Falcons of the 1970s and 80s.
I did ok too. I'm glad that DLH gave Cassar all of last season to try and prove himself. I was pretty vocal about that. But it's obvious that the team is going in the wrong direction. I don't think it's all on Cassar, but you have to start somewhere.