Don't recall defending Dom based on reasonable doubt previously, but I guess I am doing so now. I'm making an observation here that the results belie your criticism. And I do so sharing your curiosity about given lineups. But I have more faith in Dom than I do in myself to formulate lineups. So I am giving him the benefit of any reasonable doubt.
Dom's midseason switch from 451 to 442 was something new, and was a very welcome change. Also he has finally started playing mpg at outside mid.
Dom needs 3-4 more quality players to add some depth. Overall, with the injuries, the call ups, and Doyle deadwood, I think he's done a solid job navigating his first season back. He's had to work through some difficult situations, losing Wondo for a month, losing Muma for three games at a critical stretch of the season. We judge the poor results from games when the line up is fairly weak...we're always missing key players! Every team has injuries and call ups, but we seemed to suffer a lot more than other teams...with zero depth to lessen the impact. After the addition of Godoy, if we had the opportunity to play our first choice 11, we'd play toe to toe with anybody in the league. We wouldn't be scrambling for the last playoff spot...not bad for his first season. He's done a fine job in his first season considering the circumstances. Hopefully by next season he'll have a deeper team stocked with players he's truly excited about. I can't wait to see how we look next season...I think we'll be damn good.
I really think we'll be twice as good next year. All 3 DPs, no more dead weight in JBP and Lenny, etc.
Here's the thing, I didn't have high expectations for Dom and I didn't expect him to come in and revolutionize MLS with some insane system, but I hoped that there would be an obvious transition from Yallop ball and that he wouldn't make obvious mistakes. Yallop ball is still strong. 32 games into the season and they still default to punting it up field from the backline. I'll give him a point for putting MPG on the wing but deduct points for putting Innocent on the wing, Wondo at CM, and subbing Jahn over TT several times over. To me, the Montreal game represents Dom's ability as an MLS coach in 2015.
It's not all that simple necessarily. Guys have lingering and sometimes career ending injuries every year, and you otherwise make roster decisions that for one reason or another don't work out great. I don't yet believe that Innocent plays at a DP worthy level, and they are bound to that contract for a few more years. There's a 4th DP that maybe they use but other than that they will trade guys out for new players, some of whom will be a net + and some of whom won't. Meanwhile every other team is also making moves to try to improve, and pretty much every team in the west is competent now except maybe for your Sam Cronin led CO Rapids. So in short I don't think that it's a foregone conclusion Quakes will be better next year just because they can make roster changes.
It kind of difficult to judge Innocent after he was injured so early but for this league, I think he is commanding too much money to be an unknown DP. Again no one knew the guy when he was playing for Siena. I mean I saw him score against Inter I believe it was but no one else remembers that and he never was a marquee player.
I think we will see who Dom values in the offseason. With almost non-contributors on the field constantly like Salinas and no subs that offer anything better, I can see the viewpoint that Kinnear worked with what he had available. Certain positions just didn't have good players to fill them. If Salinas is on the team and starting next year, then I will have more concern than I do now. Kinnear made plenty of mistakes in this season, but he also got some great results that looked more than just flukes to me. I talk about it a lot, but team defending is significantly better than it ever was under Yallop. If they can continue to strengthen that, the next step will be to replace the players that don't perform. That will be the real test to me in what the future of the team will be.
The thing we have to remember is that while the team will likely improve somewhat next year, every other team is also likely to improve. And there are multiple teams now who are poised to set up like LA and have not 1, not 2, but 3 or 4 international marquee players. That is not a guarantee for success but if you are smart about how you round out your roster, you can be tough to beat. Apparently Ibrahimovic is now looking to join MLS, and - hint, he probably won't end up in SJ.
There's no point to rebuttal, knowing you, it would go all day. I don't have time foe dat. It's pretty simple logic and if you don't understand it, you just don't. I couldn't care less. We went this season without our 3rd DP / most expensive player. Next year we will have him (or another DP, if they don't get injured again..) and better depth when we cut JBP, Fucito, etc. And that will make our team much better, obviously given he preforms well, but it's safe to say he will. You're probably gonna say you weren't that impressed when you saw Innocent play those 3 whole games blah blah bah, please don't. We get it, you think you're an expert analyst.
No need for personal attacks. My post was all about the topic at hand. I'm simply saying that it is not necessarily a slam dunk that the team will get better, and if so, how much better, in light of the fact that virtually every other team is likely to get better also. So will the results be better? Maybe, maybe not. While you will likely make some positive additions and remove some unproductive players, you are bound to have more injuries, and you are bound to sign some players that also don't work out. There was a general sense that Renato was a good depth signing when he was signed, but through some combination of injury and maybe not the greatest performance, he hasn't been productive. Who is to say that we don't make another signing like that next year? And OK, we haven't seen enough Innocent, but at this point, we don't really know if he is going to be a "good DP" or not.
Frankly, it's unlikely that every team improves. It's never happened before and it's unlikely to happen in the future. Some get better, some get worse. The West is a difficult division to play in because the quality is generally better, but to think that every single team will improve is not how it works. Overall and over time, yes, every team can get better due to increased spending allowances and increasing quality of available players, but relative to each other, not every team can improve as there are fixed finishing positions. That's what I'm talking about. I think the Quakes will improve their position next year from this year because the most important pieces that are poised to contribute next year are getting time and playing at a decent level. More time together should produce better results from them. From there it's just about getting better players in key positions. Dom's schemes aren't always great, but their ability to attack is more consistent and were they able to convert more chances, they'd be a very good team.
It's conceivable that the Quakes could improve their squad in absolute terms but decline relative to other teams in the Western Conference due to one of various factors, or combination of factors, including greater absolute improvement by the other teams, injuries or cards or call-ups to key players at inopportune times, dumb luck, or (hard as it might be to believe) shoddy officiating.
Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I was saying, and why I specifically said I think they will improve their position. I think they will improve overall and relative to a couple teams. I don't think Wondolowski will be part of the US National team plans, thankfully, so Kinnear should be able to rely on him a bit more than this year. The bigger issue will be Pelosi, Alashe and Godoy all possibly missing large amounts of time. That will be difficult to deal with since they are both young and contributing players. Those players are who I think Kinnear is going to really start completing the team around. This year has been a mixed back in acquisitions, although overall I think it's been positive. Hard to look at a year in which three young players have come in and had a positive impact as all bad. The worst players have been those that were brought in previously (except for Sherrod).
The things about signing younger guys who don't pan out are these: They are generally cheaper than the established older guys. We can sell or trade younger guys, because they have more years left in the tank. For example: We can sell Sherrod (or Jahn, or JJK, or Barrera) to another team, even if only USL or NASL sides. We might lose money on the deal, but we can clear their cap space and roster spots. A guy like Moreno, or Stewart, is much harder to sell, and almost impossible to trade away. Those mistakes tend to be more costly, like André Luiz. (Unless ALM turns out to be a killer coach and maybe recruiter for us, we lost a bundle on him.) We should have ditched JBP at the end of last season. I think that we probably signed him to a two or three season contract, and that we can't get out of it without selling him back to a team in France. So when we sign younger guys, there is usually much less risk, both in terms of money, and the ability to ditch the player should he not pan out. And yes, this falls almost entirely on JD. I think that the head coach has some input, like "Let's get that guy!" or "Let's get a guy like that." We'll see how this pans out going forward, but in general, I think it's better to take a risk on a younger player than on an older player. (Which is a generalization and may not be true in specific cases.) Go Quakes!! - Mark
Of course not every team will improve, that's why I wrote that teams will "likely" improve. I would say that it is more likely than not. To echo Don G's point, remember that we are talking about absolute improvement here, not relative improvement. A team may improve in the absolute but actually sink in the standings due to the fact that they improved less than most of the other teams. Further, I claim that the level of proficiency of teams is going up in the absolute sense. 4th DP's, more elite players, just the arms race of competition tends to cause the level of play to go up year over year, etc. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an argument that the level of play in MLS is not on an upswing. If we are entering an MLS 3.0 stage, where most teams have multiple elite DP's and let's say that more teams (besides the Gals) have figured out how to fill out the rest of the roster to complement their "stars", then it may be increasingly difficult for the Quakes / Dom MLS 2.0 framework to keep pace.
We need three to five new starters. Seriously. Stewart is done, so we need to replace him, and Shaun isn't good enough. (Though Shaun is fine as a backup.) We need a starting quality forward, so that Quincy can be our depth. We need another starting central defender or two. (One to replace Muma, one to push Goodson. Can we start Renato? I'd like to, but then we need a backup for him.) Can we get another good season out of MPG at right mid? Probably. Is Shea good enough to start at left mid? Maybe. I'd look into upgrading. And then we need more depth to be sure. We've used Cato all over the field this season, but really, he should be a right mid. I'm hoping he can learn from MPG and improve, such that when MPG is no longer good enough to start, Cordell is. We have no backup for Shea. Assume a Pelosi, Godoy, Alashe center mid corps. I'm happy with any two of those guys, happier with all three in a 3-5-2 or 4-3-3. We should replace all of our forwards not named Quincy or Wondo. So I'm thinking new starters for Stewart, Quincy, Muma, and Shea, at least. Go Quakes!! - Mark
This is interesting... I took the liberty of grouping some of the teams that have similar styles. You might have drawn them differently, but here is my chart. I’ve added cumulative goal differential within each group as well. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions but there are good and bad teams in each grouping, which goes to tell you that no matter what style of soccer a team plays, whether they are reactive or proactive or something entirely different, that execution of the plan is critical.
I remember looking at the team roster before one of the games and being able to guess on about seven players that might/should not be around next year for various reasons. A couple of them haven't played this season at all or very, very little. There is potential for a ton of movement in the offseason, which is exciting to me. I think the midseason acquisitions indicate an ability to find the necessary pieces to improve. In the offseason, they went and got outside defenders, who have done pretty well, sometimes very well. Midseason they had huge issues with the central midfield. Went out and got pieces and now that seems to be mostly on the mend. The forward situation was dire, they went out and got a player who has improved that part of the game (not incredibly so, but enough to have a positive impact). Next logical step is to replace the service issue. You can't do everything in one season, and admittedly, the outside midfield issue is where Doyle and staff have had the least success lately. The Nyassi signing was not a good one. Barrera is not an MLS quality player, so they are on shakier ground in that area. Hopefully they can either reconfigure the midfield to rely less on outside midfielders or find better players for those positions.
Looking at the graph and taking the data at face value, I would come to a different conclusion. I would say that it tells us that Indirect / High pressure is the best style to maximize results. I am skeptical with the positioning of a lot of the teams, though.
Dom is getting the most out of these players. Salinas has transformed from USL quality to one of the league's better 1v1 flank attackers. Quincy is having the best season of his career. Even Sean Francis has improved this season, becoming less error prone and showing flashes of great dribbling. In addition to an overall trend of player improvement, the team is playing with fight and determination. We are trending up and we are going to make a big leap in quality this off season.
Dom was on XM Radio (Eric Wynalda's show WTF) yesterday. Typical players' coach stuff, lots more talk about how great they've been playing and how hard the players work and less ruing of lost chances in September. Then some joking around about Wynalda and Dom's playing days in the 80s and 90s together. A little insight to the Doyle/Dom relationship (he made it sound like Doyle really keeps out of the way from the on-field stuff, that he like Doyle's mid-season acquisitions of Amarikwa and Godoy, blah blah blah). Second time this season I've heard Dom on the radio.