There's a case where we're terribly unbalanced. Three Sounders break and we have only Onuoha and Herrera back; Herrera has to come central to cover Rodriguez who is drifting centrally, which leaves the outside runner uncovered and he almost beat Herrera to the ball.
That rebound on the freekick coulda-shoulda been something, but Savarino couldn't control if quickly enough. Oh, there's a legit chance that Johnson puts way wide.
Tate Schmitt with a run at the end of the game? I wouldn't have guessed that, even with a depleted roster. EDIT: I just checked the bench again, and yeah - that's as thin a bench as we've had in years. Should have expected it after all.
Arriaga is listed as a defender, but he's clearly not in to play defense. Seemed like a good spot for Portillo. I am not disappointed either way.
So is this another game like LAFC, where we have a noble loss and are kind of okay with it? Still a fourth straight loss. Not as bad as DC or Dallas and perhaps something to build off of, but we're falling far off the pace quickly.
I guess I don’t understand why Seattle backed off of the high pressure in the 2nd half. It was eating us up in the 1st half.
NO. MORAL. VICTORIES. I expect RSL will come out very flat footed, AGAIN, thinking that they actually did something against Seattle. My guess, loss number 5 in a row. This team doesn’t know how to create or score goals consistently and I doubt that changes anytime soon. Or not.
I was late getting to this one as the daughter had dance. If you ever want to see just how many things you can cram into a day, go to a dance competition. These things are bonkers. Anyways, I turn it on and we're down 1-0 because of course we are. I went back and watched the opening 20 at 2 times the speed. I gotta say, if we played that fast I would love this game so much more than I already do. Anyways, we were bossed to start this game. From the word go, again, we were on our heels. Word is out that if you press us deep in possession we're not going to boot it long. Instead, we're going to try and pass our way out. Which is noble in a sense, and can lead to some good chances... if we had the players to do it. I also think that opposing teams have figured out we're not a group that starts fast after a break and so applying pressure to start a game will cause problems for us. We should have given up more than a goal in the first 30-40, without a doubt. It was a lot of last second tackles or Seattle just not being lethal that let us off the hook of being down multiple goals. From then on, though, we found our footing in the game. In fact, for stretches we were obviously the better side. There was a slight shift in our tactics, I believe, as we looked to be playing much more of a 4-4-2 in possession as opposed to the 3-4-3 in games past. This started with the obvious: KB wasn't dropping between the CB's to be the deepest player. Instead, Silva and Onuhoa were the deep players roughly 15 yards apart and not all that advanced up the pitch. From there, the outside backs were much more reserved in pushing forward. They still got caught up a few times, but it wasn't every bloody time like it was against FCD. Additionally, Everton had KB to work with in the middle and Rusnak was showing up as a false 9, more than anything else, with Baird and Savarino providing width. When he is on, Savarino is our best player individually. He has that rare ability of getting the ball at his feet, taking a player on, and looking comfortable with the pressure. Most of the other players on this team defer from playing in tight spaces, Jefferson thrives in them. In this game, he stood out because of it. I think Johnson had a decent enough game, but nothing to write home about. He struggled to stay connected to the team at times and blew his chance to get a goal late in the first half when Frei spilled a save. Still, I wasn't disappointed in his play and was curious to see what he could do more. That he was subbed kind of surprised me. Especially as early as it was. Not having a player who is comfortable to use their left foot is extremely painful to watch on this team. Herrera will not use it unless he absolute has to. Savarino is the same way. Yet we put them wide on that side and essentially give up using a good portion of the pitch. While we might have helped ourselves with getting a turf pitch to play on here in SLC, it is so much nicer than the Seattle turf. That stuff looked like carpet out there. The ball refused to settle down and made for moments of really painful soccer on the eyes. I expected a loss - a much worse one in fact - so I'm not walking away from this one as irritated as I was last week. But we've lost 4 in a row now. That's flat out not acceptable. I don't care if we played 4 straight road games (we almost have) it's just not good enough to be consistently losing. It's too early in the year for this, but it's hard not to say that Orlando this weekend is a must win game. A win would put us at 7 points through 7 games, which isn't great, but it keeps us at pace with the red line early in the season. If you would have told me, before the season started, that we would be level with or have more points than Atlanta, NYRB, NYCFC, and Portland I would have thought we were on fire. Instead, here we are... What a weird season so far.