The SJE and PTFC results were surprising and welcome. On a side note the Timbers Army chanting “P-T-F-C” sounded much like “Pity-F-C”, which tickled me because of the ATL forward playing against them.
My thoughts on this one: It was apparent from very early on that LAFC was the better team. And not by some slim margin, but by a lot. In fact, it felt like watching Man City play against pretty much anyone except Spurs (how funny is that) and just utterly dominate the game. Every time LAFC had the ball we dropped into a pretty deep shell. It made sense, there is just too much talent up front on that team to try to play them open. But that killed any chances we had to spring the other direction. You combine that deep lying defense with tired legs and you got what you saw for much of the first half. Like has been said by others, Johnson should have been on sooner. I would have started him over Kreilach. I'm not sure what the thought was with Kreilach (are we ever going to move past the karate kick goal?) but it wasn't working. The first time Herrera got red carded looked almost exactly like the goal that Monterrey scored against us in 2011 to win the CCL. Our defense was chasing shadows after putting ourselves in a tough spot. I'm happy VAR came to the rescue, but it was a warning of how bad things were in that game. Zimmerman's first yellow was dumb, I mean really dumb. No, it was not a foul (I can't stand how easily Kreilach goes down) but just leave the ball and move on, man. With how that game was going we likely would have kicked the set piece to y'all anyways. The second yellow for Zimmerman was very warranted, though I'm not sure Toledo fully realized Zimmerman was on a yellow until he had committed to giving it out. I know the laws of the game are that any yellow card is a yellow card, but when it comes to a second yellow... I dunno, that just didn't feel second yellow worthy to me. That was the moment for RSL to change tactics and really go for the game. Instead we just kept doing the same thing and hoping LAFC would give us a chance. Don't get me wrong, we weren't completely out of the game, but nothing changed at that moment. Which is a huge strike against Freddy. Halftime should have been a huge adjustment for RSL. Blood in the water type stuff. Instead, Bradley showed why he deserves coach of the year and tweaked his lineup just a bit. The idea to move Herrera to cover Vela made sense on paper, but I'm not sure he did all that much better than Donald Duck Toia would have. Getting sent off for a really dumb tackle (even if he is "playing for the ball" there is no way he is getting to it without going through Vela) showed a lack of maturity there. From then on, LAFC just flexed on us. They already were, but it became very apparent just how much better they were once they had things level in players and up a goal. I'm not sure what the instructions were that Silva and Onuhoa got on defending Diomande, but they were god awful. If you just showed me their decisions in tackles without grass I would have told you they were defending breakaways in hockey. How many times did they just fall over in defending him? Horrid nights from both of them A point to Freddy for subbing off KB, though. Happy to see him realize that those old legs were not working at all in this game. Bofo was back and doing Bofo (the bad kind) things. I'm not going to fault him for the second goal like I've seen elsewhere. We essentially went 2 in the back once Bofo came on. Asking him to bust his lungs back to cover a guy on the top of the box just isn't smart tactics. I'm not upset by this loss in the bit. It would have been a huge rallying point had we won, and a really good point had we found a draw. But losing? That was expected. That LAFC team is better than ATL when they came here with Tata. They're talented everywhere and are committed to the style across the board. This Saturday is a must win game, though, no doubt about that. Freddy has had a lot of games go his way since coaching, now he has to show he can get the players to shake off the loss and move forward in a game they should win.
In the 2019 regular season @realsaltlake are 11-3-3, +19 goal differential when Justen Glad plays.When he doesn't they're 1-7-1, -15 GD.That's Chara-esque.— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) August 18, 2019
So we are saying that our defense is anchored by Justin Glad. I guess the next question is who is better to play the other center back, Silva or Nedum?
Nedum, and it's not even close, IMO. Silva showed improvement, but Nedum is the better partner for the pair.
I am chastising myself for not including a note about the away supporters. They were amazing. Major kudos to them. Amazing what an organized group of a hundred or two people can do in that stadium
Absolutely. They were quite impressive and were rather motivational to the RSL fans around us in Section 25. At least that's how it looked and sounded to me. The south end definitely needs to be addressed but I seriously doubt anything happens to fix it any time soon.
I sort of assumed it was a combination of him playing Saturday-Wednesday, and taking a knock to the head on Wednesday. I would guess he starts against Colorado.
Glad has always been, historically, the CB that gets the max time given his age. The knock to the head would make sense if he was held out of the 18 - he was there. I think it was the wrong move by Freddy. Silva and Onuhoa were so bad that they had lower ratings than herrera on whoscored. Herrera got ejected which typically moves the player to the bottom of the group almost by default. In fact, a seriously damning stat from this game is that only two players had a higher rating than Herrera - Rimando and Rusnak. I didn't think Herrera was amazing in this game. The stats suggest that, too. We just were bad and really that should go to LAFC. They were amazing.
Holt played very well against LAFC on the road. I was hoping he'd be back in the mix instead of Silva, who has played a lot lately too.
Impressive is an understatement. Wish our supporters would take note because I wasn't even mad, I just basked in jealously as they set the ambiance for the entire game.
Well, this is interesting. Nedum is named to the MLS Team of the Week. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/08/19/team-week-presented-audi-zlatan-takes-charge-week-24 I guess you get named to the Team of the Week if you have an outstanding game, so I'm confused.
He was extremely good against Seattle, although I think Glad was probably even better, and the recognition is for team of the week. So I guess an excellent performance plus a mediocre one equals team of the week.
Its not Chara-esque. This data is a great example of how deceiving statistics can be, and why people shouldn’t jump to conclusions when when Doyle posts it. A look at the 7 games we lost when he didn’t start shows the following: LAFC- twice DCU on the road Seattle on the road Red Bull on the road San Jose on the road FCD in which Kreilach got a red card in the 17th. I contend that we wouldn’t get a result in more than one of those games (and probably not that) had Glad played. Maybe the GD would be less. Maybe. The data seems to show Glad is our best CB. He isn’t. He’s played well the last 3 weeks or so, but didn’t prior to that. Nedum is easily our best CB.
That, or Doyle just getting his name out there. I can’t really fault him for that since that’s part of his profession. Kicking the ant bed, so to speak.
Bit of a side note here, but was anybody else who watched the broadcast mystified about why/how it took Dunny so long on the VAR play for the pk/red card call back to realize that the call was about a possible hand ball on the line and not the tackle before that. I sat there watching the replays and all the conversation and couldn't believe how fixated on that tackle, what they were looking at, who said what, etc... without every thinking to consider a possible handball was seen.
That was pretty odd. You'd think the (first) red card to Herrera would have tipped Dunny off to the possibility that the penalty wasn't given for the tackle.
I appreciate the not-so-subtle shot there. It's really sad that all the RSL supporters groups fractured and have been unable to create a group culture. (Yes, I know most of the history.) At the end of the day, RSL's organized support is near the bottom of the league.
If you read the rest of what he wrote, it's harder to argue with Doyle's point. There's nothing in here that isn't accurate; it was on display painfully on Saturday: "It comes down to two things: His passing and his mobility. Glad isn’t a great passer (I’d file him under “pretty good with potential for more”), per se, but he’s miles better in terms of both ball progression and accuracy than the other guys on the RSL depth chart. So when he’s out there, RSL can build more comfortably and more quickly, which helps their raft of tricky attackers get the ball earlier and in better spots. If turnovers do happen, Glad’s mobility plays its role. If Glad’s on the field RSL simply don’t give up transition goals because he has elite range and speed for a CB, and generally reads plays very early. So when Glad’s on the field they can take more risks, which helps their attack, but those risks have a much lower chance of blowing up in their face, which helps their defense. In his 17 games this season they’ve conceded just once on the break. Against LAFC this weekend, with Glad on the bench, they got destroyed on the break even when up a man. It’s been that way all season long."
Doyle is spot on - and Glad not playing in those seven games shouldn't be viewed as a slight to him but rather a damning point to Petke. Why was he rotating a player with such solid stats in other games in those games? Glad can only play in the ones that he is picked for - and he's been pretty damn good in those