I would have gladly taken a point before the game, and I will gladly take it now. As long as we come out and annihilate SJ in 1 1/2 weeks, we will still be in a good position...
Enough of the "long flight" and "jet lag" excuses please. Flying five hours from the west to the east is no big deal. It's not LA to London or NY to Tokyo or flippin' Australia. Anyone in an MLS player's physical condition should be able to adjust just fine. Unless they flew there on Delta, that is.
Good result. Thought we played great the last 15 minutes, felt like the draw was secure. Kennedy did not impress. GK is biggest question on this team in my mind. Cole was so good defensively in parts and the hopelessly caught upfield in other parts. Weird place to play Gerrard in a weird formation. Wonder if this formation can work with our best 11.
Well, if you just replace Gerrard with De Jong, the defensive balance on the field is much, much better. The issue is -- if Bruce has to play Gerrard as well, then where do you place him?
I don't feel confident with Kennedy. I do feel confident with Rowe. Rowe never should have been benched even if this was a midweek game. Rowe has done well and deserves to continue to be our #1. This is what happened with Ricketts and Saunders years ago and Saunders had a great season.
whoscored team ratings, chalkboard and heatmap tends to differ with you.... https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...ague-Soccer-2016-Philadelphia-Union-LA-Galaxy He will probably make team of the week again.
Weird match. We score two beautiful goals on four shots. We give up 22 shots, inducing a slew of good looks at goal, and they only manage to score when our defense breaks down catastrophically. As a result, despite being out-shot 22-4, it sort of feels like we let this one slip away. Arena sets Gerrard up for failure, but (with a few exceptions) I felt like he played way better than on Sunday. Yeah... his defensive positioning wasn't great, but I think he showed for the ball much more consistently, and did fewer of the things that annoy me. I actually thought he was our best player on the night.
He completed 29 of 42 passes. 69% He had 1 unsuccessful cross 1 of 3 for tackles He did have 6 interceptions but Philly mostly attacked his side. He did have a good goal. http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone Eye test to me: he didn't fair to well
Directv f'd up and didn't record game. Despite having Deportes and living in NC I can't watch all of the delayed replays they showed tonight because they are all blacked out. So I didn't get to see the game. Dan didn't screw up did he?
I have always wondered why the "long flights" excuse gets used when explaining the challenges of MLS. I understand jet lag and having a difficult time adjusting to a new time zone when you are travelling for business. But when you have the luxury of sleeping in the next day to catch up on rest, doesn't that point become moot?
Can we have Brian Rowe back? Kennedy was terrible. From his legs of stone on the first goal, to his straight up error on the second I winced for him all game. To add insult to injury, he earned a yellow. Just...ARGH. Leonardo looked rusty, but I kinda expected him to. I finally got player ratings done, will post them tomorrow. No one really shone. But after thinking about it? Two new players in defensive, a Kennedy GK error, dead legs, two days rest, flight...I'll take the point. This was a good result I think. If you take a look at the chalkboard it's majorly holey between Husidic and Gerrard. I know that's a technical term, but there's not enough ground covered between the two of them, and combine that with their lack of speed? We were overrun. Rogers couldn't deal with the leakage over onto his side. That said, those two goals were pretty complete with some pretty great finishing! I just got back from Singapore. It took me a full week to recover from the cold I picked up, and the jet lag and my body feeling completely out of whack. My knees ache. It's not like these guys are at the spa - they're training. It's not an excuse. Crammed into that small seat with dead air, your muscles feel all tight and just aren't limber. I feel like that as a person that's not an athlete. God knows what their finely tuned bodies with all their aches and injuries do on planes. As I've gotten older I've tried to limit travel for work as much as possible. It sucks. You end up working round the clock and planes SUCK. That said, in the next two months I'm going to Florida twice and to Dubai. BLEGH. I'm not excited about this. It's gotta be worse for athletes with all their traditions, rules, and plain old muscle injuries. Plus, I'm 5' 1". God knows what it's like to cram a taller body into those seats when I feel cramped.
This is a good description of the physical evidence that travel is hard on you, but there is also the fact that every European player that comes to the MLS talks about how hard it is on their bodies. I won't pretend that I fully understand it, but I don't doubt that it's a real problem with real impacts on the way players perform.
I just finished watching the game and simply have to chime in. Many of you are being way too harsh on Leonardo. He had a good game, and coming off his long layoff it was very surprising. For all of you that are putting the first goal on him, do me a favor and watch the play again. A good cross comes in low and Van Damme makes a nice tackle on Sapong, but the ball comes out to the center of the box where Nogueira is waiting. Leo actually is there to cover the play, but so is Magee who slides in from behind, pokes the ball away and in the process tangles himself with Leo, who then can't react to the play anymore. Nogueira recovers the ball and what you are left with is essentially a 1v1 with Kennedy, who I can't really blame on this goal (second was totally his fault, that's an inexcusable mistake) other than possibly being more aggressive coming off his line after the initial clusterf*ck. I know that Leo has had his share of gaffes, but please don't let that affect your critique of his game when he actually does pretty well... BTW, Kennedy sucks a$$. Bench him permanently.
That's the mentality of the team right now, and I disagree with it. I thought the Union was a very beatable team, even after a short rest and a long trip. Were you really impressed by them? I wasn't. They have good players who are good at some things (Sapong, Pontius, Le Toux, Barnetta), but they are just good players. If this is the second best team in the East, I think it speaks a little about the rest of the Conference... And what surprises me a little bit is that Philly seems to be happy with the draw : If this Union team thinks a draw is a good result, is it really accurate to say that's a good result for us too? That should be a little bit disappointing. On Leonardo : I think you can blame him on both goals (not saying he's the only one to blame though). On the first one the cross just goes in front of him and he just had to make a tackle to safely put the ball in corner. Then Van Damme and Magee made two superb tackles but Nogueira (who Gerrard should have marked) scored. On the second goal he was the nearest player but he missed his header. Otherwise he had a tough game battling Sapong but he did a decent job IMO. I understand why Bruce started him so I won't criticize Bruce on this one. Our attackers did a good job in scoring two great team goals. I think it was not the problem. I could blame Bruce on three things : - starting Kennedy. It's logic in Bruce's mind but we were a lot saying his best years were far behind him. He played 110 minutes in MLS this season and you can already blame him on two goals (the DC United goal in the opener was very stoppable). When your backup is that bad, you have to always start you best keeper. I really have no idea at which point the travel affects the players but I think it's safe to say the GK are not the most affected. - playing Gerrard at DM. He did a good job offensively to be honest, but you have to wonder if we are the only ones to see that Stevie's defensive contribution is almost equivalent to nothing. I would have switched Baggio and Gerrard. - Keane was completely gassed in the end, Lletget should have replaced him in the 75th minute. To conclude, it seems our goal is "always win at home, always draw away". Am I really harsh or is it fair to expect a little bit more given we may have the better and the deepest team we ever had?
Considering recent years where we rarely drew away, much less won away, I think a draw on the road in tough circumstances is s great result. Those expecting this team to win away regularly have not been paying attention.
Well. I agree to this extent: When the ref signalled 4 minutes of extra time, my immediate reaction was to scream OH NOOOOO. And I'm thinking, here we go again, I can see it coming, how predictable..... So the point was a relief and improvement over recent form. I disagree in the sense that (NOT EVERY GAME) but there are some opportunities for this team to pick up three on the road, and this was one of them. But for the keeper, we were up 2-1 and had a decent chance to close out a game against a team that is less than dynamic. So, once we go up, my expectations were raised, and that's why I am disappointed notwithstanding the team weathered the 4 minutes.
That's a high plateau. Remains to be seen how wide it is. Here's my post-match write-up: http://www.lagconfidential.com/2016...and-negatives-la-galaxy-at-philadelphia-union
Interesting take from a Union fan who was at the game last night: "Just got home from the game a little bit ago really disappointed we couldn't get 3 points but the two goals LA scored really showed how much more quality they have. Keane was dropping way too deep to get the ball instead of getting in behind on the counter which is when LA is most lethal. Gio was basically invisible all game, Ashley Cole was basically playing LW and not tracking back and Gerrard is a ghost on the field, LA might as well be playing with 10 men with him in. Gerrard was playing in like a CDM role and I didn't see him more than jog all game. We had a few counter attacks where Stevie didn't even attempt to break it up or anything we just took two dribbles to the side of him and it's too far for him to get to" Completely agree with Cole and Gerrard. Gio was also marked out of the game pretty well. Keane was too, hence why he was dropping so deep.
Well thats just not true. He lost the ball in I believe the 68' and actually sprinted a few yards to get it back. I remember it because I screamed at the tv "why don't you hustle like that all the time???" but, then I remembered... 35.