Crew pull off a 1-0 win! Columbus played a good first half ending with a questionably called disallowed goal from Williams. The first minute of the second half started with fireworks: a combination from new signings Arrieta and Birchall. Hammer was solid as usual--saved us more than once. Duka put in a solid 70+ minutes coming back from injury. Meram looking good at forward. I'd like to see him play there more often. Miranda made a couple harrowing blunders. Overall, this looked like a pretty good lineup--and it could be better with a healthy Mirosevic. Hopefully Marshall's ankle injury is nothing serious. Another tough match ahead at SKC.
Playing your best players + Players playing in their natural position + No Renteria or Tchani = Crew Win It's not rocket science.
Except Meram, who will never be a midfielder. He's a forward. Williams is still a beast. Da Andy G Show is still going strong. Arrieta is a new favorite of mine. The dude's a scrapper. Grossman is a lot like Tchani: he sees the field well, he just can't make the passes he wants to make. Miranda actually looked like The Guy Who Needs To Improve out there. I think he's starting to decline and it may be time to look for a new RB. Meram is still a forward. As far as our formation goes, it's fine if we're going to play the ball along the ground, but Arrieta as a lone forward up top isn't going to win anything in the air. I think with Gaven, Arrieta, Duka, we have guys that can play quick one-two passes, and we saw some of that tonight. Milo could slot in there as well (if he's ever healthy).
Any win against DC, no matter what the circumstance, goal scorers, lineup, or year is one of my favorites.
Another decent night at the gate: 17,150 Like I mentioned in PBP, the Nordecke looked a little thinner than the past few matches on TV.
Where I sit I have a great view of the Crew bench players warming up in the second half. Two things stood out. 1. James is working hard and glad to be back. All those agility warmup drills he took seriously. He was the first guy though every time. When Ghering was called over to sub, but then sent back, JJ gave him some friendly buisness. It was good to see. Working hard, being a leader and having fun. I can't wait till he is 100%. 2. Vukovic is going to stay on the bench forever. Where as James went through the paces 100% Vukovic only went through the motions. No way our current coach puts up with that attitude. Vukovic maybe should be in the lineup instead of Mirranda (with Williams filling the open spot) but I doubt coach allows it. Other stuff: I like Arrieta. He didn't seem to tire and had nice touches. Please tell Merram when we are up very late in the second half and our guys are getting tired just to take into the corner and kill the game out. Milo (or dilly) for Grossman soon please. I want some mls committee to look at the williams "offisde" call and award him a goal and give me my fantasy points.
Fantastic night for soccer, and a much needed result. I'm shocked at how many tired bodies were out on the pitch, but Arieta put in a lot of work. He attacked the ball, held up the ball, and also played through the muggings. Ironically he's much like Renteria... can't image those two on the pitch at the same time. Oh, and Ben Olsen is a whiney beyotch.
loling at the DC forum's post game comments. buncha mark ass tricks, trick ass marks, skeezers, skanks, skig skags & skappywhops. We can hang like nutz with any team in the league.
Good result. Didn't Birchall's family just get to Columbus. I know they were trying to get here, but if they were at the game tonight, that makes his goal even sweeter. Welcome to Columbus. I've reached my conclusion on Meram- he is very dangerous in the attacking 3rd and looks like he is going to do something when the ball finds his feet. However, his passing accuracy is fairly poor for a player of his skill so he really knows how to kill attacks in the middle 3rd of the field. However, his attacking abilities in the final 3rd- which we lack more than anything- are too great to really get hung up on his midfield deficiencies. I can't believe Arrieta missed that goal. However, I still think he is our #1 striker. Loved seeing Tchani on the bench. I like his physicality, but his lack of technical ability will never allow for him to flourish. He needs to work on his ball-work all winter.
Arrieta's skillset off the ball is just as awesome as when he has the ball. That off the ball running and smarts in the channels is what I like about the guy. Keeping that ball on the ground, he'll find a way to make things happen.
Korb is billy big balls and apparently doesn't need shin guards, so I was glad to see Dilly and Josh double up on him in the first half. Dilly won the ball off him cleanly on a few occasions early on. In fact, Dilly, Eddie, and Meram all won tackles inside DC's half in the first half to put them under constant pressure. Recipe for success. They did an excellent job in that first half and it is a shame Williams was robbed yet again because I thought we deserved to go in ahead and he certainly deserves one. McDonald is a clown. I've been saying it for months on here but he really struggled out there and what a waste of money he is. Oh well, it's not our problem. Jakovic, OTOH, looked good to me. Outran Arrieta down the channel and was neat on the ball. Really pleased for Birchall. He fits right into the hardest working team ethos. Last week against KC, he was the only one still really running and working late on once it had been settled. Now he's in there where he belongs, the fitness is there or thereabouts now, very happy to have him aboard. Not ready to anoint Arrieta just yet. Yeah he never stopped working, played a perfect pass for Birchy, and showed a trick, but really, after watching Renteria for so long I think even a tuna sandwich would've looked like an improvement in attack for us. And Miranda did look nervous, didn't he? Especially in the first half. But we did not kill the game off at all. It should have come sooner than that. DC had way too much of it in the late stages and you could say we were lucky to hang on. It's good that we held on for a great turnout on a beautiful night. Something to build on, I guess.
This THe team has not seemed very fit and the late collapses have only reinforced the impression. And Olsen has always been a whiney little bitch. It was always a miracle that he could perform on the field with all of the histrionics. He didn't get the name Baby Ben by accident.
Two other gems from last night, both from MeRo: -MeRo shoving Meram to the ground instead of defending, then turning around and acting like he didn't do anything. -MeRo dropping all the way to the backline to try and take the ball from his own center back.
Early in the 2nd half, Arrietta was getting abused, mostly by McDonald (the clown), grabbed, pulled, thrown down, basically mugged. I was pleased that he fought through it all and had effective possession after all of that.
I think it was MassiveCityFFC who tweeted this originally, but that first half was some of the best offensive soccer we had played since the 2010 game against Philly to end the season. Accurate, quick, one-two passing on the ground. If we keep playing like that, we'll make up the points we need to get back into the playoff picture. We still defended way too much in the second half, but this game was light years ahead of most of what we've seen so far from this team. PS Duka is a game changer. He was a boss.
And yet we still completely lacked good scoring chances. We converted the only one we had from the run of play. I guess that's an improvement.
That's not accurate. Williams' goal at the end of the first half probably shouldn't have been disallowed and Arrieta missed a wide open shot at 73'. I would say those two were both great scoring chances.
Both came off set pieces. I'm talking run of play and finding a killer pass. Williams's goal was nice. Arrieta's missed chance was just a fortunate tip of the scales in a post-set piece scramble.
Why was Gaven at forward? I thought he was ineffective at that position. He did do well linking up with the midfield but was never in a position to shoot. I thought Meram and gaven should have swapped early on. With James and mendes healthy and (marshall hopefully healthy) I hope to never see Gehrig in the 18 again. That guy makes me nervous. I think going forward we should have arrieta and Meram (hopefully Jelen) at forward with renteria off the bench. Mirosevic on for grossman. That would be a solid team.