Thursday, Tino passes up a chance and feeds Wolff, who scores. Tonight, he passes up a better chance and feeds DeRo, who is bundled off the ball. Tino, when you are that close, think shot first. And wouldn't it be nice to have a left winger who will actually play a ball in on the run with his left foot instead of stopping and shifting it to his right? Not that I'm advocating seeing more of Burch, you understand, because he has to stop the ball before striking it with said left foot. But I don't think it's too much to ask.
I'd like to see a little bit of one touch soccer and some quick passes. Our passes are s-l-o-w rollers out there. If the ball isn't picked off by a defender, they're certainly in defensive position by the time a DCU player receives the pass. What's more maddening is our throw ins. For the last two coaching regimes we have been awful at throw ins. We just sit and wait for the defense to get in position before taking the throw. Almost every time, it results in a turnover. Just giving possession away. I don't think Soehn or Olsen even notice it. I can't remember the last time DCU connected on at least 50% of its throw ins.
Can't blame Ben for the whole thing, but, ugh, was he poor tonight. I take no issue with the starting lineup. Third game in nine days means some usual suspects start on the bench. But DeRo for Brettschneider was, considering the steaming pile of crap Wolff laid on the field tonight, a misdemeanor. And then to throw DeRo up front, where he would be stranded and receive no service, and leave Quaranta in the central midfield, was a felony. DeRo is one of the best attacking midfielders in the league. When we play through him, the ball moves much quicker, we attack the defense from different angles, and are generally far more creative. A second-half front six of this... Pontius BB Q DeRo Najar Simms ...would have made much more sense. When DeRo drops in the midfield, this (a) gets our best player more touches on the ball, (b) results in Najar and whoever is on the wing opposite him receiving the ball considerably earlier and with considerably more space, and (c) draws the opposing defensive midfielder forward to close DeRo's space (without this extra cover MLS center backs can be badly exposed). Instead, we had one central midfielder who plays like he's walking on hot coals and will be eaten by dragons if he plays the ball forward, and another who plays slowly and has no sense of how to play in combination or when to change the point of attack. When this happens, our attack gets swallowed up and the forwards end up playing on a lonely, lonely island. Putting all his other decisions aside, Ben is stabbing this team in between the third and fourth ribs every time he puts DeRo up front with no hope of competent service. DeRo is the heir to Etch and Gomez. The sooner he plays there consistently the sooner this team will get back on track.
There must be something happening in training that we don't know about b/c not even dressing Davies doesn't make any sense otherwise.
It seems that DC United coaches are ok with: players who wait for the ball, not move to it. players who can't weight a pass properly. players who can't receive a pass without it bouncing 5 ~ 20 yards away. players who can't maintain their offensive & defensive shape, so that there is never a safe passing outlet. players who can't challenge for a header and win the ball. defensive players who can't pass the ball accurately more than 5 yards, but who can clear the ball wildly to the other team or out of bounds. I don't know if that is on the players or the coaches. Either way, I am disgusted.
Olsen is either way out of his league or over thinking. Ngwenya does not deserve to be on an MLS roster, let alone, make 175K. To put him out there instead of Davies is foolish.
Wait, how long should Olsen continue to play a horrible Davies? I wasn't into the way Olsen managed the team tonight, but taking a chance on somebody not named Davies wasn't near the top of my list. The best thing Davies did this year was draw PKs and he's never going to earn another one of those in MLS, even on the off chance that it's deserved.
The Ghosts of 0 points out of a possible 6 from New England will probably do the majority of the off-season haunting at RFK this winter.
Not ready to go that far. But I think he showed his inexperience on this road trip. He needed to go for the throat at Chicago, and instead he played it too safe. The tonight he needed to come out going for the throat as long as we could, with the hope of nabbing a goal and trying to defend and counter. Instead, he was way too timid in his selections. Dero should have started and come out early, at half time even if necessary. Davies should have dressed and been used as a sub. When you have a striker who is capable but not performing (my assumption YMMV), the thing to do is keep trotting him out as long as it takes. Especially when you basically need that player to be on form for the sake of the team. He talked it up right ahead of time (win @CHI and draw @KC), but the executed it all wrong on both counts. Agree. I think he was overthinking it. I agree with this, except that it's clear we're not going to be counting on Ngwenya, or Brettscheider, or prob even Wolf to get us into and through playoff games, so who is left? Davies has got to be on form for us. And he, like most strikers, does not find his form on the bench. He needs to sub in, be fresh, be hungry, fight, and get a goal. I'm not pinning everything on Olsen, some of the players underperformed, and everyone seemed tired. But it all comes together, and I don't think he helped our team on this trip.
I don't know how they are going to make the playoffs, but I think that I know how they aren't going to make the playoffs, and that's on the shoulders of Davies. I don't fault Olsen for trying something new. He's probably even more tired of watching Davies under perform than we are, the obvious difference is that he can actually do something about it. If Davies does regain some of his form, confidence, or both, it will probably come at RFK. Charlie looked completed dejected in Chicago. Portland has a pretty leaky defense so this Saturday wouldn't be the worst time in the world for him to get his groove back.
I think our playoff hopes are dwindling very rapidly. If we can't beat a team like KC, which I don't see as being a top 5 or 6 team in the league, then we really can't claim to be much of a "playoff" team. I still believe that the McDonald and DeRo moves were excellent, but we still have too many holes up top and in the back, Keeper and left back, plus a lack of any real depth in midfield to be any type of serious contender. btw Chris... Did you see that Portland got 10,000 at a reserve game yesterday. Wow..... Does that show how far United has fallen in fan support relative to the League.
I think more than anything else, the expectations from many on these boards were way over the top from the recent good form, largely with the addition of DeRo. Now the league knows to stop DeRo and Pontius and force a clearly worn out Davies, aging Wolff, and a still young Najar to score. As for the defense, there's only one legitimate, proven starter, Jacovic. Hamid clearly has the talent, but always be consistent and not make silly plays. Some might argue that McD and Woollard are not starters. And Kitchen still hasn't proven himself on a consistent basis, and right fullback might not be his ultimate position! All in all, it's still an "almost playoff" team. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at where they are at right now. This is particularly true if you keep the perspective of where they were at at this time a year ago!
I didn't say "on his shoulders". But with the cap space we use on him, and the other options being Ngwenya and BrettS, it's pretty clear in my mind that he needs to be on form if we are going to be threatening to do anything, regardless of how Dero or Pontius or Wolf or Najar are playing. We need a threatening striker, and other than Davies (potentially), we really don't have another option. If you don't think Davies is that player, then we aren't going to be in the playoffs, unless we back our way in. I haven't turned on him at all. But I think it's fair to point out what are clear mistakes. We "turn" on all the players all season long when they make mistakes, and Ben receives no quarter on that.
Hate to harp on this but I think Olsen screwed the pooch back in Chicago with the lineup he trotted out there. That was 3 points ripe for the taking and maybe playing a defensive line up in KC for the tie. We should have at least come home with 4 instead of 1. Going forward I don't seeing it mattering much. This is a mediocre team without DeRo and you can't expect for him to be our sole offensive weapon. We'll go meekly and quietly into the night.
Woolard was terrible last night, one turnover after another. McD is good, I hope we convince him to stay. Jacovic saved the day several times, but also had a couple boneheaded turnovers. Kitchen is good, but I think he would be much more useful in midfield. Need to find a right back.
Sad to see how KC owned us last night. Do we not like DaLuz anymore? Figured we would have seen him with DeRo at one point this past week. Jakovic was not focused coming out of the gate and then screwed his head back on after the goal. Woolard needs to learn how to head a ball out of the box to the sidelines. That is two games in a row where his poor clearance led to a goal. Not sure if McD was dogged or lazy last night but he seemed to be caught in no man's land many times. It looks like we are toothless without DeRo right now. I don't remember a single run from a winger down the line last night. Seems everytime a defender was in front of Pontius or Najar we passed back or square. Agree with Chico that we should have gone for 3 points with a stronger line up in Chicago. Anything after that in KC would have been gravy.
Exactly, we should have come home with at least 3 points really, in my opinion, if Olsen had executed correctly. (of course, anything can happen) Even 2 points would be the minimum expectation, per soccer doctrine. 4 points would have been great, and everything going exactly to plan. 6 would have been incredible really. Only 1 point indicates mistakes were made.
I was wondering this as well. I'm not saying he should be a regular starter or is a dynamite sub, but I expected to see DaLuz start one of these games to rest Pontius or Najar.
Olsen screwed up big time last night. When he didn't sub Wolff at the half, and then subbed in Burch instead of Da Luz, I nearly killed my TV. We were Dog S$t United last night. I can only hope that Olsen learned something about coaching and about his current roster last night.
Really, what did everyone expect? Since May 25 Sporting KC is 9-2-8 in MLS and the Open Cup, 7-1-8 in MLS. this last stretch of games just confirmed to me what DC United is...an average team. Which given last season and the age of the team is not a problem to me. We played a poor team at home and beat them convincingly. We went on the road and played a team that ties almost everything at home and tied them. We went to KC to play the hottest team in the league, and lost. And while the scoreline was flattering, it looked like a mid-tier team playing against one of the best teams in the league. This year I hope for the playoffs, which at the start of the season seemed like a goal for a really good year. DC has themselves in decent position for the playoffs. The defense is much better than at the beginning of the year. The offense is more dynamic but with DeRo up top I think it is less of a team effort, so don't know if that would be a good solution long-term. On the plus side, Hamid has played well, and Willis has me confident that if Hamid goes to Europe soon we will have a high quality replacement (though if Hamid sticks around a while he's too valuable to keep as a back up). Kitchen is a stud, Jakovic has been more tuned in over 90 minutes, Brettschneider, White and even Korb have been very promising, and Pontius and Najar have shown their rookie seasons were not flukes. On the down side, the movement and speed of passing need to be better. We will likely need to revamp our attack in the offseason (and Brettschneider needs to get faster if he wants to be an impact player in the league) and hopefully make it a long-term solution, we need a replacement for Simms who can contribute more to the attack (Kitchen?), we need more offense out of our outside backs and may need to replace McDonald (and if we do, can White step in at that level?). We need to get results at home. But as far as transition years go, I am pretty satisfied. Unlike last year, there is hope.
KC deserves some credit. They are a pretty good team, in fact I can't remember United playing a better team in a long time. The NY team that beat United 4-1 looked pretty good, but that team seems to be gone. They play that 4-3-3 really well, with the fullbacks an integral part of the attack. Chance Myers was particularly impressive. Hopefully Olsen will have learned from this game that the way to beat them is to exploit the space left by their fullbacks, and make them pay on the counter. Also, because KC likes to pressure so high and hard, players have to be able to turn on that first defender and then the whole field will open up. But again, I give credit to KC, because when that did happen, KC were happy to foul and stop any forward momentum. I have to take my medicine here because this was a game that cried out for DeRo in the midfield, because he is the type of player that can turn on that pressure and make the incisive pass. It certainly wasn't Quaranta yesterday. It may not have mattered, as it seemed Pontius, and to a lesser extent Najar, just didn't have it.