One thing I do like is that this team is dangerous or at least more dangerous than they have been in a long time. Need to make some serious moves in the off season to shore up this defense or it won't matter one iota how much the offense has improved.
You're right! Montreal moved the ball really well. There is work to do, but it's not everywhere. Right now I'd say we're 2-3 players short of being competitive for hosting playoff games. Our weak spots are pretty big holes..mostly in the back (given Silva's form of late). When RSL was very good there weren't a lot of holes, and we had starter quality on the bench.
Watching this game and I kept thinking how we would be above the playoff line right now if we had only ditched Cassar after last season and gave the team to Petke then. There's been big improvements since he took over but the hole we dug ourselves into is just insurmountable. We weren't horrible today but the gravity of the result is magnified because of how low we are in the standings. It's season ticket renewal time and maybe that is good timing because I think we should stop thinking about the playoffs and just ride out the rest of the season and hope for a good run next year after Petke gets a full preseason with this team.
The rule change hasn't limited referees from calling only ball to hand, the MTL players hand was out in an unnatural position, I've seen plenty of penalties where it was ball to hand and the ref still pointed at the spot. Shoe on other foot, Penso calls that against us. Ball to hand makes no sense half the time, for example, in a direct free kick players in the wall throw an arm overhead and can deflect. Yup, its an unnatural arm position, but so was MTLs players arm tonight. It's a penalty. MTL defender put studs straight on Lennon's foot, it's a foul, did he embellish? Sure, but who is Penso to say that didn't impede Lennon?
We didn't suck (except Beckerman... he basically passed the ball to Montreal as if it was his primary responsibility), but Montreal was better.
We're really grasping if we think that handball should have been a PK or a foul. He had his back to goal and the ball took a ricochet and hit the back of his arm before he even saw the ball. Comparing it to past horrible calls that went the other way isn't a good argument. Looking at it objectively you have to admit there's no PK there, and if the situation was reversed and a PK was awarded to MTL I think we would all be furious.
Does the whistle go to mouth if that happens outside the 18? Yup... Totally should have been reviewed by VAR, but even with VAR were not going to get the benefit of review because we have Center Refs can kibosh and they have demonstrable bias against RSL. Just look at what happened to Dallas last week against Colorado, Dallas fouls a Colorado player a full 20 seconds before Dallas marches down and scores a goal off the turnover that was enabled by the foul. VAR is reviewed and the goal is wiped off because the foul setup the break. Just like this case, the handball enables Montreal to turn and break. But RSL gets screwed by a ref that screws us over the rest of the night. If y'all can't see that, youre blind and you didn't read what VAR could be used for, all goals can be reviewed for serious errors.
Plus, it was a long way from our goal. They moved the ball upfield like a hot knife through butter. The goal was not a result of anything near the Impact goal. It was a direct result of slow and unaware defenders.
Welcome back to reality, folks. This team isn't a playoff team currently. Too many holes against decent teams. I don't know about you, but getting that 6th playoff spot just to go on the road for one game and lose isn't exactly what I'm hoping for. I saw excuses on twitter that losing Marcelo is what killed this team defensively. I'm not going to say that wasn't part of it, but we were bad while he was on, too. What are the odds on Silva playing again this year? Are we about to suffer the "it's only tightness... wait it's a pull... wait he needs surgery" routine? I simply do not get why Chris Wingert starts. Nothing about his game improves this team. In fact, he's detrimental to so many aspects. It needs to ********ing stop already. Kyle Beckerman showed why his contract needs to either not be picked back up, or signed at a significantly lower number come this offseason. He can't keep up with any team willing to play fast transition soccer. He got embarrassed multiple times with the pace of the game. Why is Sunny such an asshole? I like him most of the time, but once he gets into it with someone he makes KB look level headed. If you don't think Brooks dove I'm not sure what you were watching. He got stepped on outside the box, sure, but then proceeded to take another step or two and THEN fall inside the box. I want that booked all the time. That's not a handball. Stop (trying to) punishing players for having arms. Bofo does so much good in the midfield and then is so ********ing awful around the 18. I don't get it. Why is this team so bad in front of goal? Speaking of which, ******** Yura with a 1000 solar eclipses. I swear to god he gets a chance every ********ing game similar to that one and either finds the one way to get it saved by the GK (hey, all gk's look good if you shoot right at them) or puts it over the crossbar. I think Albert Rusnak has a lot of skill and potential, but this game was a reminder of what a true playmaker is like. Piatti is something else to watch and completely owned RSL whenever he was on the ball. Tony Beltran puts in his one decent cross he gets every 10 games and Brooks goes all Stevie Wonder on the thing and completely misses. Serious, why is this team so bad in front of goal? This is what it would look like if we somehow, miraculously, got above the red line. I don't want to watch this. The San Jose game this week will be interesting. Does Petke pull a Cassar and not rotate players? He has to, right? PLEASE ********ING TELL ME WINGERT WONT BE PLAYING!?!? Leaving only Plata home seems weird to me. I won't read more into it for now, but that was really a weird thing IMO. Hey, at least we're not the cRapids and scoring epic 40 yard own goals...