your excuse holds no water. i played marking back some in college and literally never gave up this "soft spot between the CBs" goal one time in 4 years. i think once i got outjumped near post flick header by a 6' 4" guy when i was draped on him. i would feel depressed if this happened to me regularly. and as i explained, this isn't the first time in recent weeks he was fronting a cross and gave too much space and didn't go up or run back or otherwise make it hard at all. i am listening to folks try and make a virtue out of a basic zonal defense failure like it happens all the time. it doesn't. it didn't even happen that much last year. last year we typically gave it up far post because everyone was so pinched in this middle room didn't exist. look, sh*t happens when someone hits a perfect cross and you're positioned and they just get a head on it and it goes in. this was poor positioning and communication. this will get dissected. this is the sort of thing where swiatchenko is playing next week maybe.
We 🧡 you, Teenage! #HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/qEKf5M86MA— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) May 28, 2023 𝐕𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐒 𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐏𝐎🤘#HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/LqveTz5P58— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) May 28, 2023 Impeccable vibes all around
you're missing the point that (a) in the short term he can simply be replaced on the field. since when did having HH or artur or caicedo play back mean he gets cut tomorrow? surely you get the point to a lineup theory is "someone else starts." i pretty transparently explained i think it's what we need to get enough points between now and july to be competitive when roster changes get made. a "patch." or we can lose some games between now and then to prove your silly cap point -- cap doesn't play soccer -- and see if we can dig out of the hole after. (b) nothing requires that salary be used on your exact position. we have a pile of useless wings and wingbacks. i can cashier one of them and sign another CB where we might have 2 decent CB and not more keystone cops. (c) you're talking about the pro-rated value of a player with half a season left as GA like it would break our cap structure if we so much as promoted a second team player. (d) long term GA lasts 3 max years and he's in year 3. perhaps because you are johnny come lately you are unfamiliar with the harsh roster realities that confront the mediocre post-GA iannis of the league. pat ianni was a dynamo GA CB gone to seattle soon after his GA status expired. and i think pat was a better defender than this but pat was around during the title years which is darwinian. you threw around "only a moron," well, only a moron keeps around a former GA player at a more mid career salary when they aren't pulling their weight and have a full cap hit. and only a moron is thinking more about cap than whether they give up goals or lose soccer games. that's precisely the sort of misguided jordan-ball that killed us for years where "cap savings" seemed to override whether the team on the field was any good from the players accumulated with the supposed savings. btw, THOR is the one who is good and cheap. good and cheap used to mean cameron or holden. i giggle at your idea of "good" in good and cheap. this is more the equivalent of having a minimum salary backup keeper who's not that great except this one plays. it's like when nelson played.
marking air isn't hard to understand. similar to no-man's land. he's not out wide killing that cross. he's not on his man close enough to stop the play. he's just kind of on the offsides line vaguely towards the middle but not actually marked. if you ever played a seriously competitive minute in your life you'd understand. the thing is when the play starts zardes is bracketed and it would take a god-like davis-like laser of perfect accuracy to find him. what you miss is what that little flinch wide does to a zone. that's a contested header turned into a free flick on net.
(b) can you sign another one that plays at Bartlow's level and counts 0 against the cap? Nope. (d) I'm sorry, I was unaware when evaluating Bartlow's play I was supposed to evaluate last year when he played mostly for HD2, and the year before when he didn't play, and we were supposed to evaluate our GA based on two coaches that got fired and are no longer here. Also, moving the goalposts is a neat trick. You didn't say we should move on from him after his GA tag expires, you said we should dump him now, which only a complete moron would do. Kind of like playing Raines last year before we had secured his homegrown rights, which also only a moron would do. BTW our GA has dropped significantly every year Pat's been here. That has to kill you inside a little. Again, this stuff isn't hard to find.
What I saw last night was Olsen going with a 3-5-2 to try to generate more offense. But doing so he stole from the defense and paid for it with the Zardes goal. I like our players out there — but the 3-man back line system got exposed. insufficient pressure on the ball, and Zardes successfully ghosted between CBs 2 and 3 for an open header. Just poor defense. For me — 3 men backlines are complex to play all around and you need really good CBs and even better MFs in front of them. I like our personnel but I don’t think we are good enough for 3-5-2. Playing it let Austin look good. Having watched ATXFC second most only to the Dynamo I don’t think ATX is good at all this year. Having said all that — I’m not complaining. Olsen is new with this team, this team is new, he needs to try some things and learn how the players do. After conceding the Dynamo handled the 3-5-2 better but still gave up way too much dangerous possession. Teams need tactical flexibility so I’m fine with Olsen doing this monkey business. Lets see how it progresses.
Also — dumping Bartlow would be a huge mistake. That is crazy to suggest. He is playing well and has growth ahead of him.
What made the 3-5-2 worse was when we had the ball we switched to a 4-3-3 or something similar. Baird was up alongside Ibrahim much of the time so when we lost possession, which was often in the first half as we looked lost, it left the back 3 super stretched on Micael's side. Second half when they switched back to a back 4 we looked so much better.
He's been doing that ever since Steres went in the starting lineup. What made it even weirder last night was Baird was playing almost like a LWB at times, super deep in the defending third, while Bassi was playing like a #9, but they were rotating around a bit position wise.
Like I said, defensively Baird was the LWB opposite Escobar in the 1st half, but with the ball he was up alongside Ibrahim, even moved centrally often. That's a lot to ask of a guy to cover that much ground and when you turn the ball over as often as we did in the first half, you're just asking for trouble.
100%. Last night was really odd, but it also looked like it really opened up things for Aliyu. He was soo dangerous last night.
I think a lot of that had to do with Bassi. Way back in his first appearance for the team off the bench (against NER I think) I said on here, "this guy is a center midfielder, not a winger". He works well in tight spaces, his passing from the middle is pretty good. I'd have to go back and watch this game because I always find what you see in stadium with distractions, etc, isn't necessarily what you see at home with the benefit of replay and whatnot. However, he was almost kind of playing as a false 9 with Aliyu at times and dropping just off the guy pulled the defense a bit and opened up that space that Bassi was able to play throughballs into. Aliyu wasn't his sharpest last night, but he was good enough. I look forward to seeing more of that moving forward.
Well, i haven't watched it a second time yet, but Aliyu's diagonal runs in behind through the gaps were really well timed and Austin's back line simply couldn't keep up with him. He had a couple of really nice plays, but a few disappointing ones too. He had Austin buck naked but the ball hit his back heal and he turned the wrong way and lost it. But, it's actually someone opposing defenses have to pay attention to.
Aliyu is light years ahead of what we've had. Instant upgrade to the front line HH yet AGAIN continues to exhibit a skill level that simply is degrees higher of anyone else on the field. A joy to watch I'm with Juve on this one....Bartlow wiffed on his responsibilities on the AFC goal. I've been critical of him since day one and he's yet to change my opinion Escobar is a red card just begging to happen at any instance. Baird is trash Props to Ol Ben for changing the formation. He did seem to get out coached after AFC made the adjustments at halftime but we hung in there and won a game that we would've lost in years past. beating team socialism really makes the holiday weekend that much better. well done fellas! PS Anyone know when the last time we won after conceding first??
What the hell do you think Steres' responsibilities are there? You are proposing that Bartlow leave the right channel/near post completely open and go mark Zardez on the back post so Steres can go have a cup of tea?? You need to watch that goal a few dozen times ....
Austin had higher xG in the first half, then got trounced on xG in the second half. Austin had more corners than Houston in the first half. Didn't win a second half corner, and Houston had more second half corners. Austin out-possessed Houston in first half. Houston out-possessed Austin in the second half. What exactly did you see that makes you think Olsen got outcoached in the second half?
I'm with Don Juego. We watched different games. The Dynamo were outclassed in the first half. Second half they made adjustments and were significantly better. Had a much higher xG, more possession and generally made Austin look bad. Go look at the Austin subreddit and see how pissed their fans are at how bad they looked in the second half.
the amount of pee pees getting hurt on this thread is just *chef's kiss*! Some how, it was read into my comment that ONLY Bartlow was to blame for the goal. That wasn't said or intimated & is a confection of a indignant mind. Steres is to blame as well, and Bartlow is not blameless. Two things can be true at once. The first 15 or so minutes of the second half, AFC had a different direction, possession and success than at almost any other plot point of the game. This showed to me that they changed course at half time and we didn't adjust right away. However, we hung in there and got the game won with own goals and ping ponging bouncing balls in the box that fell at our feet. The later half of the second half was ours & we saw the game out.
My friend, you definitely watched a different game. Breaking possession into 5 minute intervals, Austin's largest possession advantage was between minutes 15-20 of the 1st half where they had 76% of the possession. Austin won the possession battle from minute 6 to minute 20. After that, the Dynamo had more of the possession for most of the first half. The 15 minutes you reference? Minute 45-50: Dynamo 63.2% Minute 50-55: Dynamo 50.7% Minute 55-60: Dynamo 70% Continuing on from there: Minute 60-65: Dynamo 64.7% Minute 65-70: Austin 75.7% Minute 70-75: Dynamo 63.7% So maybe you're thinking of that 5 minute interval from minute 65-70?
No one said they were hurt. I still think you should answer the question of what Bartlow should have done different since you singled him out for blame. You want to change your view? OK. I will point out that while Bartlow is active and moving to cover space in front of Zardes, which is his responsibility, Steres goes flat footed and fails to stay inline with the play. Zardes is not really far post -- almost on the 12' spot -- but Steres clearly gets caught asleep and Zardes and the fantastic service from the wing made possible by Baird playing too far away from Lima. For me, of the three guys Bartlow is the least to blame. Take a look and notice how Steres falls off the play. ------ Now don't get too defensive here -- but I will point out pure facts contained in the MLS stat/game report related to your statement that ATX "had a different direction, possession and success" in the first 15 minutes of the second half: From minute 46 to 60 the Dynamo had their greatest possession advantage of any 15 minute period. They won all three 5' segments with a total possession advantage of 67.8%. (This stat is the higher possession % minus opposing teams lower possession %.) From minute 46 to 60 the Dynamo had 2 attempts on goal to ATX's 0 attempts on goal. Now, away from facts and onto perspectives and opinions, I just watched that 15 minutes again. What I see is this: There are 3-4 minutes of scrambling defense by the Dynamo as the ball falls to Austin in some dangerous moments. They didn't manage to create one chance out of it but it was danger for Austin and the Dynamo looked desperate and under pressure. Minute 54 Steres and Escobar have the ball pinned against the corner flag and let a back heel get past them into open space for Lundqvist to run onto. Its a dangerous moment. Over the next few minutes there are several more scrambling defensive moments. But they don't come from any sort of Austin dominance -- rather the ball just falls for Austin a bit. Neither the Dynamo nor Austin are doing anything different. The rest of that stint of play is ALL Dynamo -- and they create a number of dangerous opportunities and chances. I come away from being at games all the time with a memory that is not supported by subsequent views and analysis. Don't take this as a big attack on you. And I'm not hurt or upset if you have a different opinion. But if I have a different view of something you know I'm going to voice it. It is all just soccer opinions which are 90% wrong -- and no one knows what the right 10% is.
what you're missing is the idea is we're effectively doubling the striker with a front and back bracket. but then bartlow as the front half of the bracket gives too much space fronting so the guy in the sandwich gets a free header when the ball goes over bartlow. you're then asking the back half of the pair to anticipate the mistake of the front bracket and either step around the man or get goalside rapidly. on a cross with some mustard. good luck trying to win a header when stuck behind your man. that's a no no to start with and we don't have good athletic backs to correct and recover the mistakes. to be real i don't like the personnel but i really don't like the zone either where neither player seems marked and goalside in a way we'd teach some U12. they are more like playing an offsides line and relying on the sandwich to do the marking for them. what you saw with vancouver is the zone is a disorganized mess against a decent offense. no one knows who has whom. slow reactions to loose balls. slow stepping to dribblers. a lot of standing around in an offsides line marking space which was an issue last year except nagamura had them very narrow where what they were drubbed on was the back door outside the formation as opposed to the interior zone gaps right now. they need better personnel, period. and while i don't buy it at all if you're gonna argue certain players get a pass as developmentals, they should be bench or HD2. if you're telling me a malfunctioning starter be given room to work on his young game you're all but admitting my criticisms are true but saying no consequences and just give time. in terms of giving time, i don't get the appeal on bartlow. he looks slow. he appears ground bound at a slot dominated by aerial types. all these goals i am pointing out he seems a little slow to react and like he marks air. marking air works if the opposing service is sloppy. if they can laser the service in where they mean to, you're either marked or not. being in a line vaguely in the area of someone will get burned by good service. and to me whatever passing you think he has, i want the defense first. if there is no defense i tune out before you start talking to me about passing ability. to be fair, boswell and hainault were slow as molasses but within their limited mobility radius they dominated the ground and air of their space. you might occasionally nip in a soft spot and score but it sure as heck wasn't a weekly event. they won their headers and unless you made it a footrace they usually won their 1v1s. i do not see that future in young mr. bartlow. i am lost what the appeal is.