Slow of foot, slow of thought, and short on skill. Just another day for DC. This season can't end soon enough.
For us, we looked good. For an MLS team, we looked like the south end of a north bound water buffalo.
The good: We had more possession (for once); and had more crosses and tackles won. The bad: defending on set pieces (again). Gressel played his best match, and the two forward scheme actually gave us a chance to win.
Same result, but a different look. Gressel did have his best game, looked faster and more engaged. Asad still can't play defense though. DCU played with more verve, maybe not with much more skill, but they looked to go forward in numbers for the first time in a long time. This isn't a good team by any stretch -- all three forwards missed good opportunities. I think Olsen's coaching had killed any spark they might have had. At the end of his tenure, he was putting out a "we suck, so bunker because we're not good enough to play with these guys" formations. Ashton, at least, said "go play", the result wasn't any better, but it was more watchable and you at least could consider that DCU might score in the run of play. Baby steps, but a Wooden Spoon for the third time in less than 10 seasons.
I saw the team do a few things differently that pleased me and some of the same stuff that has this team in the sewer. I watched all of the game except for minutes 45-70 because I had to put my kids to bet at halftime. Things that pleased me: Lots more risk taking in order to hold posession. I especially liked seeing overlapping fullbacks where the winger didn't drop back to play D. We actually created some overloads which I belive is a big part of why Gressell had his best game for DCU. Rather than employing a high press when the other team had posession deep in its own half DCU was aggressive in the counter press when the ball was in the middle of the park. It played to the strenghths of Canouse and Moreno who won the ball back a lot while creating much easier counter attacking options. DCU won the ball in the center of the field with space for our more aggressive flank players to make something happen Our centerbacks where clearly told to do their best to pass through midfield. There were plenty of bad passes, but a lot of good ones. The composure that Pines needs to play regularly in MLS will only come with playing this way. I was very pleased with his performance in posession. (Usually our centerbacks play through the fullbacks or over the top. Our change last night may get scouted out and exposed as fraud in the next game. I'm sure nobody expected to see Pines pass through the middle to Canouse/Moreno and occasionally to our wingers). We took a lot of quick throws!!! This has been an issue with me for Olsen's entire tenure. The team clearly used throw ins to slow down, set up, and rest under Ben. Last night the guys almost always took quick throws which allowed us to maintian posession and prevent the opposition to set up. Probably the first game in 10+ years where DCU held posession in over 50% of its throws sans a red card. Same old DCU: Loss of concentration on set pieces/critical moments is nothing new. Not a lot of movement off the ball as passes were almost always to feet. I want to see 30%+ of passes to players who are on the move. The tactics were still fundamentally based on counter attacking play so when we had posession in the attacking 3rd we had no idea what to do.
Same results, to be sure, but absolutely not the same tactics. For the first time in a long time we had more possession than our opponent.
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This is only correct if you consider a "long time" to be a month. DC absolutely owned possession against NYRB on September 12, even more than they did last night.
The Fire gave us some of that possession because they had the lead the entire game, and they're almost as cagey as we are. The first 10 minutes were embarrassing, I thought - just total disorganization and gaps everywhere. The Fire looked like Barca. We slowly improved. We were much better getting to second balls as the game wore on. Gressel was slightly better, Asad was slightly worse. They worked hard and battled, but it looked like they were working hard and battling. A lot of speculative middle-distance balls from those guys that probably helped create space in the middle third, but the impact in the end was minimal, because we didn't really have a 10 to occupy it. Canouse and Moreno were surprisingly effective at breaking lines, though. Saw some good switches from them as well. Good to see Flores on the field again. Rivas got in good positions and received decent service, but couldn't find a corner. Sorga was lively and involved, but very often it was a matter of receiving and passing back. Rivas didn't see very much of the ball, although he ran a lot. 10 different players took our 14 shots. We need more opportunities for our forwards and they need to convert effectively. Maybe Rivas is just warming up, but he really needs to direct his headers better. We tried high pressing from time to time, and had some success, although against a better opponent, we'd have been eaten alive for it. Lots of guys arriving late and lots of opportunities to pass out of the back left open, if the Fire had the defenders to take advantage of it. In the end, a tactic that matched the game and the opponent, so Ashton can't be faulted for using it, but the execution was lacking. We did do pretty well picking the right lines. Mora and Odoi-Atsem got forward frequently and to good effect. Defensive organization in the box was a cluster. Pines was always in the vicinity and usually in the air when things happened, although his guy was rarely the dangerous one. There's something going on there. I'm not a defensive whiz, so I'm not sure what. I think it's a combination of guys losing or leaving marks and Pines ball watching a bit too much and leaving his feet a little too early. One thing was, we allowed a lot of crosses from the corner of the box, and maybe that was part of the strategy. As always, the mixiest of mixed-bags, and no points.
I liked the more traditional subbing, it gave United a chance to get points from this game. Subbing out the two forwards had the desired effect, pumping new life into a stalled attack. I think Flores and Kamara are the starters going forward, but I'd like to see Kamara updated in the offseason. Taking out a defender for an attacker is standard stuff, but it's a sub Olsen often failed to make. Paredes for OA worked some, but the point is that it's a smart move down a goal. Then subbing the two exhausted wingers (maybe a little earlier would be better, but that's a nitpick) was standard as well.
Anyone have a dodgy DCU stream last night. The close ups were fine, but the distance shots looked like a 1970's TV -- fuzzy as hell. Thing was in the second half, I fired up my VPN and cast ESPN+ to the TV and it was crystal clear. It's the same feed, does DCU have that shitty an IT department that they can't clearly transmit the Fire's local feed?
In Ben's last game, he started three kids. Chad started none--I don't agree with that at all. The season is already down the drain, and Asad and Rivas aren't the future. Nice to see the outside backs racing down the flanks in the second half. Haven't seen that since start of last season before we got smoked by LAFC. I don't recall any fuzzies.
Playing youth appears to be the right move, but it's not. The youth we have aren't the future of this club anymore than the older more veteran players are. Sending youth players to a demoralizing loss after demoralizing loss under a bad coach like Ashton and his assistants isn't exactly going to inspire growth either.
For the first time I was impressed by Flores. I thought he would be tentative, what with the face mask, but he stuck right in. And Gressel played like I knew he could, probably because with the formation change he had more teammates on the receiving end of his crosses. For these reasons, I didn't miss the kids.
I thought we played basically the same as we have been, minus the previous yankee stadium game - with more of a go-forward thought, and less of a cohesive central defense. Other than the roster getting a tad older, didn't notice anything too different - but then I didn't expect to. Only bad problem I noticed in the broadcast was crappy/low sound levels from Dave and Devon, which was way worse in the second half. And the canned crowd noise was being pumped in during the early moment of silence and during the injuries; I don't remember their fans being classless enough to do that IRL, but their virtual fans were I hate all virtual fans - I figure they put that noise on there to make you not notice all the adult language but I still heard the way their GK talked to the ref Other than sometimes in our own sections when the groups get more excited about drowning each other out than working together - most real crowd noise follows the flow of the game, canned noise almost never fits in. It works better in football where the crowd makes noise strictly based on stadium-led directions from the screens. I liked the first-half forward experiment. I would have taken out Sorgas first and let Rivas and Kamara work together or a bit; might have taken out Asad for Flores instead of Rivas. And I definitely would have removed Gressel sooner, dude was gassed by the time he was finally subbed and his long kicks showed it. But I thought in general the subs were okay (if not often too late). First thing fatbastard would do if given the coaching reigns is make all the players take remedial geometry and/or physics classes - they might learn how to pass in front of people or [/i]how to catch up to forwards[/i] better, by learning angles and how ball rotation and speed may affect their passes (or their opponents'), or how long balls might drop and bounce, etc.
Ashton on not starting the youngsters - says Nyeman has "a little knock," chalks Paredes and Yow not starting up to squad rotation. "We love what they're doing." #DCU— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) October 12, 2020
No, it isn't. If you have the ball, you aren't under attack, and as we've seen, the more and more you are under attack, the more likely you are to concede. In a nutshell, it's having equalish possession as opposed to bunker ball. I'm done with Hamid and hope, if you're going to lose anyway, lose the right way.