Why in the hell did Wingert start over Acosta? That was one thing I couldn't stop talking about with my roommate during the game, "oh look, there's Wingert getting smoked down the wing again, sure wish we had Acosta in there..."
Not just that, but the difference between Acosta getting key assists in two recent games, and WIngert trying to work into the offense was notable.
For those who want to know, this draw combined with wins by Seattle, Portland, and San Jose, probably means RSL needs to average at least 2.00 PPG the rest of the way to make the playoffs. In the vernacular of the MLS:N&A board, they're Toast.
We're hoping for Chad ********ing Barrett to come in and replace our forwards? Jesus Christ. Can that be our tagline? I think that sums up our season perfectly.
As I was watching RSL try and breakdown Houston late in the second half up a man I couldn't help but think, "Wow, the scrubs from the Monarchs and RSL were more dangerous breaking trying to breakdown ManU." WTF? This team needs an enema. Or a whole lot of changes. I do like that Petke has made them dangerous to the point that teams feel they need to park the bus against them but for crying out loud lets get the ball on frame. Not a Bofo fan. Sorry. I think Hernandez needs to take that sub one of these games.
Does this team have an answer to bunker ball? I honestly feel like we are the smallest and shortest team in the league (can't back it up with stats) and that we do not have any option at striker that would allow the team to be effective crossing the ball in from the wings. Taking that option off the table severely limits the effect Lennon can have on the game and lets teams clog the middle endlessly.
Speaking of bunker ball, is crossing the ball from the wings the only tried-and-true-since-the-start-of-time way to breakdown a team playing bunker ball? I have often thought that long shots from outside the box with numbers of players blocking the goalie's view (a la ice hockey) as another way.
Due to some scheduling issues and family being out of town, I had to give up my ticket for this one to play dad to the kiddos. At the time (before the game) I was kind of annoyed. During and after the game though? Relief So I watched this game on TV and I have to say that the RioT is a totally different experience that way. It's not "bad" per say, but A LOT of the atmosphere is lost that way. I don't feel like that happens to other stadiums. Was this game just especially bad or do we not come across on TV that well? Whatever, just a note I found interesting. ********ing Chris Wingert shouldn't be in the gameday 18 anymore, let alone the ********ing starting XI. I like a lot of what Petke does, but this simply has to stop. It's moronic and achieves nothing. Glad and M Silva look really rough out there together. They don't make horrible mistakes, but they don't have a good connection yet. I hope it's just a timing thing. I like each of them individually, but as a partnership (so far) it's been off. News that isn't new: Tony Beltran is useless going forward. Our front four make a hell of a midfield. They're pretty awful in front of goal against a defense that actually tries/is remotely good. Luis Silva is far too slow and inaccurate to be "the guy" for our team. So much is made of how much he connects plays. That's great. But we have that in Rusnak. We don't have the players around Silva to play with a false 9. Taking 21 shots and not putting a single one on frame is actually impressive in how bad it is. Houston should have scored. I have no idea how that guy missed the header off the corner, but that was the most clear cut chance of the night. Plata is really fun to watch, but also equally frustrating. He showed multiple times that he can get in behind the defense, but it seems he can't do that AND shoot. It's either he takes a poor shot from outside, or makes moves to get in behind and cross. Lost are the days he would beat a defender, cut inside, and let loose. Please don't play Brooks at RB ever again. At least we didn't get our asses kicked like we did in Houston. However, it must be noted that Houston respected us so little that they rested all of their offensive weapons. Elis and Cubo, especially, would have been difference makers if they would have played just a half. The gameplan to beat us is out there. Sit in and frustrate us until we stretch ourselves too thin in the back. I don't blame a single team that does it. We simply don't have the players to break down a compact D. If you play us open, we can burn you, but against a stout defense we look anemic. Sure, DC is bad, but I see nothing from this team in the past 3 games that suggests we'll even snag a point. It's time to experiment with the young guys and phase out the old ones. Please, Petke, try something different.
You need accurate long range shooters. outside Rusnak, I wouldn't trust many guys on this team to hit the target from more than 30 out.
Hmmmm 15, maybe some things look different on TV? In the stadium, Brooks at outside back was a welcome change to watching Beltran muck up the attack. Wingert, well, was just as bad in person as he was on TV. I particularly liked when he mis-trapped the best weighted switch of play in the relatively short history of the club (Rusnak) and then refused to attack the whole rest of the first half, which screwed up the offensive flow. in the 2nd, the Dynamo identified him as the weak link and went right at him over and over. Oh, and Petke...why? Wingert is a break in case of emergency sub at this point of his career. Stop playing him please. Between Silva and Yura, RSL now has 1/2 of a 9. Silva can at least link play and looks to bring his teammates in to the final 1/3. Yura is basically worthless at this point. i was at the game with a newby to RSL and asked her to identify who the most expensive player was on the team. She gave up after 10 guesses and never got to the "old, dad-bod, slow player." (Her words...ouch Yura.) In person Glad and M Silva would get a solid B. Right now I'm not sure that Glad really knows who he is as a center back yet, so you have to excuse M Silva for not knowing how to read him. At least the physical and technical abilities of the pair are up to par. In person, there were moments when RSL looked like the RSL of old...the team you couldn't high pressure because it would solve the tight spaces and be in your final 1/3 immediately. Those moments did NOT include Wingert, Beltran or Yura. As they are currently playing, I think RSL gets points v DC and may even win. If RSL actually gets space to attack into (See LA and Portland) they are very dangerous. Assuming that they figure out how to actually hit the goal. Oh, and if any team can survive being toasted and get the Lazarus award this year, it would be RSL. Strength of schedule for RSL the rest of the way has its opposition averaging an anemic1.07 points/game. I'd prefer that RSL just crap out soon so Petke can figure out who fits in his system. The 2 year delay in getting a competent center back combined with signing Yura still leaves me thinking RSL needs an upgrade at GM.
I'd argue that having dribblers is the better way to break a bunker. Crosses are always harder to accurately hit, especially with a compact defense. Having a couple of good dribblers means they consistently beat their man, which causes someone to have to shift to mark him. That's when you start to get some gaps for players to move into an exploit.
eh, relying on someone to dribble and breakdown a defense is a pretty hard gig. A compact D will just funnel the player away from goal or into situations they simply can't get out of. Petke, IMO, nailed it when he said there should have been better quick passing and movement to break them down. Slowing the game down as much as we did in parts just played into Houston's style. 1 and 2 touch soccer was the way to go. We did alright with this and even created decent enough chances. The problem was that we simply couldn't put a shot on frame.
As much as Yura has been a complete dud this go around with RSL, we need to consider how the signing looked at the time it was made. The guy left us while he was developing and climbing as a player, he made some important goals for us his final season. Add that to the fact that he did have some solid work in Denmark and Russia, and IIRC, nearly everyone in this forum was pretty excited that 1) we were bringing him back and 2) Hansen was dropping some big money on a player. Fast forward a couple of seasons, and we can look back and see that it didn't work out. Yes, Waibel could have been more aware that the guy was pretty out of shape and spending like that on a guy out of shape isn't always great. But aside from that, the signing seemed good at the time. And with a different style of play, Yura would probably have been successful. He has the body to play the position the way we need it played (Big, used to be strong, used to be fast) but his brain and his touch just don't work there. It's not always possible to know how every player will gel with a team... especially strikers. And come on... his cheer leading skills are probably the best in the league.
I expect the GM of the club to have a better depth of understanding a player than us. I mean, he literally gets ********ing paid to do that. We do this shit for fun, he's milking DLH for a living. Look, at the time it was hailed on here as a good move. However, there were LOADS of red flags. First and foremost, that the club he was coming from really didn't put up much of a fight for us to take him. You don't loan out players that you expect to play well or contribute. You loan out guys you're hoping can find their form. To then, after he played "meh", sign him to an absurd contract is laughable. How the hell did Waibel think that a guy who scored 5 goals over two seasons in Russia (in which he played 28 games) was worth that contract? Even on his loan he scored just 9 goals in 29 appearances. He was never worth 2 million dollars. His agent has to be laughing his ass off at this notion The lone positive is that Waibel only signed him to a single year contract. Yura, now 30 years old (birthday was last week) isn't going to be finding a contract with that kind of money. We need to wash our hands of him. His cheer leading is annoying as ******** and perfectly sums up his contributions to the club.
I also thought that, at the time, the move was motivated and orchestrated to a large part by Yura himself. I'm not sure how much credit Waibel deserves in getting him on the team. It's a shame it didn't work out, though, and it is only a year contract so I don't consider this as bad as Waibel's difficulties in signing a CB. Or as bad as signing Wingert.
Wingert as early-season backup to Phillips was fine (Acosta was gone for more than a month, and we didn't know he was as ready as he has proven). He was also important when we were so, so far down the depth chart. It's now that he keeps getting starts that is strange.
A few interesting stats from this game: 21 shots is tied for our most shots in a game this season. Ironically enough, the other time we took 21 shots was at home against FCD when we also had 0 goals (but had 6 shots on target) This was the first time this season we didn't have a shot on goal We had 10 blocked shots in the game. The highest of the season (next closest: 6) We had just short of 68% possession, a season high. (Columbus was around 67%) We had 31 passes from throw-ins, third most this season Houston had 31 clearances. That's an insanely high number. The only time this season we've been in that range was at NYRB when we held on for dear life for a point. A common theme from the season: we desperately need more players comfortable shooting with their left foot. We take, on average, just under 10 shots with the right foot, 3 with the left, and 2 with the head It's also interesting to look at the Columbus game in comparisson to this one and the rest of the season. We hit a lot of high marks in that game. Seems it might have burned the players out. Notably: 841 touches against CLB (a season high by quite a margin) compared to 680 this game (a high mark, but one we've hit and passed previously in the year) The Columbus game also featured the fewest fouls we'd committed this season (5) while this game was back in our usual range (15).
It's better than crosses, IMO. Those are already lower percentage chances anyway, which become worse when a team is sitting back. Especially when you don't have a forward that is good in the air. I do agree with quick passing and movement. If we had one or two dribblers on top of that, it really could create some spaces. For his salary? I don't think it's a good move. I'd much rather go for someone younger that has some potential upside for the cost. I doubt a player like that would be worse than Wingert.
RE Wingert: He's on the team to model the kind of player and attitude you want from the youth, while still being "serviceable" on the field. I think it speaks to both the effort and performance of our young players that Wingert gets starts. If Wingert gets the start over you, you're half-assing it, not getting it, or injured/on national team duty.
This should be the case, but we saw it with Kreis, and Cassar, where players were starting no matter what even if they were playing poorly. Maybe there's pressure from above to play him, even if Petke would prefer someone else. Kind of like Rooney, who hadn't been a top player for a good 3 years, yet he kept starting. It still took time for Mourinho to finally phase him out last year. Maybe this is a similar situation.