Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Montreal Impact (Wednesday, 9/16) postgame thread [R]

You're dead on. Just like the Smurf Attack™ of last season, Wondo, Djalo, and Salinas were all on the same page and could attack with speed and flair.

If everyone is healthy, it would be awesome to see what Wondo, Quincy, MPG, and Innocent could do on the field together. I feel that group would be able to think and play at the same level. Have Godoy and Alashe back them up in the middle and I think we are looking at 2+ goals a game easily.

 

MPG on the wing is a step in the right direction. But he can't carry the team whether inside or outside. The Salinas/Francis pairing has been a disaster on the home stand and very spotty before that. I thought Salinas should have been pulled in the 30th minute. Teams will continue to run two, even three, defenders at MPG until there is a quality threat on other other flank.

 

Francis isn't supposed to be our starter. So clearly, we need to upgrade that position. (I'm assuming that Jordon Stewart is not going to play for us again.) We need a replacement for Muma also. Even assuming that Renato is NOT in the doghouse and that he's physically OK, we still need more defenders.

We can argue about whether or not Salinas is good enough, but either way, he's getting on in years and it's time to get someone who can push him for minutes.

Basically, we need a bunch of new players (many of whom we will end up loaning to Republik or the Scorps). Behind our starters, we're short on depth at most positions. Wondo is great (but getting on in age) and Quincy has been good to great for the most part, but who do we have for depth? Adam? We have to do better than Adam. And behind him, the guys are even worse!

I like a lot of our players: Wondo, Quincy, Pelosi, MPG, Godoy, Alashe, Goodson (much to my surprise, and pleasure), Wynne (again a good surprise), and Bings. But we need some new players. How cool would it be if we could replace Quincy with a seriously bitchin' good speedy forward (think Cunningham from his '10 season with the Crapids) to match with Wondo? If Wondo's striker partner were good for 11 or 12 goals a season we'd be a serious contender. This means that Quincy would be our first sub.

Just spitballing here.

Go Quakes!!

- Mark

 

Here's some fodder for the notion that Quincy didn't have his best game. He attempted only about 10 passes all game (though to his credit two of them were key passes). On top of that, he had 6 unsuccessful dribbles. You rarely see that many for any one player. OTOH, he had 3 recoveries deep in Montreal's half - the type of play that can easily result in a a goal. So he giveth and he taketh away. I still think he is a net positive even when he has a relatively poor game.

Also, I notice that Pelosi's pass completion percentage was way lower than it had been in past games. Looks like only about 60% completion, whereas I have seen him as high as 90% in some games. Not sure why. Montreal being really good at cutting into lanes? Maybe he was trying to be more aggressive / chance-taking with his passing. There were a number of Quakes lateral passes that were slow and either got picked off or nearly picked off. Seems like Pelosi has a few of these per game. I'm guessing that the field plays rather slow? But you'd think they'd be used to it.

 

I wonder if when Innocent is back we can go 4-3-3:

Innocent - Wondo - Quincy

Pelosi - Godoy - MPG

Cato - Alashe - Goodson - Wynne

Meredith/Bingham


Am I nuts?

 

Putting transfer fee aside since I don't really know how much that was, he's being paid 240K as I remember... considering that and comparing his result to the other mentioned, we got a bargain.

 

I think the low pass percentage across the board, including Pelosi's, was due to poor off the ball movement. A lot of times when players tried to force good passes, they ended up being bad because the intended recipient of the pass just backed up into three defenders instead of turning around and looking for space on the field. They just did not do a good job of opening the field up. Made worse by the fact that there was one less player on the field for Montreal. In that instance, players should not be trying to force passes, but that's the secondary problem.

 

I think we could, but with Quincy, Innocent, Wondo, and MPG as the four for the front three (hey, wouldn't need to sub Jahn in any more that way!). Think would need the middle three to be Pelosi, Godoy, and Alashe (and then upgrade the JBP/JJK/backup spots).

 

But it wasn't low pass percentage across the board at all. The Quakes had 84% completion rate, which is stratospherically high for them. My theory is just that Pelosi was trying to be much less conservative about his distribution. Somehow went from "Ack, just don't lose it!" to "I'm Pirlo!" :--). Overall, though I agree about poor off the ball movement. Just a lot of standing around. Watch a Sac Republic match sometime. Constant movement, fluidity between positions, etc. It is like night and day, almost like the Quakes and Sac are playing different sports at times.

 

When you play it right, that's kind of the point. You want to make it look like two different games. And yeah, across the board wasn't the best way to phrase that, but there were a lot of errant passes committed by multiple players. Passes made in the defensive half of the field probably yielded a pretty high percentage. I'd be curious to see them compared to passes made further up the field. I bet the drop off is significant.

Also, Pelosi might have been struggling trying to make up for Godoy, who did not look his usual self in terms of breaking up plays for distribution. Tentative is the word I'd choose to use. Not sure the numbers support it, so I could be wrong, but from the stands, he looked like he was having a bad game.

 

Godoy was extremely involved, though it did seem a little more quiet than usual. But looks like he had about 70 passes! More unsuccessful than normal but like Pelosi he was going for a lot of Pirlo-esque kinds of passes. I think they were trying to play through balls because KC's back line was pulled up a bit and they had really shortened the field. 10 men bunched into about a 30-yard space. There are not many options. You have to try to test them on the long thru balls.

 

Yes.

- - - - - IE - - - - - Wondo
Shea - - - - Pelosi- - - MPG
- - - Alashe - - - Godoy
- - Cato - - Clay - - Marvel
- - - - - - - - Bings

This gets all of our best midfielders on the pitch. It gets our inadequate defenders off the pitch. It puts our two best forwards up top where they belong. It leaves Quincy on the bench as a possible sub. Right now, most of the starting elevens I see have no one on the bench you'd want to sub in.

Or you could do this:

- - - - - IE - - - - - Wondo
- - - - Pelosi- - - MPG
- - - Alashe - - - Godoy
SF - - - Clay - - Muma - - Marvel
- - - - - - - - Bings

Because Muma or Renato will be ready to go by the time IE is ready to go. There are no wingers in this lineup. So one of Godoy or Alashe has to go forward, a lot in order to put more numbers into the attack and allow MPG or Pelosi or both to get wide. But, it gives you your four defender safety blanket, it gets Shea off the field. This put more emphasis on Wondo and IE being creative, but I think they are up to it.

Go Quakes!!

- Mark

 

This has been our bane since the Resurrection.

No matter who the coach is, no matter who the players are, off the ball movement blows. Our guys don't anticipate passes enough, they don't make dangerous runs, they don't show for each other. Frequently we've got a guy (all alone) out of the wing, looking to make a cross, and our forwards stand where there are two or three defenders between them! WTF?! You have to support each other. You have to move to a place where your guy can pass the ball. You can have three clear yards around you, but if there's a defender in the passing lane you are NOT going to get the ball.

This is elementary stuff. But we still suck at it.

Yeah, I need to smoke two joints, or maybe just drink a lot of whiskey.

Go Quakes!!

- Mark

 

Think about this. You start your three best forwards. One of them get tired, or gets hacked, and you need to sub. Who's coming on? It's Jahn because he's next best.

Start IE and Wondo, leave Quincy on the bench. Now you have a sub not named Adam. And this means that you're playing with two forwards, unless you put MPG up front.

- - IE - - - - Wondo - - - MPG
- - - - - - - - - Pelosi
- - - Godoy - - - - - - - Alashe
Shaun - - Clay - - - Muma - - MW
- - - - - - - - - Bings

That's a 4-3-3 I could relate too. (And yes, Shaun is inadequate, but we can't get some new to start in front of him until after the season.)

Go Quakes!!

- Mark

 

Can I have some of what you're smoking?

 

Colin Etnire "Aftershock" podcast:
http://www.buzzsprout.com/42264/308275-everything-was-forever-until-it-was-no-more