woeful, again. Kamara other-worldly. Fugundez squandered his natural scorer talent for a less effectual midfield role?
I did not see the game. I see in the box score Lee was subbed in the 57th. was that an injury or tactical sub?
Injury. I'm not sure what the prognosis is, but it was not a swap that Heaps planned for, apparently.
Three Defenders, 1 DM that is probably 80% healed, Kobayashi and Teal Bunbury.....what a deadly bench. No need for upgrades or additions to this team!!!!
Not sure why Koussi, who is not capable of playing more than 10 mins, made the 18 and someone like Femi or Wright did not
No. Angoua and Delamea in the middle. Farrell on the right, Tierney on the left -- later swapped for Watson.
Because we paid a lot of money for him and right now it's looking like a bust. If he's on the bench, then can say he's working to get in shape. We didnt suck but I also saw little movement off the ball by the forwards. That killed any kind of ground attack and reduced our attack to crosses and hope for the best. In order for that to work, somebody has to go for the ball....even if its not directly on their forehead. Saw little desire to try and do that. End result, zero goals with few good chances. I don't think Heaps is the right guy to coach an attack strategy. Why has he messed with what was working at the end last year? Does he want to waste months on his latest brain storm before changing things? Lee is not a forward and Juan needs to be up front all the time. Kamara needs to actually move for the ball. He is getting a bit up there in age too. Maybe this is what he is now?
Agree on Lee. Kamara is useless in our team, he does not fit Heaps's system. Agudelo shows up once every 3 or 4 games. He's not consistent enough. I don't see the hype around him at club level, let alone for the NT. The revs need to revamp their attack, clean house next off-season and bring in a pure goal scorer. Based on what he's shown, Kamara isn't going to be that guy here. Play Wright and see what he can do.
Count me a Linus! On the game proper - is Watson an upgrade over Tierney from an offensive point of view? I didn't see that -- or did Tierney get gassed? So what move did we make that was an offensive upgrade, besides fresher legs; i.e. take off a defender and insert a more offensive minded person? Doesn't look like we have one on the bench or a strategy to do that. Think about it Watson on for Tierney, Bunbury on for Agudelo and Daigo on for Lee. And we were behind by a goal when the subs were made. Our defense did look reasonable, though the goal was a scramble off a set piece where a Colorado player hit the post with a free header.
[QUOTE="Cannons, post: 35195713, member: 61534 We didnt suck but I also saw little movement off the ball by the forwards. That killed any kind of ground attack and reduced our attack to crosses and hope for the best. In order for that to work, somebody has to go for the ball....even if its not directly on their forehead. Saw little desire to try and do that. End result, zero goals with few good chances.[/QUOTE] Not trying to say the attacking movement would have been better if we had been playing at home but the above sure sounds like an very early season game at altitude. I have experience with extreme activities (Mountain Warfare Traiing) at altitude and it is a major difference if you live and train at altitude or travel there to play games. Thats a major reason they were undefeated at home last regular season. My guess was Heaps plan was to keep movements to a minimum and look for the chance goal and banked on keeping a clean sheet. Almost wprked. The CRapids goal was as much luck as skill. Lets see how our attack looks next week at home before be call them a bust.
Doc, you are right elevation is tough, however that's not an excuse when it's the first game of the seasonm. Tthe preseason was largely spent in Arizona, at elevation. Tucson is 2388 above sea level and Mesa is over 1k above sea level. If you know you're playing in Colorado, get there a week early and acclimate. I actually thought based on the stats, possession, outshooting the rapids, the revs carried the game pretty well on the road. The problem is the idiot coach played Nguyen up top and messed with a formation that worked. We will experiment through the spring with minimal results then *maybe* get someone off the scrap heap in May.
Not sure how much we can learn from this game. Our offense wasn't good enough to score against last season's best defense. Our defense was not exposed by last year's worst offense (other than a free header/scramble set piece goal). One thing that annoys me - when we take off Tierney, their right back can pinch in because there's no real threat from any of our players getting to the endline on the left side. Unless you replace Tierney with D Smith, you're just scrunching up the field, removing space that we can attack effectively.
Next week, against Orlando at home, will be an illuminating game. Orlando has some attacking talent, and will test our defense. Orlando is suspect along the back four, and so should offer room and opportunity for our attack to show what we can do. It should be a straightforward Revs victory..... if in fact the preseason wasn't just 100% smoke and mirrors.
Or you can also say that Heaps' "system" is one that does not take advantage of a 20+ goal scorer. That was the problem for about 75% of the season last year. Heaps insisted on a certain formation that didn't suit his players, and it wasn't until it was almost too late that he made changes. And those changes worked.
Totally agree. You build a system based on what you have. Heaps insists on trying to force square pegs in round holes and it he coached anywhere else but the Revs, he'd be long gone
The positive: In the first half there was clearly a lot of high fives between the back five as a way to make sure they stayed positive. It was clearly something they were doing after every play . ( this is a big difference then when Soares used to always just be yelling at Shuttleworth and Farrell ). But then once they fell behind I did not quite notice as many high-fives between those back five in the 2nd half. Thought 2 new center backs were fine but need larger sample sizes size. I thought Colorado was not that great. But neither were Revs. Hard to pick a man of the match. Not sure Lee's prognosis. Interesting that Tierney was removed. When was the last time that happened and not related to injury unless this was an injury? Or Tierney starting to show some age? Paul and Brad were the same. Kaka left Orlando game with injury Although odds are he would not of played on the Foxxborough turf anyway this Saturday.
Unfortunately, given our dearth of offensive upgrades in the offseason, I suspect we'll be playing from behind much more than we'd like.