and re the snob comment, from my occasional EPL watching, a lot of english teams these days are soft defending zonal teams. i am lost how that became the model to imitate. setting aside atletic, athletic bilbao is midtable in La Liga on 6 GF in 7 games because they have also allowed only 4 GA. watched them almost beat barca. brentford in the EPL. team defense is an equalizer. stoke and other teams used to get this. the reaction against this is a fashion choice -- or we want to play entertaining aesthetic soccer -- not a concrete response to reality. if what concerns you is how to get offense, that's the "leicester" thing. what you need is a 2 way concept. get out and counter. play for deadballs. some specific idea how to get forward. barrett's problem was he drummed his team into playing defense but never seemed to have tactical ideas how to attack or sub and get Ws.
I hear you on shoring up our defense, cuz in a sport that is by its very nature so defensive, getting this part of our Starting XI correct is the primary objective of any coach! Goalie must be solid and lead from the back as well as this is vital for a team's cohesion on defense. For me the first name on my team sheet. A goalie sees the field in a way no other can so his barking at his buddies needs to be direct and with venom. This trait rubs out the brain farts that arrive from a back line like ours that falls asleep at the wheel too often. Or like against Minnesota right from the opening kickoff!!! Then the back line and then the #6 role. Which in post modern times since Mourinho introduced sticking to the 4-2-3-1 scheme over the course of the long season, there are often dual #6 players. If Ramos wants to go with this and stay with a back line of 4 then we could run out this 4-2-3-1 line up if everyone is healthy. Perhaps tomorrow night. ------------------------------------Urutti --------Pasher--------------Quintero---------Fafa -------------------------Jones-----Cascaquilla -------Teenage---------Parker------Figueroa---------Vera
i'd separate out two things. one is at some point we lost the frenetic defense of early season. that's not formation or most people's idea of tactics. that's energy and getting stuck in. i've enjoyed watching atletico madrid lately. everyone chases and gets suck in. they are constantly winning balls and it is hard to sustain an attack for any length of time without making a mistake. that would be true regardless how they deploy and regardless if they had an offense. which they do. but that is just what happens when you win a ball and the switch flips. two is formation. i think formation is underrated for the purpose of giving you bodies where you want them. if you want defense, put some bodies back. 352, 451, 442. 352 has initial appeal to me because we could ditch the wingbacks and just use the wing attackers as the wings instead. but 3 backs is big boy stuff and i'm not sure if we have 3 backs who could hack it alone, particularly behind a more aggressively stuck in team defense. so, 451. that's one added body back beyond a 352 for safety, and you get 2 layers of wings, not just 1. i see part of our problem for 5 years as people taking advantage of all that wing space in a 433. we briefly dealt with it by shifting to a 451 or 442 on defense under cabrera, but that seems forgotten. i'm suggesting bring that back and make it also the default offensive formation. we tilt back, the other team pushes up, we counter. i think our offense is better in a counter and not as good half court. that has also been true for 5 years. we are better playing into space. we lack a dominant playmaker to break down a team that has already gotten back. and yet most coaches here seem to want to push the formation forward. also, i don't think our mid defense -- or mids period really -- is all that great. 352 or 451 gives them 2 more guys to help. what they can't do on their own the sheer bulk of formational players does for them. if the formation instead has 3 forwards, they are on their own. what i see, we need all the help we can get, so push the formation backwards. outlet the ball early over the top to the wings. get out early and counter. i don't know if i'd press so much as i would back up to 1/2 to 2/3 field and then crunch anything that moves in that area. come to me, create the space i can play into. we for some reason have gotten on the "press" train and to me that makes us the risk takers.
You can't run a 3-5-2 with two decent CB's, and 1 striker. Also, his 4-3-3 is basically a 4-5-1 with the way Fafa and Griffen track back. A 4-5-1 is also completely worthless when you can't connect to your midfield and you don't have a striker that can make a run in behind people. Urruti can't even score directly in front of the net this year, a 4-5-1 isn't doing anything with us. You talk about tactical subs, we have that. The only problem is our different version of players is terrible. Lassiter is a tactical sub, he's awful. We also have too many of the same players. There's basically no difference between Corona, Ceren, and Vera. They're all basically the same guy, but Vera is the best of the three. Jones is long and athletic, he also pouts and fails to get back and mark anyone at times. He also loves to give the ball away in the midfield trying to dribble past the entire team. Lastly, about Hadebe, I watch every game at least 3 times. I can only name 2 since he's been here that are directly his fault. (1) Chichirito's header against LAG (2) The ball he tried to goal line clear that ended up a missle to an attacker (Can't remember which game). Now watch the number of times he shuts down counters by himself. Now watch the number of times he forces ball carriers out of bounds, and the slide tackles he makes in the box, and the balls he heads to midfield, or the laser's he fires through the lines to the forwards. He's the best CB we have, and he and Parker are going to be a tremendous asset going forward. They still need time to gel. Great back lines aren't formed in 14 games.
Press doesn't necessarily mean risk taking. Like, what is your record as coach for real? You are awfully critical of well, everyone. Soft EPL, lol!!!! So have you ever lost a game?
This^^^^ you are either willfully unwilling to give credit or aren't watching the game. Hadebe has been wonderful. If your idea of a good CB is perfection then you must be a miserable person.
urruti quintero corona carasquilla fafa jones figueroa parker boniek vera nelson 451 or urruti quintero pasher corona carrasquilla fafa jones hadebe figueroa boniek nelson 352 if you're like huh on the backs, i think you can hide slowpoke parker in 4 backs but 3 would be a problem. same logic why you couldn't play boswell on an island with no help.
Uh, Parker isn't slow man. Valentine is slow. If you're going 3-5-2 it would have to be: Urruti - Dude that isn't on roster. Quintero Fafa - Vera - Corona - Dorsey Hadebe - Parker - Boniek. You could also play Figeroa on the back line and slide the other two over (two left footers in this formation makes it tuff), but you're choosing between an undersized 38 year old and an undersized 36 year old. The other problem with 3-5-2 is you are running Dorsey and Fafa to death and there's literally not a person on the roster who can give them a break.
Let's look at this 4-5-1, and then look at our normal lineup......oh, that's the midfield that didn't win a game for an MLS record 16 games. Putting Darwin Quintero at LM takes away all he's best at, which is making runs at defenders in the middle of the field and leaving it for someone else. Vera at RB could work, but he's also your best defensive midfielder and can't cross or beat anyone off the dribble. He's really good at winning balls back in the midfield and is great in the short passing game. Corona doesn't do anything productive, and Carrasquilla is OK, but can't create anything or hit the broad side of the barn from distance. Neither of the lineups you posted is scoring anything, pretty much what's plagued this team all year and playing Figueroa and Vera at fullbacks doesn't help anything at all.
Extremely undersized with Boni. Fafa, maybe can keep the pace, Dorsey can't and like you say no backups.
if you could help it i would try to play 352 because then you get the trash wingbacks off the field -- you only need 2 wings in the formation on any line -- and the question is then can pasher, fafa, dorsey, whoever, get from endline to endline all day and track back. i would trust pasher and fafa to chase opposing wings over lundkvist and valentin, and they are probably better other end too. the issue 352 is 3 backs is a big boy pants formation for mobile backs who can mark people. i played it in select and college. with the wings up you are going to be on an island a lot. you can either mark or not. do we have 3 people who can mark with no help or not, and who are mobile enough to run with someone. dunno about that. fuenmayor and parker are glacial. figueroa is sharp but old. hadebe i am not sold can find his man all day. boniek, also getting older. you start to see where the lack of defensive quality, age, lack of mobility, becomes a stumbling block. so i end up thinking 451 and just find experimental players for wingback. get 4 people out there who will mark someone and give them formational help with bodies back. and then try and generate something on the counter with fafa and quintero. i do agree it's a mess that this all would funnel to urruti but that's what happens when you sell all the 9s on the roster and implode on the replacement. it was fairly predictable that fafa and urruti, while ok, would put up basically sub numbers equivalent to what memo did in previous years. we have regressed. but to me if the defense isn't solid then it's a sandcastle. you score a goal or two playing formationally aggressive one half, other team catches you up and ties or wins second half. so get more fundamentally sound and balanced, start frustrating other teams, and then it's up to the coach to find a way to be more precise with the offensive opportunities. just too much journeyman junk. but my issue with ramos is i see no hint he has come up with inspired rookie choices, or veteran re-tasks, or veteran specialists, where he can deliver the close ones. i instead see a coach where the result consistently seems to dribble away. that to me says we play hard, we take risks, we get tired, and it goes away. not much coaching value added other than they seem to play hard for him. so what, hopefully next season we sign some better people, better coach, and they will play hard for him but hopefully with more speed and skill. to me playing hard by itself is just basic professionalism.
To he honest, you are saying trash wingbacks because you aren't watching the games, just the stat sheet. Lundy has done a lot that doesn't get you on a Stat sheet. Which you would know...if you were watching, which you aren't.
Uh, Fafa has double-digit goals this year, and has had one of his best seasons as a pro. Our #9 last year scored three goals, and Christian Ramirez never did anything of note for us at all. He was probably the slowest person on the team, and one of the slowest in the league. And no inspired rookie choices? Griffen Dorsey? Sam Junqua? Michael Nelson? Coco Carrasquilla? This is Tyler Pasher's MLS rookie campaign. He's played Ian Hoffman some minutes too. Lastly, our guys play hard, they just aren't very good man. This team has yet to quit. You know what's worked? Fafa getting hot and scoring goals. That's basically it.
i mean, urruti is good for 6G 3A this season, similar to 5G 2A last year, 4G 6A year before that, same neighborhood, the mistake is expecting more. sub numbers. fafa has quietly rebounded to philly level numbers, 10G 4A. but that's not elis or manotas or cubo numbers. to me a lot of this is like, what did you expect. too many journeyman types, ok numbers, no studs. a lot of what we are missing is the top end. we have stacks of memos and cerens and veras and pashers and urrutis trying hard. what we're missing is the 20 goal or 15 assist guys, the cherries on top. or some defenders who mark people out of games every week. or a keeper who can get a result on his own.
fafa at his best is putting up a bad elis year, sorry, meh. ramirez is underrated, averaging a goal every other game for aberdeen. he was that good for minnesota which is why he got called. what this team could actually use is a striker who ball at feet can finish. not create a bunch of swirling whirling activity. just trap and finish. do you see how many goals we score where a ball gets played across goes all the way through and is scored weak side? we have basically no 9 presence. everything is wide.
That's right, Urruti is a 4-6 goal-a-year goal scorer. He's our primary target in the attacking third, and he can't even turn or hold up play much less run behind anyone. You hit the nail on the head with your last remark. We don't have a 15-20 goal a season scorer. If we did, we'd basically be in contention for the playoffs right now. No system in the world is changing that fact. Tabs run 5 different formations this year trying to find one that worked. You know what finally worked? 4-2-3-1 with Quintero at the #10.
inspired does not cover sam junqua, sorry, no. i like nelson but his numbers are basically maric's. nor 2G 1A from dorsey in half a season of games. it's good to see someone do something but he's just ok. i am talking geoff cameron. stuart holden. people you could actually build around. you're talking, well, he doesn't completely suck. a guy who projects out as basically urruti numbers on a full year is not moving us above the red line. it is better than watching lassiter but that's not saying much. some of you are thirsty in a desert drinking from a mirage.
You're talking two differen't things. The guys you mentioned could play. Junqua and Nelson where first round picks before Tab even got here. Dorsey was straight up cut by TFC this year. Tab's trying to develop guys, and believe it or not Dorsey is getting better every game. I'm not thirsty for anything, I just recognize what he's doing.
Again, if you watched the games you would know that Nelson has been utterly fantastic. That second goal at MN, it was a miracle he even got a hand on it.
i think we are exaggerating "worked." we played .500 ball including going back to getting clobbered by the actual good portland team. we beat up on an expansion austin team even worse than us -- which we have not consistently done despite them having less offense and worse defense. we also beat dallas who has a worse defense than we do, even on table points. to me we should be the best team in the state, easy, this season. that it's even in doubt says something. i also think you're ignoring we are poor both sides of the ball. 31 GF isn't good. but neither is 41 GA. as i have argued til i am blue in the face, the one recent period we were competitive they got the GA down. as i explained months ago, even if elis scores 10 and mantoas 20, if we ship 50 goals, we watch the playoffs on TV. i want to say the GF stayed up in 2018 but the GA rocketed up and that was the difference from 2017. i explained how when that GA goes up you start losing the games late. you lose games late you hand away points. you hand away points and you end up 5-10 back of the line and wonder how it happened. well, all those 2-1 losses that were 1-0 or 1-1 at halftime. fix the defense and you will be assured of at least a pojnt every week. USMNT at gold cup. 1 goal every game but if they score 0 every time guess who wins. btw 4231 is basically a 451 using a double 6 out of the 3 mids. so you're like kind of saying i am in the ballpark. i am saying use different people and consider a 352. i think it's hugely important finding a way to get valentin and lundkvist off the field. until you fix that it's like the Texans running hargreaves out there at CB. toast. all day.
i watched the games, dude. i find the kid interesting. i also check what i see against the numbers as the season progresses, to ensure i am not buying into anecdotes. his GAA of 1.5 is like willis' numbers. he is 0.02 GAA better than maric per game. a goal every 50th game. statistically insignificant. in terms of the numbers, the same level keeper. what i am looking for is like deric vs willis. 1/3 - 1/2 of a goal better. down near 1 goal a game. then i will know we found someone. i do think he's worth keeping around -- instead of maric -- but he's not a starter. the running problem with this team's fans is confusing bench level with starter. we have a team full of people who would be fine off the bench supporting someone actually good. the problem is when valentin and corona and urruti and whatnot are the starters. you cannot make a team of castoffs and win. on that brian and i agree. brian's mistake is assuming ramos had nothing to do with it when a few of these players are identifiable as his U20 kids. who do you think asked jordan for them? his other mistake is like acting like the coach is a genius when his morning alarm goes off 2/3 of the way into the season 10 points south of the playoffs, and he suddenly puts his DP out there and gets a slight clue. we either literally have nothing, or we have something, perhaps not much, but which also may have been frittered away for most of 27 games. i think we are bad, but literally so bad we should be where we are? no. minnesota has fewer GF and is above the line. wanna know why? they have a team concept and play defense. and not a tinkerman concept where the coach throws spaghetti at a wall. the coach has a way, the team executes it, and is thus more than the sum of what otherwise is a zero goal difference set of parts with 31 GF in 27 games. to me we play to the low end of expectations. not very good but not squeezing much juice out of the orange either. to me with who we have we should be 9th-ish. that this is instead almost xerox of last season says the coach adds nada. he is as good as the roster he is handed. that is my lifelong soccer hint of a bad coach. reminds me of my HS coach. his teams rollercoastered up and down depending on talent. another coach in district was consistently good, even when he had no talent. ironically i knew the other guy and had him recommending me for colleges. but i digress. my HS coach got awards for basically riding the talent. i learned long ago to look at what they could do with nothing. ramos does nothing with nothing. he's not value added.
I'm not ignoring how terrible we are. But the fact we pulled 7/10 points after going winless for over two months tells me the switch worked. Lundy has been really good this year, and if you don't think so I agree with Ethos and you need to watch the games. Valentine has issues, but when he's able to stay back he's been steady. We need to upgrade him, but we need a 9 worse than we need to upgrade Valentine. Honestly, if this team doesn't lose Pasher as many times as it has, we'd probably be 9th or 10th. If you play Quintero all year with Pasher? They still wouldn't be a playoff team but might sit 8-9. Tab's used a bunch of different people this year. We've started 7 different midfielders, we've played 5 guys at the wings. We don't have another RB, and we don't have another 9. If we were going to try anyone at RB, I'd try Memo in a 4-2-3-1, he defends and can get the ball downfield. He'd hurt us back there, but he'd help us going forward. Playing with Quintero, Dorsey, and Fafa, there's no need for Valentine to get forward and he can sit deeper so he doesn't get burned down the sideline.