Just a few questions which may shape our Saturday: (a) Will Claudio Bieler find himself in MLS' version of time-out? (b) Will KC continue its journey toward 'Laker-status' of MLS officiating (except for handball decisions)? (c) Will PV rotate... anyone? (d) Will Uri be available? (e) How long will the Cauldron/TA beer beer lines look at the Cauldron tailgate? (f) FFS, will it snow?
Was thinking about the number of former SKC/Wizards players that the Timbers start and was wondering what the record would be for a KC opponent. Buzz?
I really hope no "Wizards Reject" is busted out. At least not for Jack and Mikey. I'd totally participate if it was Ryan Smith.
Agree - they did everything right as far as doing whatever our team asked them to do and approached their desire for more playing time in the right manner. Now, the question I have regarding the Wizards Reject chant - say if Herculez Gomez came back to MLS (don't care if we get a 1st round pick for his rights or a sack of potatoes) and were playing, who would support a "Wizards Reject" chant for him and who wouldn't? I like the guy, don't entirely like how the team dealt with him when we let him go but I am also getting annoyed by him as well.
I wouldn't. Seattle did it to him and those mopes did it when he was just there on loan. I sympathize with the guy and the whole "rights" thing as well. Somebody would have to be an incredible ass for me to want to do that. Like - I heard it for Jonathon Leathers a couple years ago and I was like what the fuhh? The guy got taken in an expansion draft!
Some guys started doing it for Davy last year and I got in their face about it, maybe a little more than I should have. Took a lot of restraint from me not to just smack em...
I think that we can safely say that Ryan Smith is a candidate. He's probably the one guy I really would want to use it on. It would depend on how Gomez acted before said game... but I can understand his frustration today. Fortunately we're really past the point in which players don't want to come to KC anymore. I'm not saying that everyone is demanding to come here, but we've at least gotten beyond the point where KC was the least desirable place to play (or so it seemed).
Positive: petersen looked solid and composed considering how long he has been gone. Hopefully he wins a spot and we.can get nags or fielhaber the eff out of there and get zusi back in the middle pulling strings. Negative to disastrous: everything else.
Second game in a row we've been burned on the counter. We have to reevaluate this high line. We also need Zusi back in the center to get shit done.
1) What happened the team with the crazy shutout streak? 2) Why do our centerbacks get so many more opportunities than our DP striker? Two goals should have been enough, but that was just an awful performance from a team that is supposed to pride itself on defense.
Feilhaber = crap... 1/3 of his passes were unsuccessful tonight. The minute he went off and Peterson came on, the offence started making things happen. Bielier only had one shot and one header.... need to get him the ball.. Can't take anything away from Portland. They played us straight up, had more shots and more shots on goal. Their speed on the counters scorched us. Nice job on their part. I didn't like the cheap shot by Mikey on Seth. That was low class.
Unfortunately, my reservations about Feilhaber this off-season appear to be true. The guy certainly has technical ability and can be dangerous in spurts, but most of the time he's a liability. At least Peterson looked fit and useful in the attack.
Our defenders thought they were were forwards when they should have been defending... Collin, Feilhaber, and Nagamura were the triumphant of awful. We really need to slide Zusi back to mid to get a grip there. The only person in the mid who actually looks like they can hang on to the ball right now is Uri. Congrats to Chance on the goals, but holy cow, I could put better balls in with a broken leg. Some of those crosses were just terrible. That was just a terrible performance and Portland's speed absolutely killed our high line. It was so obvious that Besler and Collin couldn't keep up with anyone Portland had up top in the first five minutes. Continuing to play the high line (and continually sending half our defense forward) all game completely played into Portland's game. That was just about the worst strategy we could have used. And we had so many uncontested absolutely atrocious give aways. The passing was just so bad. Ugh. So disappointing. On the plus side, I love the third kits and I was really excited to see us playing in them. I have definitely got to get me one of those.
Got to hear JP give some post game analysis...said that Portland swapped Jewsbury and Harrington from where they usually play and then sent Harrington up the side, with the back three sliding to cover, and Jack playing more conservatively. This forced Zusi out wider to cover up and down the field, which made him less of a threat until we could adjust. He said Peterson confounded Portland a bit, but he was still a little rusty. Jerome was subbed in because of his powerful low ball striking (as evidenced by that shot that Ricketts had a hard time with) and because Chance was out of gas...he thought the outcome might have been different had the sub been 5 minutes earlier. Awful crossing, poor support of Collin when he ended up making that run. Other tidbits: we'll get $2.8 million for Kei if Norwich takes him. Sporting have 6 players in mind, 3 of which are only available if they get the $2.8 million. Someone asked about Herculez...JP didn't think he would want to play in KC, and wouldn't fit in the system easily, but that the allocation money would be nice to have. Said the 4 guys in Florida are doing great and it's as much getting them seasoned and fighting for playing time down there rather than sitting up here with nothing to fight for. But we're going to see a lot of those guys in the second half with the three competitions going on simultaneously.
if we get that kind of money for Kei, we need to go find at least one badass DM. I like Uri and could see him effectively playing the role Benny is playing right now, but I'm not sold on him as a DM. He's not physical enough, fast enough or defensively aware enough to shield the back four, especially if Collin is going to be allowed/encouraged to make foraging runs upfield when we're up a goal. We need a ball winning destroyer in the midfield. Nags is just an average MLS player who is a useful rotation player, but without an Espinoza out there alongside him, he looks mediocre.
Kei today on Twitter: "The Final week. Bring it on." JP said Norwich would be stupid to pass on him because $2.8M is peanuts in the EPL, especially since Kei would be inclined to stay. That almost makes me think Norwich will pass, then try again in the summer transfer window for less than $2.8M now that Kei's had a taste. In February it was win/win/win, but what does it look like now?