from the Mls website.....gave a run down of each MLS team post MLS is back tournament...here's what they say about the Quakes... San Jose Earthquakes The San Jose Earthquakes were one of the pleasant surprises of MLS is Back, capturing the attention with their swashbuckling style and that dramatic comeback against Vancouver. They were ultimately undone by a superior Minnesota side, but that hasn’t put a damper on the positivity coming out of the South Bay heading into the remainder of the regular season. Where things stand: They have eight points through five games, putting them comfortably in a playoff spot and just behind the reigning champion Seattle Sounders on goal differential. Biggest question: Setting aside the popular discussion topic of the long-term viability of head coach Matias Almeyda’s man-marking system, the performances of goalkeeper Daniel Vega in Orlando will certainly come under scrutiny when looking back at several of the goals San Jose conceded. Vega very much seems to be one of Almeyda’s guys (he was one of the few new signings under the new coach and they have a history together at River Plate), but one of the biggest needs for the Quakes to become a true playoff-caliber team is quite clearly in goal. Most important player: We saw in 2019 that Cristian Espinoza was a fine chance creator, and the MLS is Back Tournament showed that yes, he does have the goalscoring touch as well. If he keeps up the kind of production he showed over those few weeks in July, that will go a long way for the Quakes’ 2020 chances. Projected XI (4-2-3-1, left to right): Vega — Lima, Alanis, Kashia, Thompson — Yueill, Judson — Vako, Eriksson, Espinoza — Rios Playoff prospects: Looking pretty good right now. This team is hard to predict, but with the right signing or two and at least one strong run of form like they showed last summer, they should make it to the playoffs comfortably in a shorter-than-normal season.
Good analysis from reddit: https://reddit.com/r/SJEarthquakes/comments/iqm7j1/breakdown_of_the_7_goals_vs_seattle/
We are finally getting to see TT in the middle of the field, so I hope Almeyda is open to experimenting some more. How about giving Marcos Lopez a chance to attack on the left wing? Or inverting him and Espinoza? He was a successful attacker in Peru.
I know that Almeyda is a great coach. However, we don’t have speed or skill to play his man marking all over the field, and other teams are taking advantage of our system, using it to pull our guys out of position. Having your outside defenders get into the attack is great in theory, but if your center backs are slow, you’re just opening yourself up to counter attacks. We ought to play with three stay at home defenders, so that if one of the outside backs goes forward, the other one stays back to guard against the counter. We get dominated in the midfield too often, so I like the five midfielders. But, our forwards are crap, so we need at least two of them. We could play a 4-3-3 or even a 3-4-3, or, we could play a 5-3-2, which sort of what we did against the cheating filth. But we need two forwards, and Wondo is too slow to be a starter, so ... let’s get some more forwards. The transfer window is open. Let’s get two or three youngsters from Central or South America in as trial it’s and see if we can find at least one good one. And Hoesen being injured is no excuse for us to be short on forwards. We should carry at least four forwards, five if one of them is old, or another is really young, or if one or two of them suck. Strikers are streaky. We should have several in the stable. But we’ve got Wondo, Hoesen, Cade, and Rios? Is Rios really a striker? Looks like a midfielder to me. Sure, there are other guys we can play at forward, but dedicated, killer forwards is what we need. And we don’t have them, excepting Wondo, and he’s clearly slowing down. Go Quakes!! - Mark
OK, this isn't rocket science, right? 1. We are never going to spend a lot of money on players, and thus will never be able to successfully run Almeyda's system. Can we agree on this? 2. If we cannot afford the players that Almeyda needs, then we cannot afford Almeyda. 3. Because we are on a budget, we need to field as many American players as possible. By American, I mean players who do not eat up international roster spots, so I'm fine with green card holding players. The USA produces plenty of good GK's and defenders. Whether we grow our own or sign MLS journeymen, we should be able to find four competent defenders and four backups who do not break the bank. And, our USL affiliate needs to produce defenders in abundance in order to fill our needs and their own. We should pick-up college draftees discarded by other teams and send them to Reno (or Oakland, or wherever) to grow them into the sorts of players we need. And we have to assume that we'll cut half of those guys, so it needs to be an every season activity. 4. We need to spend real coin on attacking players. So, a #10 and at least two strikers. Espinoza was a good buy. Let's keep him if we can. 4a. Never-the-less, we need to try to produce strikers at Reno. Even if we can't use them, or have no need for them, we can always sell decent strikers onto other clubs. 5. Because we will never spend the money to sign a super striker, we should not play with a one-striker formation. It takes a special skill set to be an effective single striker in a 4-5-1 or whatever other one striker formation you might fancy. Because those are special players, they are also expensive, and we can't or won't pay for them. 5a. Thus, we *need* to play a 4-4-2, or a 4-3-3, or even a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. Some formation with at least two strikers. So we should pick a primary formation and strategy and then build the team to match that idea. And let's face it, we need to rebuild this team. Too many of our players flat out suck, too many of our players' confidence is shot. We need to start over, and we need a new coach and GM to do that. All of this assumes that we sack Almeyda and Jesse. They have no respect for American players. Essentially, they do not respect our league, thus they overpay for mediocre players because they are not willing to sign MLS veterans. This has created a fundamental imbalance in our team, and it has us carrying contracts for players who are not worth what we pay them. By playing less expensive American players, we can affort to splash what little cash we have on a quality #10 and at least one quality striker. (And we've already spent good cash on Espinoza.) That's my take on this mess. Assume that we will never spend enough money to buy superstars, and then focus on what we can do, and where we can save money. It's a shitty conclusion, but there it is. Go Quakes!! FU Fisher!! - Mark
If you look at my salary break down post in the Official Fioranelli Thread it shows where our money is going, its not a super case of we aren't spending money, its a case of we aren't spending money in the right areas. Fierro is almost 700k a year and I linked the article where Fioranelli says we tracked him 2 years prior to signing him, and this is a guy who has 9 goals in 129 professional games... All the guys Almeyda has recruited players for his system the past 2 years, 6 of our projected starting 11 are Almeyda guys. What more can we argue? We can't say we don't have his players, no coach ever gets an entire roster of 'his players' he gets some to form a core then builds around that, unfortunately the core he brought and the core we have are trash. There for Almeyda's system sucks and isn't effective and his inability to adapt to what he has and formulate a tactical approach based off our opponents shows to his lack of coaching ability. The guy isn't a world renowned coach, he's a guy whos gotten a couple teams promoted then left, he's a guy who left Chivas-MX because of 'Management Differences'.. whic translates to me as, he was fired because he sucks. Sure he won the CCL, but he sure didn't barn burn when he had the Chivas. He was a big part of getting Fierro, and is quoted as such in the article https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/06/25/san-jose-earthquakes-sign-mexican-winger-carlos-fierro Fioranelli and Almeyda are responsible for this 700k dollar signing. So to say we aren't spending money on players isn't valid. WE ARE spending money we just aren't spending the MONEY on the RIGHT PEOPLE or in the RIGHT PLACES. Wondolowski being resigned at 800K dollars a year to be a substitute player is ridiculous. He should be in the 150-250k range, collect a few last checks then retire. But to pay him that much at 38, and not be our point man up top day in and day out is ridiculous. That 800k salary could have gotten us 3 or 4 quality MLS Starters and Depth. We can afford the players, we aren't using the money the right way as I said above, Almeyda isn't as good as he is promoted to be. Fioranelli, Almeyda + Staff need to be held accountable. We scarified Tarbell for Vega, which I'd rather have kept the before after seeing what he's done with Columbus in his games. Marcinkowski isn't that great either, he's 0-4-2 in his league games, that doesn't' exactly scream he's our future. We can cite the team sucks in front of him, but what's he doing to be extraordinary to keep them out? He's no Melia, Robles, Blake or Miller, he won't be changing a game with his phenomenal saves and game changing moments. Philadelphia has the 2nd lowest salary pay roll in the league, Dallas is also below us, how come they are 1st, 2nd or 3rd consistently every year? Again in my salary thread, money doesn't exactly translate to success, but it sure helps, but spending it properly is the most important thing. Espinoza has become more and more inconsistent since Eriksson left and his weakness' are starting to show. He gets no pass from me, and shouldn't from anyone else. Rios and Fierro were supposed to be our 'guys' that bring a boost to our attack, but they haven't and they cost us 900k total between the 2 of them. We haven't had a true #10 since De Rosario or Donovan. The high press system Almeyda runs doesn't require a #10 either because everyone runs fluid, so running a traditionally #10 like Valeri would be counter effective for what he says he's trying to do. The high press man marking we try to play also doesn't run with 2 forwards. If we want to execute it properly its over loading the middle and final 3rd of the opponents side, similar to what Seattle does with constant pressure all over the field and using all lanes and channels. Orlando under Peraja, Columbus and Dallas also do the press well, they run a 4-5-1 or a 3-2-4-1. We got one from Reno in 2018, Chris Wehan and he wasn't very good. Ockford, Felipe and Partida also came from Reno and didn't contribute much. I'd rather see (if Ian becomes coach) work with what we have, then adjust from there. He has an ability to get the most out of mediocre players and a constant revolving door of talent. I like his reliance on American Keepers and Defenders though. That can't be an argument when we pay Vako 1 Million+ in DP money. Elis, Pity Martinez, Barco, Diego Rossi, Kaku, Wright-Phillips, Dwyer, Fernandez, Ruidiaz, and Montero are all about the same price range as Vako. So I think we would sign a striker at that money and I partially blame the fact we have Chris Wondolowski on the roster for the reason we don't. We got Rios for 200k which is compatible with many strikers who about the same or less in salary compensation with foreign strikers or domestic based of 2019 salary projections. Jessie and Matias having no respect is absolutely correct! If they had any form of respect for this league and club they wouldn't HIDE because of headaches and turn there eyes away when they have no answers in press conferences. They have no respect for the fans, who pay to see this abysmal bull shit. Matias has preached CULTURE, the only culture we have is being the whipping boy of Major League Soccer. We have sunk to the Chivas USA and Tampa Bay Mutiny 2001 levels of terrible. A good management team builds a culture that connects fans and players where we are united as one and the fans are engaged, sing, dance and cheer with just as much passion as the guys on the field. This falls solely on Matias Almeyda and his staff. It leads me to question, where's our leadership from our veterans? I see no passion from Wondolowski, Flo, Vako, Thompson, Vega, Kashia, among others who have been seasoned veterans in professional soccer? How many teams are running a true #10 anymore? Not many, its a position that is dying off around the world with the new influx of soccer styles. We need many more pieces before a #10, like a backline and goalkeeper. If we keep the balls out of the net then we can start working our way up the field.
MLS starters age comparison between 2019 and 2020. Despite the #PlayTheKids thing in #Quakes74-land, nothing has really changed.You can't be between 27 and 34 and start for Bob Bradley in 2020. #LAFCPomykal has been hurt but good grief, #DTID.Data: @AnalysisEvolved pic.twitter.com/3U8PYozNkP— JMoore Quakes (@JmooreQuakes) September 29, 2020 Nice visual by @JmooreQuakes. For the #Quakes74, they have a starting player age range of over 20 years, from Cade Cowell (16 years old) to Chris Wondolowski (37 years old). https://t.co/uS0nadQZXd— Robert Jonas (@robertjonas) September 29, 2020
Espinoza among the 4-5 in the top right... elite 50 Days till the 2021 #MLS season, so here's one chart a day leading up to April 17. Naturally, I had to start with nutmegs vs. carries during the 2020 season. Enjoy. #dataviz #MLSisBack pic.twitter.com/YaiGDzuj7f— Mike Vermeland (@ikicknumbers) February 27, 2021
Shut it down, we figured out how goals get scored. Put the ball into the 18 yard box.By @JmooreQuakes @C_Carpenter14 https://t.co/MEe47mxnoO pic.twitter.com/loVIjs9xa8— American Soccer Analysis (@AnalysisEvolved) March 15, 2021
Unfortunately, with Wondo at forward, or Rios, we're not going to score from a through ball. They'll get beat to it every time. Cade Cowell is a good target for that though, as is Espinoza. Fiero can do it too. Even TT scored on a thru ball against LA.
The second chart is a bit confusing, when compared to the first. The first says we score ~2.5 a game and the second says ~1.25. I assume the second chart y axis is mis labeled and should read "Goals Allowed per game".
Yes, and it shows that we are kind of mid-pack defensively, and performing about as "expected" which means that we haven't just been really lucky (though from just a qualitative viewpoint I feel like we've been a bit lucky). On the offensive side, our xG is good, and we are outperforming it a bit (that also checks out with the eye test), which means that we are more likely to come down a bit to mean. But it's so early, can't make to much of this data.
Since it's salary drop day, I decided to have some fun with the 2020 data. Below I've taken a look at each team's minute adjusted g+ differential per 1 million dollars spent to see who is getting the most value for their spending. Data courtesy of @AnalysisEvolved pic.twitter.com/A5nTc3pyre— Sean Steffen (@SeanSteffen) May 13, 2021
How can we be near the worst, if we made the playoffs, so we're kinda mid-pack, and we're supposed to also be near the bottom in spending? That would seem to indicate that we're over-achieving. I think the answer is that we had a really crappy GD despite making the playoffs, primarily due to that stretch where we lost a bunch of games by like 5 or 6 goals. I think if you went by PPG, we'd be upper half.
Wouldn't this be more sensible as $/ppg? You don't play for goals (except for sometimes at the very end of the season), you play for points.
I think so. And if it was PPG the Quakes would fare much better in the diagram. We had OK PPG, very lousy GD.
What the heck is going on with Jacob Akanyinge? The Quakes signed him in 2017 and he has one MLS game in his career. He has not made the game day roster this year. Unlike Fuentes or Walls, he has not been loaned out to a USL team to get more professional experience. I haven't heard about him training or playing for the Quake's U20 team. Is he at college? Hurt? He's the invisible man.....