The "Thoughts That Don't Require Their Own Thread" Thread XIII

Younger and faster along their back line too.

 

Yeah but they are also able to gtet theball to him I'm dangerous spots, which is what the revs lack. Things often break down in the final third.

 

I kind of agree with Monty - that goal he scored with Anibaba draped all over him was special.

 

Of course it was special. BWP has been an incredible signing for them but the conversation had to do with possession which isn't solely down to the forward finishing chances. My point was he has quite a bit of help from his mids where the revs lack that final pass. It's why the revs have less possession.

 

If the Revs somehow sneak into the playoffs and win a game or two, it will be the worst case scenario for the fans long term.

If the Revs win MLS Cup, we will never see a truely competitive team again. I truely am scared of a sneaky playoff entry and run, maybe it's for the best we continue to lose.

 

While I agree with most of this, if we win MLS Cup with this group, this season, I say sign everybody but Mike Burns to a lifetime contract, and appoint Bob Kraft the Grand Wizard of Foxboro.

 

Does anybody listen to Men in Blazers? Their most recent episode was from a live show they did in Atlanta during the all-star game, and they had Michael Parkhurst on as one of their guests. He spoke about being at the first Revs home match back in '96 and made note of how much the league has changed since then, "everything except for the crowds in New England." He went on to speak about how great the atmosphere is in Atlanta and made another comment about a good crowd in New England being 20k and that in a 70k it just feels empty and quiet.

Low blows from the local guy and former club legend...

 

Yes I listened to that. He's not wrong...

 

Not low blows at all. Straightforward jabs honestly made will remind you that the truth hurts.

 

The phrase "Colorado East" came up in another thread. Look what happened to them after Wells Thompson led them to their MLS glory a few years back. The only good season they had since then is when they rented Jermaine Jones for a year, and promptly faded back to reality the next year. Then they overpaid for a past-his-prime GK and hired a crappy inexperienced coach and you know the rest.

Now had we won MLS Cup any one of the times in the Nicol era, we might have seen some continued success. The Jones cup run was just that, a one-off that wouldn't have had any long-term impact once he left, since it was clear they weren't going to sign any players close to that level again.

 

In most games, the Revs generate quite a few good chances. Look how many we had before Philly scored the opening goal on Saturday? Or Orlando before that.

Our problem (other than defense!) much of the time is finishing those chances. I think BWP would be finishing at a pretty high rate here as well as in NJ - because that's what he does.

Less possession is really a different issue than making the final pass.

 

I was thinking about this year vs last year's revs team and genuinely wondered whether any progress had been made. Since progress is a subjective thing without data behind it, I looked up our record this year vs last year through 23 games. In 2017 it was 8-10-5. This year, it's 7-8-8. Sure, wins/losses/draws are distributed differently but in both cases it's 29 points through 23 games. In a word, mediocre.

I didn't do last year's GF/GA but this year it's 38-38 which I'd guess is close to last season.

Given the identical points to-date, it begs the question: after hiring a new coach, new group of players and a lot of rhetoric about hiring an ex-Tottenham player/youth coach who knows everyone in the soccer world, when it comes down to it, what's changed?

Empirically, nothing.

In fact, if we want to split hairs, last season was arguably more successful to this point based on a deeper run in the USOC. Otherwise, SSDD.

This is in context of Bob Kraft doing an interview during the first pats preseason game. When asked about a secret to the patriots' run of success over the past 2 decades, he said something to the effect of, "My philosophy is simple. I hire good people then get out of the way."

If only he did that consistently.

 

Well, you can't say that he didn't get out of the way of the Revs....

 

I think that's the only thing worse than apathy - an owner who doesn't know what he's doing meddling too much i.e Jerry Jones.

It's really a continuum - pick your poison
Kraft as revs owner <---------------------> Jerry Jones

 

I wasn't trying to say that I disagree (obviously he's right), it was just more so that he really didn't need to make those comments to spite his former club.

I also posted it because it contributes to the story of Parky having no interest in returning to New England after coming back to MLS from overseas. Turf had previously been mentioned, and now it's clear that a lack of atmosphere was another contributing factor.

 

Players generally tend to be cautious about things like that--being publicly critical of a team--since you never know, you just might get traded to them. But Jermaine Jones also commented how Colorado (!) was so much more of a "professional" organization. Now some will say that Jones is an overly outspoken egomaniac, but that aside, when similar comments come from totally different sources, you have to give them a little credence.

 

I thought the Kei Kamara deal was a dumb panic PR buy. And I was never personally a fan of his.

But I do wonder given the way Friedel has this team playing and the players he brought in, if Kei wouldn't be thriving in this team.

Look at how many times Penilla likes to use the outside of his boot and serve in an early cross waist high between the back line and goalkeeper. That is part of Penilla's game and I could imagine Kamara stretching his long legs and pouncing on those.

Also, Kamara kept getting dragged out wide under Heaps' mess - but in this team, for someone who likes to play high and central, he would be in a much better position to get those balls coming in. I think he has better goal scoring instincts and movements than Teal - but that is because Teal has been used all over the field his whole career.

Don't get me wrong - Teal has been awesome, and I am not saying let's trade for Kei - Kei hated it here it seems, even once Heaps was sacked. And Nemeth is no #9 - I also though that was a dumb panic buy too, so I am glad he is gone with his salary.

But given the comments above - I do wonder with someone really burying those chances (a la a Villa or Martinez), how much better this team would be, how much more confident, etc.

We keep bemoaning and trying to tinker with the backline - how about tinkering and upgrading at the other end of the field?

 

I don’t know where this belongs so why not this thread? I thought about the “Mike Burns isn’t good at his job” thread but this goes beyond just Burns.

Here are a bunch of areas where I think this organization has been consistently bad for a very long time and I find myself wondering if any (or how many) other MLS teams have been as consistently bad. Two notes: 1. I haven’t tried to back this up with facts and 2. Therefore this is opinion, although I may state data one could research to confirm or dismiss my opinion:

1. Total Payroll - I think the payrolls published by the Player’s Union show that they have been consistently in the lower half to bottom third with few exceptions.
2. Size of squad - there are always a lot of empty roster spots on this team - I think one could compare to other MLS teams if they worked at it. Does any other team consistently leave as many spots unused?
3. Depth of squad - Very subjective. I think they routinely have guys that should be coming off the bench out there starting instead. Even in relative good years 11-13 guys carry the major load.
4. Quality of highly compensated players - Now that we’ve had a number of DPs or near DPs, how many were we really excited about? Jones may have had the most impact but left without much support from the fans or the team. Maybe they should stop trying so hard to get value and just pay good players a good salary? As of today there are rumblings against our high paid players. Nemeth wasn’t worth his pay, Dielna is on the outs, Aguadelo - is he earning his pay?
5. Coaching - Seems like 10 years or so of coaching that leaves a lot to be desired. A couple years mailed in by the legendary SN, Heaps was, well, heaps, and now Friedel pretty much repeating Heaps results with a different setup and an all too thin squad.
6. Academy - I don’t really follow it but the REV academy does not seem to get a lot of accolades. We haven’t yielded a lot of senior team players from it.
7. Scouting - Over the years they haven’t been able to find equivalently talented replacements for departing players. They don’t even typically make the number of signings they themselves declare they need. We aren’t really getting diamonds in the rough (or if you are going to split hairs, high quality, large, good color, low defect diamonds in the rough).
8. General Management - See the Mike Burns Thread and the above.
9. Whatever the heck Brian Bilello does - I don’t think he does it well.
10. Ownership Interest in their team - See above; that doesn’t continue to happen if they are showing any interest.

Well, that feels better...highly cathartic. Doesn’t change anything though.

 

I still consider the 2000s to be successful years. Sure we have no stars above the crest, but 4 MLS Cup appearances in 5 years is great. Problem is this was all back in the pre-DP era, and even if we won 4 MLS Cups, I see no evidence that we would have continued to succeed post 2007.

MLS was really a crap shoot league, building a successful team was more luck than anything else since it was basically who could draft the best players. The Revs drafted some of the best players of that era (Twellman, Dempsey, Joseph), this is during an era where the league basically consisted of only collage drafted players, so those who draft the best, are the best.

Today, the league is completely different, yet the Revs are 23 years and still the same. You need to be an attractive destination to international players, spend big money on DPs, and work the transfer market just enough to get GAM/TAM that will fill the rest of your squad with quality players paid more than $504,375. What upsets me the most is that the 2014 Jones run didn't teach Kraft and Company how to succeed in today's MLS. The worst part about losing that 2014 MLS Cup is that we now have clear evidence that Kraft and Company have seen what paying for a high profile player can do for you, and instantly retreated back to being cheap.

 

This is one I have been harping on for years. Tough to measure because rosters are always in flux, but a current look at the roster page on MLSsoccer.com (full disclosure, I am aware this site is not 100% accurate).

The list also includes players on loan and season-ending IR, but ten MLS teams have 30 or more players listed. Ten teams have 28 or 29. LAG and CHI have 27. The Revs have 25. I can't remember the last time the Revs had 28.

If it was quality over quantity, I could live with it, but they don't have that either.

 

We definitely need to do both.

Bunbury has been finishing at a decent rate - even if those are mostly the easier chances. But, Agudelo has not. He gets chances, but his shooting is woeful.

 

I think it would be nice if the revs converted more of their chances sure, but theyve hardly struggled to score goals. Its been keeping them out on the other side that has largely been the bigger issue

Here is a listing of each team's spending (it goes back to 2011 and hasnt been updated for the summer window yet): https://www.spotrac.com/mls/cap/

From 2018 going backward they rank 22/23, 14/22, 18/20, 7/20, 6/20, 13/19, 17/19, and 17/18. Their highest ranking was 2014 with a $7.5M payroll. From 2011-2013 most teams spent about the same with few outliers (in 2011 15 teams spent between 2 and 3M whiel the other 3 spent 6, 12, and 14M), but starting in 2014 teams generally have started to spend more. However, where the average payroll has risen, the revs average payroll has dropped durign that time, and they are now minimal spenders (the revs spent only 75k more than last place houston) with a large gap between them and everyone else (DC is the only other team spending less than 7M, and 8 teams spent 10M or more).

 

He's right though, sad as that is to admit.

 

It's less about how much they spend, but who and what they spend on. I'm OK if they are somewhere in the middle of the pack in salary expense, 8-16 or so. I don't want them to be below 20 and they will never be among the top 6-7 spenders--we'll leave that to the "ambitious" clubs. You can still put a quality team on the field without breaking the DP bank if you can do it wisely. So far, the Revs have not been able to really do that.

If you look at the highest paid players they've had over the past 3-4 years, how many of them actually played like top players? Nguyen, for sure at times, Kai Kamara did get a respectable amount of goals, but he never really fit in well here. Goncalves was great in his first year, but not so great after that. The rest of the high-salaried guys underachieved for what they were getting paid. Why pay $450,000 when you can get a $150,000 guy to give you the same?

 

I'd disagree that Agudelo's finishing has been woeful. He's got two goals, on 2.5 xG. He's not scoring much because he's not getting a lot of chances.

Penilla's been a monster, scoring 9 goals on 4.85 xG. Bunbury has 11 on 9.1 (including a penalty), and Fagundez has 7 on 6.65 (including a penalty plus a pen miss).

No Revs players are really having awful finishing seasons. For comparison, Almiron has 8 goals on 12.8 xG, and CJ Sapong has 3 on 8.76 xG.

Data: https://www.americansocceranalysis.com/player-xg-2018/