Back to Earth after the dramatic highs of a 2-2 home draw vs Columbus. Young guys performed poorly, older guys performed as usual, bad. Barely a USL performance, no heart, no skill. Rooney clearly already making decisions for the team so it’s not a good sign that we have no performance bounce yet.
It was dismal. Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling. Heavy legged, or just slow and uncoordinated? I know how I'm leaning.
Nope. That's a pretty shitty take considering no Taxi and no Kamara. We have few options and Rooney wanting to see Hopkins and change up the formation but not having anything to do about practice, etc doesn't mean shit going forward. We are getting two more players - Morrison and Rodriguez and hopefully a DP (or two). So saying that Rooney (who hasn't coached) hasn't given us a bounce is reaching for criticism.
Three days ago everyone was playing for their life and times were good allegedly. This game our one good player gets a knock and the team's absolutely atrocious play is understandable and will change when a bunch of as of yet hypothetical players arrive. Sure, we'll perform better if we get 2 players comparable to Gressel and probably slightly worse than Arriola. How can it be worse than putting unknown USL players on the field? But his decisions are already supposedly being implemented, with formation changes and roster decisions. Players know their jobs are on the line (but really they aren't on the line, most are safe by virtue of being unable to move them or unwilling to find replacements). Also, Hopkins was slow of foot and mind tonight. He's going the same direction as Djeffal who fans are already sour to. He's not ready for MLS level play and it's clear as daylight.
Hopkins was our best player in the first half. He faded in the second because of the amount of running he was doing. What game did you watch?
Exhaustion will do that to you. He will get better with more matches. Playing away and not having Rooney on the sidelines makes a difference as well. We suck. Most of our players are garbage or are playing like garbage. Considering the situation I would rather see Hopkins, TeddyKu, Djeffal, Smith, etc. than our "starters".
Well that was 2 hours of my life I can't get back. My worst regret is helping my daughter find where DCU buried their livestream on the website. In the bottom right corner of a string of tweets after you scroll down the page? I know this team sucks, but deliberately hiding the link to the stream is Snyderesque. As for the game..... I look at the rest of the season as a very extended pre-season where players are auditioning for roster spots in 2023. Based on tonight, only Hopkins would get one. I thought Djeffal was very poor, little movement, couldn't protect the ball and slow. Now, he only played one half on Wednesday, so he doesn't have the "I'm gassed" excuse that Hopkins or Durkin actually have. I'm also beginning to sour on Najar. Last year he was a breath of fresh air, great story on his return, the reclamation project that worked. This year, he's a reckless, positionally unsound liability. Tonight he was out of position and dribbling into cul de sacs like Lucho used to before Rooney came here. I actually would move him for GAM at this point if anyone was interested. Rooney looked beyond pissed in the second half. Not going to be a fun experience in the locker room on on the flight home.
I want to see them under the right circumstances. Those circumstances don’t involve regular shellackings where they don’t learn or improve and have no one around them to guide them to be pros. Sitting around watching young guys come on the field at respectable clubs in the 60th minute and get applause and back pats from teammates who just secured a win or draw really highlights the disservice we are doing to these young men. Obviously people are seeing something I’m not. He wasn’t a good passer, don’t think he had any shots, was regularly dribbled around and twice embarrassingly had the ball just taken off his feet like a highway robbery.
We are all frustrated and would love to see immediate results, but this is a huge change for the team. We should expect mistakes, and frankly a bit of disorganization/confusion. As advertised, it appears that Rooney prefers a 4-2-3-1. When we have possession our own 1/2, both fullbacks push forward in wide positions. This leaves the trio of Romo and the two center backs to knock it around, and distribute from deep positions. If there is one positive, I have been impressed at how quickly Birnbaum and Hines Ike have adapted to this. Their distribution has been pretty good and they have avoided fatal, early turnovers. However, there were quite a few turnovers after the initial distribution, and the outside backs were frequently caught up field and out of defensive position in those situations. It was in those transition moments that we were out of shape and defenders and midfielders struggled to pick up runners and cover space in the midfield. Hopefully, that will improve with more practice with the system. In addition, a better orchestrated counter press may provide valuable time for players to retreat into a more organized defensive shape. When we defend in a low block, Rooney appears to like two closely connected banks of 4. Once the team adjusts to this, it should be a good shape to shield the back four and prevent early service from wide positions. The players just do not look comfortable, yet. This should improve. It is pretty easy to see what Rooney is trying to do in the defensive 1/3 and in distribution. These concepts seem promising. My concern is that I am having a problem understanding what the plan is in the final 1/3. Admittedly, this was without Taxi, but we seemed to run out of ideas when we get near the final 1/3.
Yawn. You saw the final score of that game, right? This isn't the posting of an L against DC United you think it is, and those are Reyna's first two goals of the season (since he barely plays for Charlotte).
It’s been done before. But, I thought we wore blue shorts with the blue marble away jerseys. It looked like we were wearing black shorts with plain white tops. Maybe, I’m a season out of date with the away jerseys.