His balls to switch fields have been good; but he's been worthless anywhere near the 18. He had an open goal shot if he'd continued a run; he whiffed on a point blank opportunity; his balls into the box (like that one just now) have been terrible. Well, he's a 30k/year reserve -- what do you expect? I'd say he's giving as much or more than Ngwenya, who gets paid five times as much.
Please Will Chang -- fire Kasper now! Every year he finds players not "quite" good enough, or not "quite" smart enough to play at this level. David Stokes, Jordan Graye and now Ethan White. I'll take a slower, less athletic smarter defender any time. These guys knew the playoffs were on the line and they came out and laid a turd. DeRo, Najar, Wolff, King and Hamid played like they cared. The rest -- take the rest of the year off, you earned it.
Im willing to bide time with Ethan White because he's clearly a project. Far from the finished article. But he was terrible today.
Still got games in hand Anyway, Najar now has 5 goals and 6 assists vs 2010 5 goals 1 assist. I said a couple games back I wanted to see him step it up stats wise and he has. Very impressive.
Being this deflated I don't think I will find sleeping to be a problem, and deep down that bothers me.
You're right it is. Course that means a nice transfer for him and another hole for the brain-dead trust to fill in the off-season. Hey, maybe the Castillo guy isn't doing anything right now? Or Guppy, he's English, must be good, even was capped once.
Yeah, and he's still a lot better than Simms. Simms passing is barely average. He doesnt sheild our defense or break up attacks. He doesnt cover gaps left by the other slackers. Carroll did, and still does all of that better than Simms. People may say we need a striker, but I think we'd be better off focusing on getting defenders. A RB, and a CB, the move Kitchen to Dmid.
fyp ps-Why did McDonald leave his feet on the winning goal? So the chicken could cross the road, even though it is never left behind...
I am so f*cking done with our CB pairing of White and McDonald. Seriously - BOTH of them suck. Jakovic -slightly- improves the CB wall when paired with McDonald, but jesus tap dancing christ. I remember being excited about Ethan White when he played his first one or two games with us. Because he looked like a kid with promise. And now? He's spent the whole season getting worse! And McDonald... I guess he was a relief to get him on the squad, but the sparkle has worn off and now it's easy to see him for what he is. I don't think that SJ has lost any sleep over sending him off. And we thought he'd be heading to Europe next year? LOL. Not with the way he's been playing... These are the two CBs that are supposed to get us into the playoffs? Guess that's it then.
Oh right and I guess we won't see McDonald on Sunday thanks to his sloppy f*cking defending. Mixed feelings on that one. I never thought, a few months ago, I'd be praying for the day we get to see Jakovic back on the field. What the hell.
Oh come on, he's a rookie. Smarter usually comes with experience. There is a lot of youth getting major minutes on this team and we have a rookie head coach. Growing pains were inevitable. I hoped for more, but I still feel like this team has not only made strides but -- with a few more pieces added to the mix -- has a huge upside in the next few years. White didn't have a good game. He's had a few stinkers this year, in fact. But I like the kid and think he's going to be a solid defender in the long run. It's just painful seeing his on-the-job-training.
I'm sorry, but it is completely inexcusable that Benny finished that game with 4 in the back and a sub in his pocket. Absolutely inexcusable. He gave up on the points and gifted them to Philadelphia. And I have no idea what Brettschneider was playing at...I don't care if he sucks but he had one role as a late game attacking sub - make something happen. Instead of chasing and pressuring and trying to create chaos he was jogging around. Nobody is surprised that White had a piss poor game. Nobody thought he was ready to play this year but he's stepped in and done far better than expected. You have to deal with the weaknesses you have. But you can play hard and you can give your team a chance. Oh, and if no coach can get through to Quaranta that he's a goddamn attacking player and occasionally he needs to go hard at goal, well maybe he needs a new gig. But I really have no idea if it is Q's fault for not doing it or his coaches for not demanding it.
While you're not wrong, it's interesting that back then, a bad season was enough to decide not to protect a player that had given us several very good seasons; these days, several bad seasons from players that have never really given us a good season isn't enough to punt on someone.
You're right to a point. But smarter comes with experience and the more White has played this year, the more mistakes he makes. Like Jordan Graye, the problems don't get fixed. That's what I mean about "smarter." I understand reading the game takes time, but simple things like not losing your mark and stepping up to challenge a player at the edge of the 18, how "smart" do you have to be to do those things instinctively? That is where I put White in the Stokes-Graye pile. Najar is the perfect counterpoint to White. He made rookie mistakes, Ben basically benched him at the start of the year, now look at him. He's learned and gotten better. White has played and regressed.
I find it interesting that it seems like more players have regressed than have progressed in the past few years at DCU. Besides Najar, who can you say has gotten significantly *better* while playing at DCU? Maybe Pontius. Definitely Hamid. But both came in strong and have had time training with the USMNT. Anyone else?
Interesting, it could be coaching. Or it could be the players selected weren't very good and no coach in the world could have improved them. I tend to think the latter is the case. When you have Dave Kasper pickin', the pickins are slim. Jury is out on Kitchen because he's being played out of position.
Goff: #DCU Prez Kevin Payne, on DeRo: “He’s the best player in the league and he doesn’t get protected. He gets kicked every game, every time the ball is played to his feet and plays it forward, he gets fouled. It was several times tonight and he gets knocked out of the game. The same thing happened in Seattle. It’s pretty obvious what teams are doing; it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The whole premise going into the season was [the league was] going to protect those guys, and it’s not happening.” Uh..Mr Payne-Seattle was just accusing DCU of hacking at Rosales. Remember last week how you weren't in the media whining about something-let's go back to that.
When it comes to rookies I don't think one season is enough to measure whether they are making progress. Not to make excuses for them, but keep in mind that other teams now have almost a season's worth of video on White and our other young guys. Smart coaches and veteran players are often going to see and exploit weaknesses in rookies' games faster than they (and probably our rookie coach) can adapt and grow. All that said, I was extremely disappointed in our backline tonight. They were torched repeatedly.