Why our play has dropped off in the second half of the season – Analysis attempt When the season started we were playing well as a passing oriented team. We had Ralston, Castro and Joseph forming triangles all over the field with Larentowicz, Mansally, Dube and Christman also doing well trying to help the passing game. It allowed the ball to be controlled by the Revs more and gave time for opportunities to open up. We also had Nyassi for the fast counterattacking runs which unbalanced the opposing defenses down our right side. This all combined to work well for the Revs and helped lead them to the top of the table. Then the rest of the league caught on and more importantly injuries hit. We lost the forwards with the ability to play the passing game with the midfield that had been working all season and well as Ralston getting slowed down and picked up injuries. This lead to Castro as currently the only passing oriented offensive player as Joseph is more of a defensive player. Twellman and Smith are not great fits in a pure passing game as Twellman wants service for him to attack and both Smith and Nyassi like to attack by using speed. Basically Castro instead of fitting in and helping the team like he did the first part of the year has now become more of a square peg in a round hole. I assume this is why Khano had been getting game over Castro at left midfield before Smith moved up front. Our offense has now morphed over the last month into Smith and Nyassi running at people down the wings and hoping to find Twellman in the box. Teams have taken to marking Joseph closely which has limited the only dangerous passer we have left. As Castro is more of a good ball controller helping the team maintain possession and move the ball around but not often making the killer pass. Teams have also finally gotten enough tape on Nyassi and figured out how to mostly contain him. To me it appears the strategy is to just give him some space once he gets the ball to start a run without getting behind you immediately, then just run with him to slow him down without trying to steal the ball. Wait for either a second defender coming over to take the ball away or for one of Nyassi’s touches to go too far. We then compounded this problem by switching to the 442 without attacking wing backs. This has left the two outside midfielders without options other then run at defenders, send a long ball to the forwards, or pass it back. Plus this caused us to have no offensive central midfielder to link everyone together. When we played the 442 early in the year and even in SuperLiga, both the wing backs would overlap and offer options to the outside midfielders and forwards more able and inclined to leave the central channel to offer outlets. In the last month of playing the 442, there have been precious few overlapping runs and neither Twellman nor Smith have played a good passing game. ---- The nice thing is once people start getting healthy again there is hope of getting some of the early season success back. This is assuming Nicol is still willing to go back to what had worked earlier in the year. We can get the passing game back in the midfield with triangles between Castro, Ralston and Joseph. And soon we may have two true forwards again who can take pressure off of each other and open up space for the midfield and link better with them. Ralston can go back to being the link between the midfield and forwards while providing options for all. Nyassi will likely not be as flashy and controlling as he was in his first few games, but he is improving his overall game. Nyassi is still a solid developing right midfielder who demands attention from defenses. Smith can then go back to doing what he is best at, being a late game sub attacking with speed against tired legs. There is still hope for this year, but right now it is very ugly.
This is why our play has dropped off: http://revolutionsoccer.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/new-week-new-view/
I must say that's just a little bit more in-depth than my original analysis, which was "Everyones filled with jerk beans and they're allz a buncha buttsniffers" So good job.
I think I like your analysis better, it's clear, succinct, and states legitimate reasons for the dropoff in performance.
With no 2nd forward and no AM, our offensive threats are very limited. For an opposing defense, we're fairly easy to defend. Surround Joseph and make everything tough for him, keep Twellman in sights. Nyassi can cause problems on the wing, but hasn't shown much ability to score and Twellman doesn't usually create his own chances and isn't getting much service. So, if you don't have to worry about the Revs offense, you can press the midfield and defense, particularly when there are new/young players in the lineup and keep them penned in. Not much worry about counter-attacks, so don't let them control the ball and hold it. Later on, Igwe came in - and I think that was partly in response to the size mismatch. And, Badilla is big enough to have been able to make a difference. We'll see when they come to Foxboro. Going back to the Cbus game, there was a period starting at about the 55-60 minute, where the Revs actually started controlling the game and put a lot of pressure on the crew. Problem was, they still didn't have the necessary personnel to create quality chances and after a while Columbus scored their 3rd goal against the run of play - and that was about it. Another factor in that game was the size disadvantage, which really hurt us because of all the fouls (real and imagined) called for Schelloto and Rogers. With Lenart, Iro and Marshall coming forward, that's 3 guys 6'3+ against our fairly small defense. Joseph matched up against one of them, but Khano was the only other one with that kind of size and he was supposed to be playing forward - providing an outlet for the defense (so if he comes back, then we have almost no chance of holding the ball when we get it).
I really laugh now looking back to some of the comments about Nyassi early in the year when people thought he could potentially be gone after this season. He scored two goals IIRC in the first three games of the year. He has not hit the net since. He has one assist all year long (in 15 starts). As much as he has the ability to blow by people, he’s doing nothing with it when he gets near the box. I know he’s young, and I fully expect him to get better … but that’s just another problem in a list of them right now.
Tobas, great post. I'd like to add one additional piece of analysis. Earlier in the season, when our defense was shaky, we were often saved (both literally and figuratively) by Matt Reis. For the past few weeks (since his return from injury), he really hasn't been the same. I'm not sure if it's confidence, just a bad run of form, or lingering injury, but this has been, to me, the second biggest factor in our poor play, after the fact that we've mounted virtually no offense and had far less possession than we have in the past. Net of everything, too much route 1 football (when Joseph is playing hopeful long balls, you know it's bad), plus too many players trying to take on 4 defenders individually, plus a more packed in defense than normal on our part has contributed to other teams playing more offensively. This couple with our worse than usual shot stopping has been a recipe for disaster. I think this only get turned around with conscious effort from the players and coaches. We NEED to have two strikers committed to being offensive minded (Mansally or Dube back, someone off the bench, or a new player plus Twellman) and we need to go back to establishing better ownership of the midfield (both ball winning and possession play). In my mind that says two things: first we need Ralston back, second we are best served with a 3-5-2, although it can be done with the right personnel and mind set in a 4-4-2. What we've had with Khano as the second forward is more of a 4-5-1 and sometimes a 6-3-1.
Part of it is that the book is out on Nyassi (and Thompson). Smother him with numbers and he'll almost always try to dribble though. It would really serve us well for him to play one or two touch football more often as he really draws the defense to him any time he gets the ball on the wing. Nyassi's success is also highly dependent on having numbers forward (both to draw some defenders away and to have crossing targets) and we just haven't done that well since the beginning of Superliga.
The biggest problem with Nyassi is that he's trying to do too much by himself, and he's too much of a focus on the defense to accomplish anything on his own. Everyone's saying that the book's out on him. The book seems to be double team him whenever possible and send a 3rd player over if he gets near the box. This is doable because we don't have any other major offensive threats in our midfield. During the Superliga our offense was little more than Joseph getting the ball to Nyassi and for Sainey to beat the less athletic defenders. He's still trying to do that. He doesn't do many give and goes (especially sine Ralston went out) and people always play the ball to his feat where he's supposed to beat the defender off the dribble instead of the occasional through ball. He needs to mature and his crosses need work but I think a lot of his problems stem from the lack of offense in the rest of the midfield.
I do not disagree with what has been said and would add that our demise started when Twellman came back and Mansally & Dube got hurt. We now have degraded into the lob it into the goal area attack rather then attacking on the ground. Double on Nyassi and mark Twellman tightly and we're all done If we want to start scoring again we need to balance the attack and at least 1/2 the time, try to penetrate. That is someone else besides Nyassi. We need to forget the 4-4-2 also, it's never worked well for us. Someone should forward this whole thread to SN because I don't think he has any clue what to do on attack. Actually our defense hasn't looked too good lately also
When Nyassi does get forward he has essentially outrun all of the support and potential support... no fast forward (or midfielders) to keep up and fill attacking lanes means that it doesn't matter if he beats his man to the byline, there is nothing to be done other than a long hopeful cross or (more commonly) a dribbler to the keeper...
Triple-team Nyassi and double-team Twellman. That is five defensive players. If we had anyone else competent on the attack available right now we'd be massacring. Ralston and a second true forward would blow things open right now.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/09/mls-soccer-beckham-biz-sports-cz_kb_0909mlsvalues.html Struggling teams? The Kansas City Wizards are playing in a minor league baseball stadium and had just $5 million in revenue, less than half the league average of $13 million. The Columbus Crew, despite playing in a soccer-specific stadium, can’t find sponsors and thus generated just $6 million in revenue. Chivas USA only had $10 million in revenue because they are tenants of the Galaxy at Home Depot Center. The New England Revolution, who play in Gillette Stadium, home of the NFL’s Patriots (both teams are owned by Robert Kraft), drew only 10,000 fans to each of their two playoff games last season. All four of these teams get only a fraction of the local television and sponsorship money that the Galaxy and Toronto FC take in.
Exactly. We have few offensive threats right now, so teams can afford to devote extra backup to contain Nyassi - he can get by his man, but there is someone else there to challenge him. With Ralston and a true 2nd forward in the lineup, he'll have more space again.
Hmmmm, maybe the article was researched before Glidden started sponsoring the Cows? Still, they should have updated it, especially since the whole point of a jersey sponsor is to have your name in the most visible place possible. And the reason KC plays in a minor league baseball stadium (and don't get a lot of revenue due to their limited attendance numbers) is because they are building their own stadium. In 2 years they will be in much better shape. Maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Chivas actually did have significant sponsorship, althoguh it was mostly in the Spanish-speaking marketplace. You can't just discount these things completely because there isn't much anglo media presence. As for the Revs, I guess the silver lining is that we are getting any money at all. Up until a couple of years ago, our TV broadcasts were time buys, no different than the faith healer who is on BET at 3:00 am. To compare us with TFC who have a national TV deal from 3 different networks in 2 languages is a tough one to make. Bottom line: an interesting article, but there were a bunch of things that could have been researched more thoroughly. To be fair, it isn't easy to do when so little information is public record, but there are a lot of things they missed.