Your first sentence about Buddle is 100% correct. I have no idea why Bruce put him in. He was a complete waste. But your 2nd sentence - I couldn't disagree with more. The only reason we don't give up more goals is because our two centerbacks are so good. It's hard to keep clean sheets when your midfield can't hold onto the ball for 30 seconds at a time and the other team spends half the game in your final third. As the announcer pointed out we've only lost 9 times in 56 games with those 2 guys at cb. I'll take those stats any day. Btw incredible goal by BJIV. Our midfield is just too slow. Zardes and BJIV are the only fast players from the midfield forward - Gordon, Ishi, and Husidic are all slow as molasses. On the positive side we are grinding out points. The guys really worked hard for the point today.
Huh? I think they've been playing pretty well. Ranks among the least of our problems imo. (Whoops, @skydog beat me to it).
Esp considering how in form NY Is right now, this was a solid performance by our defense, other than a weird unlucky bounce.
Yeah I was going to make that point about the midfield but I'm tired of making it. Since it's been brought up though, that's the real problem and that's often the problem with leaky defenses. We aren't keeping the ball and the only consistent player we have who can take players off the ball is Juninho. Sam tore through the center of the park and created the danger which led to the goal. If I had to point out anyone in defense at the moment who is struggling it would be Gargan. He's starting to get beat with more regularity.
Yeah that bugs me and it's been happening a bit. After the G2 late equalizer yesterday I saw people saying things like an "amazing hit" or "golazo" to describe the goal, when it was clearly a miss hit cross.
I can't believe how soft Ishizaki plays for a relatively big guy. He contributes almost nothing defensively. I was ready to see him off the pitch by half time. At least Baggio makes the occasional defensive play.
A very professional game, played like champs. We not only went up first, but managed to frustrate NYRB by about the 25 minute mark, and even when they did win the ball in our half, they had few ideas. Penedo had to come up big a couple times but I think we showed our quality to freeze out a team that's off to such a good start in their stadium while missing some key starters (notably Keane. I think if he's there we take the ears of NYRB*) BJIV has been very impressive in all his senior team appearances. His touch was a little iffier on occasion this outing (and in fairness many players suffered under NY's press**) but I thought he was excellent otherwise. His movement in transition is excellent...unfortunately we were greatly missing a player like Keane* (or Villareal, Mendiola, Maganto) who can turn and find a runner with a quick pass in transition. Gordon and Zardes' really showed their respective limitations in this regard, taking way too long to settle the initial outlet pass and get their heads up, giving NY time to block the channel to BJIV. With Keane at the heart of those transitions I think we could've had 3 or 4 very convincing chances from counter-attacks. Without him, I lost count of how often BJIV made great unrewarded runs. He was even dangerous just taking the ball himself and had a couple Raheem Sterling runs up the flank, including the one resulting in his goal. He also had some key defensive recoveries. Very promising play from the young man: consider he had an assist in his first appearance, should've had a very fine playmakers assist in his first start and then a very well taken goal in this match. **Zardes had a very tough first half for all the reasons we know well. His touch was a liability under NY's press and it seemed he misplaced passes very often, which either killed off counter-attacks or just surrendered crucial possession. He fared better as the game opened up and had several dangerous runs. While he made the most of one of them, he allowed the channel to between him and BJIV, he made an excellent onside run, to be blocked when a quicker pass would've had him in on goal and split the defense. As I mentioned earlier, games like these show Gordon's limitations as a target man. Not enough speed to really be threatening on balls played into space and he's an unremarkable passer. Hurts all the more when he failed to bury his header, which is his bread and butter. Still, the Buddle sub made Gordon look like Robin van Persie. If Gordon traps like he's got cement shoes, Buddle runs like he's got them. Overall, thought it was a good match. Kjlestan would be nice to have -- I consider him about Ishizaki's quality -- but he didn't really blow me away at any point in this match.
Have to say this. Without Sarvas, tiki taco is long gone sadly I don't get how Juninho dominated so well with Beckham as his partner. Becks was def not the holding midfielder that Sarvas was...
Buddle has to go and Gordon to me is still fantastic for us off the bench, he is definitely not a starter. If we had any decent depth in the midfield whatsoever then I think Zardes HAS to start up top with Jamieson. Honestly would have rather seen Villarreal on the left and brought Gordon in later but I guess that's really rolling the dice
Villarreal was injured. Probably going to keep him out another week or so after pulling up for the U23s.
100% agreed if Villarreal had been available. 12 points in 8 games, a 4th place, this is not a bad start by our standards.
Not enough pace up top. Gordon doesn't really have the technical ability to connect with an onrushing BJIV or Zardes when he receives the ball with his back to goal. The right side is going to get bullied with Ishizaki and Gargan. Time to look for a new RB. Things should better when Keane and Villarreal get back. Villarreal on the left. Keane underneath/up top. Zardes and BJIV splitting duty between playing up top and RM/RF. The lack of bite and posession in midfield is going to be there until Gerrard arrives in LA.
Hell. even the NY announcers agreed. Of course the league will mealy-mouth it and say something innocuous that makes everyone just shake their heads... again.
A point @ NYRB is a good result. However, for me, our game was mediocre. I can't believe how much I miss Sarvas. At the moment, we simply have nothing going forward. BJIV is the only player that will turn up field and take on a player. He's got moxy but is lacking polishing. Alomost every Galaxy player on the pitch yesterday played the ball back or laterally and Juni doesn't have Sarvas or Donovan to work a triangle with and get out of trouble. Ugh, just ugly to watch. We need two attacking wingers that can run and actually take on players. Its that reason, IMO, that our midfield was smothered. No one was dangerous to break the press, to borrow a basketball reference. They just pressed and pressed and we never punished them, not once. I hope Gerrard can bring something major to the table, as Juni has no one to work with at the moment. We miss Villareal really badly as a left winger. We play very mediocre football at the moment. Our defense isn't the problem.
I actually really enjoyed watching this game. Some thoughts: 1. The tempo was fast the entire game, lots of pressure from both teams. NYRB really do pressure all over the field, and you could see it bothering us. 2. The defense actually played pretty well. They kept trying to pull it out of shape with their speed and 5 man midfield, but it held together pretty well for all that. Omar was a monster in the air. 3. McCarty was really a pest. His positioning was excellent, he seemed to always be in the passing lanes. Great game from him, right up until the 2nd yellow that should have come out. 4. Speaking of which---I thought the ref did a great job right up until the last 10 minutes. the game was chippy, but not out of control, none of the calls were terrible before that. But the last 10 minutes he was crap. 5. Our midfield passing was, yet again, exposed against a good team. The issue is bad touches, close control issues, and some bad decision making. BJIV was particularly guilty of that as was Husidic and Ishi. Too many give-aways where you groan the moment the pass was hit. Way too many breaks from near center circle that the defense had to clean up. 6. Buddle is done. Sorry buddy, you are done. Bring on the kids. He's a total zero, so if they suck, still haven't lost anything. Bring in Maganto and push Zardes up or something. 7. I actually kind of like this New York team. They play with good possession, some bite, a bit a speed, and they are relentless. I think it's going to be a good year for them. 8. I'm still worried Gerrard isn't going to be good enough to fix our midfield problems. I'm not sure his specific skill set makes a huge difference in this game.
Good post - agree with all - except that it was one game for Buddle. Not definitive yet, but not looking good. I also really enjoyed watching the game. The fast paced passing from New York forced us to step up our game and, although we came up very short on possession, we were at least in it with them. Not a very ambitious goal to feel good about, but it's early in the season and no Keane no Gerrard. Even though Gordon didn't have that good of a game, it was good to have him as an outlet in a game like this where we needed to relieve pressure sometimes.
I do hope Buddle has something left--we need it with out current roster. I agree about Gordon too---as someone said, you could see his limitations in this game, as he isn't able to take down a long ball, turn the defender, shoot and score, but he held the ball, passed pretty well, and for the most part his first touch was decent, which made him a good outlet. I feel like if the midfield had played a bit better he'd have had some better chances to combine with BJIV and Zardes, but he was isolated too often as we were simply using him to relieve the pressure. Regarding Klesjtan, I thought he looked good. Not a world beater, but quite good. We definitely could have used him. Some of his crosses were great, and the one little scoop pass over the top really showed what he can do. I think he's going to be good for a long time in this league, and he seems to have bought into the defensive swarm approach, so I think he's a good fit for them.
I think Kljestan was good too - he had that one late run out of the right side where like 3 of our guys just let him go, and he crossed the ball in for that BWP point blank shot on Penedo in the first half. That was their best chance for awhile.
What really is sad is watching Sarvas struggle in that crap midfield of Colorado. I mean what a waist of a good player. It's about as sad as what I keep seeing with Kaka in Orlando. Just no help for either. All the effort they spend trying to make something happen only to pass the ball to somebody that is going to ruin the effort it took to get them the ball in the first place. Then to add insult to injury, Sarvas, the poor bastard has to suffer looking at the insanity that is this man's stache everyday with a straight face...,SMH
Don’t fret, LA will probably re-sign him in 2 years; a 2017 Sarvas signing might be the most Bruce signing of all time.