We were about .500 going into July and then something happened. . . In 8 of 12 games since then, Ray put out unbalanced defensive lineups and we didn't win a single one (and didn't score in the ones we tied). Were his offensive options really that bad? ----- Defensive Lineups: 5 losses and 3 scoreless ties. Balanced Lineups: 1 win, 1 loss, 1 tie Offensive Lineups: 1 win ----- (Counting Williams, McKinley and Alevanja as primarily defensive players) 7/4 @ KC: Defensive/Loss 2 forwards, but 6 primarily defensive starters (4 defenders and 2 defensive midfielders) 7/6 @ NE: Defensive/Loss 1 forward 7/13 v CMB: Balanced/Loss 7/20 @ CHI: Defensive/Scoreless Tie 1 forward and 6 primarily defensive starters. 7/24 @ CMB: Defensive/Loss 1 forward and 6 primarily defensive starters. 7/27 v NE: Balanced/Loss (but Olsen and Pope were played at forward...) 7/31 @ CHI: Defensive/Scoreless Tie 6 primarily defensive starters. 8/10 v KC: Defensive/Scoreless Tie 6 primarily defensive starters. 8/17 @ SJ: Balanced/Tie (2 goals scored) 8/25 @ MET: Defensive/Loss 1 forward and 6 primarily defensive starters. 8/31 v SJ: Balanced/Win 9/7 @ NE: Defensive/Loss 2 forwards (one was Olsen) and 6 primarily defensive starters. 9/12 @ MET: Offensive/Win Only 4 primarily defensive players.
Nice observation, but it cannot take into account a lot of injury situations. You MUST play solid defense to have a chance to win. If your starting defenders are out, you must play your subs. For United that means McKinley, Lazo and Namoff. All of those guys are combo players, as is Chino in midfield, but none is a great defender and only Namoff has any speed whatsoever. So when we play those guys we need to cover a little with a more defensive lineup, even if it just means keeping at least one wingback back to defend at all times. But in general, I agree, two forwards is the way to go unless you have one SPEEDY forward who can finish. On United only Curtis comes even close to fitting that bill. When we played a defensive lineup (after Convey got wrongly red-carded) with Curtis up top we played it well. That's the type of counter-attacking we shoudl play, otherwise, we should have 2 up top IMO. -Tron
Well, the 4-5-1 with Curtis up front was certainly a failure of an experiment that we tried two or three times. Nothing against Ali, but he isn't a lone ranger type of forward.
Don't forget to factor in the six points forgone because Jaime failed to convert PKs. Had he done his job, we'd be leading the conference by one point over Columbus (other things staying the same). Your point does ring true, but I think Jaime's nonperformance this year (whether injured or not) is the principal reason we're at the bottom looking up again. GM