Had to have the 3 points, so that's good, but they look like they need a reset. They're good enough in the middle third but just atrocious in the final third. I hope they figure it out. Miami is in last place and down a man, that game was much too close.
I'm a big fan of Greene's, but he was awful last night. He was getting turned and literally running himself out of position at the end. Quite frankly, he looked like Dàjome on defense last night. Without Najar, the wingback situation on DCU is a mess.
Which is one of the things I hate about VAR. It feels that referees aren't making obvious but controversial calls (like a DOGSO red in the 5th minute) and waiting for VAR to bail them out or give them a second chance.
Ugly match and funny because I thought we would play well but lose, instead we play poorly and win. So what matters, results or good play? The never ending debate around here. Hard to take much from this match in terms of analysis other than the obvious "urgency is an option" and "you want to put the ball inside the goal posts not in the general vicinity of the endline when shooting".
I had the same thought. Live, it was 100% DOGSO. Textbook. The only variable in my mind was the time…referees hate making big calls in the first 10 minutes of a match, like a red or a PK. Sure enough, he didn’t have enough sack to go red until VAR told him he had to.
Totally agree on the VAR as a crutch. I remember Nyeman getting a DOGSO red by a tackle almost at midfield against NYCFC. Now, the field ref "defers" to the VAR ref. Problem is the VAR refs are the same clowns that also referee on the pitch, so Bozo I is hoping Bozo II will suddenly become competent. A metaphor for the way civilization will end.
Luckily in this case the VAR was Kevin Stott who is probably the most experienced US referee ever. Not always my favorite referee, but he knows how it's all supposed to work
After 5 games in two weeks where you just dropped two points at home and figured out how to get three points on the road? Take the three points. The stuff that this board perceives as issues can be worked out after the satisfaction of a plane ride home after a road win and a rest day. These guys are tired. They haven’t had more than one night at a time in their own beds for three weeks. They had alternating home and away games. Games like this where you are on the road against a wounded animal that is bunkering and trying to impress a new coach aren’t about who looks good tactically and who is being nice to who. They are about finding any way to get through the parked bus, get no injuries, prevent getting countered, then get the three points. Nobody will remember that they had a problem breaking down the bus or that Pines’s goal was ugly or that the two guys had a miscommunication in the left flank after being up 2-0. They’ll only remember the 3 points that open the door to playing playoff games. This wasn’t a soccer game in a conventional sense. It was a simple gut check. Dropped 2 points on Wednesday, on the road in Miami playing in the high humidity after a thunderstorm, against a team whose season is slipping away and was spirited with a possible New Coach Bounce, without one of your stars and another of your stars still not being 100% after injury… it was a simple matter of getting the job done or not. A playoff team gets the job done and a non playoff team does not.
We have all literally (used literally) talked about the match. Most of us think they sucked the great sucking. What else needs to be said. We came, we sucked, we won, go home. I am not a fan of an ugly win that doesn't show any progress or cohesion. We played better in games where we lost. That said - I'm not the FO and I'm sure they will take the W and move on. I think when we lose Najar we lose the right side, when we have to play Santos on the left we lose the left when we don't have cover speed for him. I haven't seen Jeahze in so long I'm not sure what he brings but he has to be better than Green and Santos.
I hope they're not patting themselves on the back after this one, whew boy but we got the win! Nah, the last place team went down a man in the 7th minute and you spent the first half futzing around. And I gotta say it doesn't fill me with confidence when Rooney says he is pleased with the patience. There is a time for that, sure, but less patience is required when up a man for the majority of the match. I guess it's going to be a team built to keep it close and steal it, even if a more aggressive approach is at times more suitable. I'm complaining because they can be better. With this team, it seems if there's good it comes with bad. 26 shots? Hooray. 6 on target. Ugh.
We can take the three points and move on while also acknowledging that there is lots of places to improve. It's not either-or. I'm glad they passed the gut check. I also agree that the transition from the middle third to the final third needs work.
That was my sense of the LAG game too. All combined with dropping pts the Canadian teams this last week makes the 2 pts vs Nashville & @PHL pleasing, but perhaps fools gold. Even if we make the playoffs, we'll almost certainly be on the road and get pasted in the first round. Or do we get a home game in the 1st rd of the playoffs? Keeping in mind, more than half the conference makes the playoffs.
Agreed we do, but that implies that we're building and I don't think you build with a pair 32 yo DPs. I believe all three of our DPs are out of contract after next season. When it came to the core of this team, they constructed it like they were 1-2 players away from a Cup run, not a run at the bottom end of the playoffs. We're playing route one football because we can't play out of the back if our lives depended on it. While Benteke is the most dominant aerial ball winner I can recall in this league, he's on borrowed time. So we're not getting better building out of the back and there isn't much time left on route 1, so what's the philosophy next year or the year after? None of our DPs can be bought down and we're not likely to be buying out Benteke to add a piece who makes us more capable of playing out of the back. Outside of Najar, our wide players are not good or proven. Najar is also on borrowed time and perpetually one hangnail away from being done. Some young guys are getting minutes and starting to produce, but they're not all going to pan out. And a lot of the good pieces around them that are facilitating their development aren't going to be around in 2 ys. Kristian Fletcher is all but out the door to Dortmund when he turns 18.
In the NewMLSPlayoffs the last two seeds, #8 and #9, have a play-in game at #8. So if we're #9 and lose that play-in then no home game. Otherwise the first round proper is the first-to-win-two thing, with the games at higher/lower/higher seed. So everyone gets at least one home game.