Pre-match: The Rooney Road Show Goes to Turf Town - DC vs. Atlanta

I heard before the season that Ousted was one of the best keepers in the league. Are you saying he is not?

 

Ousted benefited from Vancouver being decent or good

 

Hamid made Birnbaum look good. Ousted is OK. With that back line not even Jesus could make many saves.

 

I think Ousted was not the biggest problem today. The defense (such as it is) constantly left him out to dry.

Is Opare still injured? Brillant needs to be replaced, and the only thing Fisher has going for him is speed.

Asad has scored some goals this year, but he puts no effort into defending the midfield, and a lot of his passes are lackadaisical at best. He's a big reason the midfield & defense are continually under pressure, IMHO.

 

Brilliant with the assist on the 2nd Atlanta goal.
Mattocks is a decent poaching forward. Rooney has the ability to be a withdrawn forward or CAM. I'd like to see them together. Unfortunately either Assad or Steiber need to sit for that to happen.

 

I vote for Asad.

 

Fact is right now we have too many players who don’t work together at midfield and forward to suit a starting 11. Concurrently we have not enough skilled defenders to make a starting 11. Not good planning

 

Great assist from Birnbaum, flopping on his stomach with his butt in the air wasn't enough to distract Martinez from making a fool of Ousted too and then scoring.

 

That Rooster had his way with our chickens.

 

Just a bad game, passing was crap and Atlanta was more physical.
Meanwhile, Brillant has a hand in all three goals against. Keep trotting him out there, though.
And poor match from Rooney, hopefully he was confused by the turf, no more stinkers, please.

 

Atlanta is the best team in the league with a guy who is in a year and a half so far the best natural goal scorer probably in MLS history. Atlanta is wildly better than us and we misplayed our personnel from the starting whistle. We threw a Hail Mary and expected a magical result and got the expected one.

In the end if this was just a bad game maybe last week was just a random good game? We’ll have to see, but I got scared seeing Rooney look like a putz tonight.

 

Atlanta is clearly better, but it doesn't matter how DC plays if one guy will continuously hamstring the team.
I'm not worried about Rooney, but he was a mess today it must be said.

 

Mattocks has said all season that his connection with Zoltan is part of his success. If Mattickd comes on Zoltan has to stay on the field.

 

All of our defenders think that you should defend a man from 7-9 yards away.

 

Its seems as if our defense isn't speaking the same language. There are too many gaps and oops that occur each game.

 

I can't figure Asad out. He has 8 goals and, what, 6 assists which are huge numbers for a wing midfielder. Yet, I get what @Winoman means because it looks in real time like Asad sort of drifts through a game and picks spots to engage, but otherwise is very passive. I would have to watch serious amounts of film to see if that is a reasonable take on his effort, or if I'm missing something. His numbes indicate something special, my eyes (which need cataract surgery) tell me otherwise.

 

Our defense is bad - it would be bad without injuries but it’s truly painful now. Had a long talk with NdL at the B.B. watch party. Know he’s not the answer long term, but please Nicky, get better!

Ousted on the first goal seemed passive. He needs to come out and own that one. We stay up 1-0 and good things are possible. On days when he’s bad we really are vulnerable.

Rooney looked the wrong side of AARP. My fear is significant that his lack of speed/fitness/youth will be an issue. It’s not that he’s so old... it’s that he’s been playing at a high level for so long that worries me.

Look, Atlanta is a serious team. We are not. That showed. They were certainly beatable which is good news. We had some teal quality play by our midfield. But DCU has a long way to go. If our answer down goals is Miranda, there’s real room for improvement.

Let’s see how we do vs the scum in a downpour.

 

We lost on the road against a great team.
They are extremely dynamic at many positions and solid in others. That's hard to beat.

 

This is my biggest gripe with Asad. First goal happened because he half assed his close out of the wing player who made the cross -- Nevermind the give away in midfield that preceded it.

 

Well by sucking DCU at least beat Atlanta out of 27,000 paying fans. Attendance the ome match before against Seattle was 72,243. Yesterday 45,087. The norm to be fair is around yesterday's mark, the opener and big matches against good teams/rivals sets new records. You gotta envy them

 

He checks out, like my 9 year old - although to be fair, only for half a second, whereas my 9 year old tends to spin in circles as the dribbler runs by him.

Seriously, watch the replay of the game. When the ball goes out of play, he's walking, facing away from the ball and then you'll see his head jerk up like, "Oh yeah, there's probably somebody I should be covering." It isn't for long, but it happens consistently, and I think that's what's happening as he's jogging along after the play. By the time he realizes he should be following the runner, it's too late, and he knows it.

Great offensive toolbox on this guy, but he just doesn't have a defender's anticipatory mindset.

 

Asad does drift in and out of games. He needs to learn (be taught) not to turn off at all. Soccer is so low scoring, not being dialed in all the time can cost the game.
I think he's really good, but not consistently so. He needs to realize he can be the best player on the team, but only if he's fully committed.

 

My guess is a loss or two from now and Rooney is in the owners office describing poor coaching and fitness practices. Some coaches don’t tolerate people disappearing from a game but if it means Rooney isn’t scoring or getting assists then it will become an issue.