Post-match: San Jose Earthquakes - Austin FC (Saturday, 5/25) postgame thread [R]

22 shots to 6. 2.7 xG to 0.7. 1-1 game. :facepalm

To be that bad at finishing we would have had to practice “unfinishing”. Hey can you hit it off the top bar from 3 yards out and open goal? Nice! You got it!

 

It's hard to win a game when you miss an open net several times.

 

Hernán was definitely off his game tonight, from beginning to end. I hope quakes malaise is not infecting him.

 

We aren't meant to win, Luchi needs to be fired.

Hernan wasn't special, but he'd probably produce a lot more if he had competent consistent weapons to use.

 

They shit all over the XG... And this proved exactly what they said.

You can take 22 shots, and 20 of them can be absolute shit its going to make the xG higher compared to 3 quality shots and it'll be lower.

 

Sure we did. We were winning again, had a million chances, and couldn't hold onto the win.

 

I think they’re all a little knackered and that throws their timing and execution off just a little bit. The extra time against Sac didn’t help. They have a week off now but need to fly to NY and play a tough team. On the positive side our D was not bad tonight.

 

Also I think Hernán is trying to make the amazing play on every possession. To some extent, yeah let him cook, but sometimes the simple play is better. He had a great chance on goal inside the box somewhere mid 2nd half where he tried a ridiculous one-time volley(?) to the left corner of goal but missed fairly badly. He had time to take a touch and settle there and probably would have scored.

That play in the 91st minute - unbelievable. Skahan, who was dangerous with the ball on the left wing, again, drives the ball deep on the left side, crosses, Rodrigues is making a field-length lung-busting box crash and misses by an inch, it rolls to Espinoza who manages a weak touch, and it rolls slowly into the post, there's a weak clearance by Austin and it goes straight to Hernán at the top of the 6-yard box, he bangs it into the top post, and it falls to Niko who shanks it so badly he almost missed it completely. :facepalm

 

Not saying we don't need a new coach, but, hard to blame Luchi for not winning that one. We should have scored three goals in the first quarter of the game. And then that final sequence. Oh dear.

 

In general Luchi was not too accepting of the "we were just unlucky" narrative. It was more about - we need to find ways to win games, which is... correct! And although he didn't call him out by name, in the postgame Luchi was not too pleased with Gruezo's foul just to the right of the box that led to Austin's goal. All he had to do was mark the player and try to block the cross, but he swung in with his left foot and whacked the guy's leg.

The Quakes goal looked like a pattern of play they had probably worked on in training. Instead of Jebo making a late central run, have Pellegrino drift centrally, then Jebo makes a late run in the space Pellegrino left unoccupied on the left side. Espinoza crosses far post to Jebo.

 

Yeah, we weren't unlucky, just unskillful. We are not putting away chances we should be.
That Gruezo foul was the third free kick we gave them in succession at the end of the half, and it was third time's a charm for Austin.

 

The game last night was much more watchable than usual.

Before Hernan, our attack was basically run the ball up the sideline or long cross to Espinoza. Now Hernan is roaming back and forth across the middle and Jebo found him with some interesting crosses. Hernan made some great through or over balls, he just didn’t have anyone who could quite pick them up.

It’s surprising to me how much 1 player can change and elevate the offense.

 

Yeah and the Gruezo foul was the mirror image of the one he gave away on the other side against LAG in LA, which led to the Niko handball and 2nd(?) LA goal. The other 2 free kicks we gave away just before half against Austin were not so dangerous because I think they were a lot further from goal, but not great either because they were yellows. I think one was Wilson and the other was Espinoza.

 

This!^

 

I am a Cro Magnon who believes that VAR is anathema to the fair, free flow of play and that xG is a bullspit stat made up by pencil necks who've never played the game and is utterly subjective and unreliable.

I came home too late from the 'Mingos 1-0 victory vs Knoxville in the Jaegermeister cup (whatever that is) game to watch the Quakes last night and I'm still debating whether it's worth my time...

 

FC Broccoli played down to our level and they still walked away with a point.

Watching our team play is equivalent to watching paint dry, both are extremely tedious and predictable.

 

Quoting xG in a game like this is just a way of saying “we had lots and lots of chances and they didn’t”. If you don’t like that there’s a number attached to that, that’s fine, but that’s all it is. No need to get knickers all bunched up about it.

 

We played well last night.

Our defense was not awful for once.

But our offense sucked. More creative than previously, but couldn’t finish to save our lives.

The announcers were not terrible. Now that they’ve seen us play a few times, they are getting to know our players. So that’s an improvement. And Danielle Slaton still hates us more than any other announcer, which really pees me off.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Slaton is a Smog loving Galaxy lover

 

I think one of the many reasons we're flailing this year is that Espinoza's finishing has been off pretty much the whole year. He has 2 goals but by this time last year he probably had something like 7 or 8. He's had many chances from around 12-15 yards out that he's missed. He had 2 more last night - one wide left and then it culminated into a full-on embarrassing shank later in the game. I know he has about a billion assists and busts his butt every game and is probably a little knackered, and he's still a huge asset for us, but it would help if he got hot again, or least pretty good with his finishing.

 

Yeah, unfortunately for us he's back to his old true self. Last yr was a career year by far. He's still great (like the assists + always hustling) but those numbers were always going to be hard to duplicate otherwise he'd be playing in Europe not MLS. Consistency by far is the hardest part of being an athlete at the highest levels.

 

Yeah though I think what changed last year along with better finishing is his looking for / getting more shots. Those 2 things. I think the looking for and getting more shots thing is still happening but the finishing is not. Still time for him to get hot or at least decent with his finishing.

 

Pretty sure we knew last year that Espinoza was outperforming the metrics, so regression to the mean was always likely...