Everything with Bob boils down to his "my way or the highway" philospohy and complete and utter inflexibility when it comes to tactics, and selection and it's killing this team por ejemplo : 1) No discernable substitution pattern - you know Bob, MLS gives you 3 substitutions. Your guys are fatigued, toungues hanging out, yet nothing. We blew the RSL and Crew games directly because you refused to sub out gassed players who eventually got burned. 2) Insistence on fitting square pegs in round holes. Lisi is never going to be a D-mid. Leitch is never going to be a good player going forward - neither is Regan. With this kind of line-up, why do you insist on that damned box midfield. 3) Overreliance on "his" guys. We all know his guys : Magee, Bradley, Lisi, Agoos, Regan, Leitch. And they have all not played up to snuff (with some being more egregious violaters than others - yes I'm looking at your whiny ass Magee) and yet he resolutely refuses to sub them out and plays them even when all evidence show that it should be otherwise. This also leads to lack of competition and the knowledge that these guys don't show up to play because they don't have to. It also leads to burning guys out by playing them too often and not resting them for a game or two. Like Guevara last year and it looks like it's going to be Gaven this year. So what we have is an underacheiving team not playing up to it's potential and it falls an awful lot on Bob's shoulders. He really does need to go because I don't see him changing. (and yes I think Mo would be perfectly fine to run out the rest of the year.)
I would have thought after see the game before this one that Bob would work with Gavin on getting more touch in games. The last game did not reflect that so I was disappointed. Also to me the guy who should have taken all FK's in scoring range should have been Razov and no one else. That didn't happen either and he takes Razov out before the end of the game. I was disapppointed with that to. Very disappointed in Lisi game not impressive what happened to his good passing that he had in the past. Also Bradley son had a very bad game, but he is only 17 so have to expect bad games. Mendes looked good. Tony I know he is hurting, but looked great. Man what hands this guy has. When he heals up I would not be surprised if some how he winds up in Germany in 2006.
I've said it something like a thousand times: This is year three of a three-year goal of turning the club around. He gets the year. Another first-round exit and he's gone for sure, but until this happens he gets the year. If someone can point to a specific coaching candidate who (a) is available now, (b) is a significant enough turnaround specialist that he can move Metro into '05 Cup contention, and (b) isn't going to want to leave at the next available Europe / South American opportunity, then maybe you make the switch. I don't think that coach exists on the market right now. MLS doesn't have a Larry Brown-type coach waiting around -- who would we take to replace Bob, Dave Dir? Sigi? Please. edit: I see that Fina suggests letting Mo finish the season. If that's who, then the only reason to do it is fan catharsis, and that's not enough of a reason to do it. It's not like Mo has this filing cabinet of wonderful self-developed coaching ideas that Bob is suppressing. More likely, Mo is Mini-Bob at this point.
I agree completely. That being said, I volunteer to lead the "Fire Bob" chants if he's still here next year after another first round exit or not making the playoffs.
I agreed with you until the RSL game. After that game, I realized Metro is going nowhere this year, so why wait until the end of the season as we miss the playoffs Besides, I'm a fan, I like my catharsis damnit!!! He needs to make some changes and to challenge this consistently soft team, and I just don't see him doing it - he's too stubborn nad inflexible. Actually, I would be pretty surprised if he was fired before the end of the year, and even more surprised if he made it till opening day next year.
He came into a desparate situation so he is entitled to three years. Then fire him, and hire Sigi Schmidt or someone of that girth, oops, I mean calibre.
So according to Obies logic even if we keep playing terrible soccer, not drawing at home, losing games we should have won, overall team apathy etc. etc. and we make the play offs, even if we pass the first round, we are OK ? Just what does "turning the team around" means ??
to be fair to Obie, if we are still losing games we should have won, playing terrible soccer, continuing the overall team apathy, we're not making the playoffs, let alone making the semi-finals. Obie thinks there is a chance this can all get turned around (by which we mean the negation of pretty much everything you posted above). I do not, therein lies our differences.
I mentioned this on the other boards but without Guevara we are like a headless chicken. Everything revolves around him and he actually makes the other players around him not look so bad and we can beat any other team in this league on any good day. But when he is not there there is no leadership in the middle of the field, no ideas and those players who don't look so bad with him are shown for what they really are. Now last night loss is 100% on Bradley. Only bringing on 1 sub with a number of the players are so obviously out of gas is Bradley's decision. While he got away with it until the last 30 seconds, it didnt work out for him. My main problem with Bradley is that he has two poor players doing what normally 1 good players does i.e. defensive mid. Get an Armas type player and there is no need for 2 defensive middies.
Obie is not answering so I will post the question to all Has Bob turned the club around ? And no I don't think that he came into that desperate of a situation, the team didn't make the playoffs that year largely because of Clint tanking it in the last three games. What was our record when he took over, I can't remember but it wasn't 8 and 25
Hey you guys can't fire your coach til we get one! We're hoping for Yallop with Canada already out of qualifying. I'd agree that your defensive tactics were poor last night. The Metros defense was gassed by minute 75 yet kept pushing forward creating space for runs by Sutton and Storey. Agoos was easy pickings for our runners. At the post game, Bradley said his team was a step behind all night but some fresh legs on the D would certainly have helped.
Clueless Bob is out coached every game it seems and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what he does game to game other than something must have been done at practice that lets him see this. I would rather have Brad Davis on left mid and Rico as def mid any day vs Mini and Magee. Your boys are just not cutting it and seems like no matter what some guys do or don't do they never sit ans others never get a chance to play. Too much to list at this point. "Clueless" needs to go.
Rico will be one of the top DM in this league and Brad Davies is leading the league in assists, actually I don't dislike Magee, but it remaindto be seen if he turns into another headcase, whinning under achiever. MB is too young to judge, I think he will be good someday, the is when Bob have probably "turned this team around".
The problem with this team is that there are boys running the team. How many more times will we have to watch Gaven and Magee trip after beating a defender? How many more times do we have to watch our soft defense allow a forward to beat them? Lietch won't tackle. Goose to slow. Right now, Mendes and Parke are the toughest players on the team. I agree completely on the other points. Bradley NEVER subs. We have a reserve team...why not get some of those guys to play if they are short on players? Isn't that what they are for? Abbe Ibrahim provided instant offense last night. Why put him in at the end? Why keep Goose in there? Put Suarez in...he can tackle.
Father Ted, your Headless chicken remark is so much on the money it is scary. This is a team with little to no discenrible leadership. Bradley keeps saying he is bringing in so n so to bring some expereince and leadership to the defense. Pope - did not lead anything Agoos - does not organize anything and plays like...... At times it is unclear who is suppossed to mark who. At times it is unclear what zone/area each one is suppossed to cover basically our defense relies on the talents of each individual instead of the sum of it's parts. You move up the field and all last year and the year before we had a massive traffice jam with like ten guys all playing midfield at any given moment and NO ONE, repeat No One making any kind of a run at all, nor was anyone everplaying the wing or taking the ball up the wing for a cross (since we got rid of Chung). We had no legitimate striker for two years. And every other team had several but usl. Our best playmaker was allowed to drift back into the defense to start generating his own stuff cuz no one moved the ball out. Now we finally get a legitimate striker and another playmaker extraordinaire and I still can't tell that the F### is goiing on in the back. The subsitutions are way off. And not that he should start behaving like Ray Hudson but it wouldn't kill him to smile once in a while. You notice how he always walks by himself on the field like a kid in the third grade caryiing his lunch box from table to table looking for someone to eat with...poor bobby has no friends. Grow up, drop the teenage angst game face and get in the real game. Interact with the players a little. (that one is just my own beef) And the guy never learns from his mistakes. The one main reason he should have been sent packing, and this still really stings - is when we made it to the Finals for the Open Cup. And that was the only time in ten years we were that close to any medal at all, He starts Jusko who had proved himself to be useless. For starting out most important game to date with only ten players on the field he should have been fired. And most of all, our players look like they do not practice together at all. How come all the others team, well most, look like they play together? BECAUSE THEY DO. Their coaches train them instead of re-shuffling the deck every ten minutes like a kid with ADD and a remote control. Father Ted and Thomas your words are too kind for a putz like BB.
Can we have Fat Tony as a Coach-player? at least for now. Please no more ex college, MLS reclycled or youth coaches. I wish we could afford a international coach and players to teach us how to keep possession of the ball and protect the result when we are seconds away of ending the game. Is patetic to lose points that way.
Studsup said some great things. Meola would be a good coach. He showed some good leadership last night.
One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. You can be a fine leader and a lousy tactician and player evaluator.
Well...look at what happened with Thorton and Howard. They came out fine. He helped them by just being a player. Maybe he can do the same or better as a coach. Dino Zoff did both.
Let's not go overboard here, Meola is not qualified for the job just because he had a good presence in the game, there is more to it and there aren;t many candidates out there, the question is weather Bob can learn how to coach a team without superstars like he had in Chicago.
I'm talking about down the road. Why can't he? He likes the team. I see no problem in thinking about him later on. If Lalas can be a GM, why can't Meola coach?