I think you nailed it — our first team this season is poorly constructed. We have two extremely fast wingers, but the league figured that out pretty quickly. But last season we also had true playmakers in Piug, Delgado, and Brugman. And later Reus for parts of games. Playmakers can make the killer back line breaking passes that Joe & Pec gobble up and put in the net. But this season we only have half a playmaker in Reus. Sanabria, Fagundez, Cerrilo aren’t creative passers. Without playmakers our wingers have to resort to “dribble fast” which doesn’t work against prepared Ds. (Part of reason we did so well against Liga MX may be their lack of experience against those guys.) So w/o playmakers our wingers can’t score and don’t defend much. Worst of both worlds, And result is last place and a -23 goal differential after 27 games. I think this season we should have been playing more creative passers like Lepley and Harbor. Or add midfield speed with Wynder. That wouldn’t have solved our problems (they aren’t Delgados yet) but I think that team might have developed over time. Because the plodding play of our current midfield is a disaster when paired with Pec and Joe. And of course next season we need Puig back and to add younger Delgado and Brugman type players to unleash our Killer Ps again. And make Vanney look like he knows what he is doing! (couldn’t resist).
I understand why we sold him eventually, but I was kinda hoping we'd bring back Johnny Perez, as his style of play is VERY Puig-lite. "We've got Puig at home". He's not Puig, but I remember watching him and reminiscing that his style was very much like Riqui.
Agree Perez was creative and could have helped. But what was great about Delgado was that he was good on both sides of the ball. He made creative defense cracking passes but he also won his share of physical 50-50 battles and helped our pressure game. Plus he was a workhorse who probably covered more ground than anyone not named Puig. So I’m not disagreeing that we could have used Perez’s passing. Just think he would have been another defensive weakness, IIRC. I may be wrong though - I didn’t pay close attention to his play.
That's fair, I was just thinking of a creative driving midfielder. And yea, of all those we lost during the offseason, I think losing Delgado is what hurt us the most.
Last night shows that Vanney could have done better with this squad of players. We needed way more defense at the beginning of the year to make up for not have Puig. But Vanney stubbornly refused to change and thought we were still going to score 4 goals every game. Instead of adjusting the team tactics to fit the personnel we have. The GK controversy didn't help, another own goal. In his defense, these guys have had 5 months to mature, so maybe they weren't ready, but I'm not sure I believe that.
This kinda take is a bit harsh on Vanney, imho. Losing Delgado AND Brugman I think hurt us more than we realize. Yea we didn't have Puig, but not having an experienced quality 8 in our midfield hurt us this season. I'm still not sure what exactly Wynder and Sanabria bring to the squad in terms of skillset, maybe they are 8s, but trying to start basically a brand new spine is rough (esp considering Puig was out, too). I think it mostly boiled down to gambling on being lucky that the players could hit the ground running. Wynder and Sanabria on their own might be fine, integrated into the team slowly, but unfortunately they had to be thrown in headfirst, and it appears they just weren't ready for MLS level yet. That being said I agree Vanney could have tried experimenting more, but some of that boils down to Vanney finally accepting that the whatever we were doing wasn't working, and this is one of those areas I get the frustration on both sides, because we DID have plenty of good play. I forget what game it was but there was the game we dominated literally everything, and STILL allowed the other team to win, without even allowing a shot on goal. It feels like all of the "good" luck we used up last season only for the bad luck to even the scales out this season. At that point, what do you do? Youy really only do the "youngsters" play when multiple elements allow for it. Other games take priority, you're at the point the game is clearly less meaningful than starting your starters.
I agree with a lot of your points. But I don’t buy the view that we are secretly good but just unlucky. Giving up over 2g/game (55 goals in 27 games) isn’t bad luck, it’s atrocious defense. A good coach would have focused on fixing this problem- Vanney hasn’t. And yes, it could be greatly improved even with our current personnel. But we’ve never had a good D under Vanney so why expect anything else.
Oh that's totally fair. And yea, I think its more a case of our team getting desperate late in games to try to salvage any result, hence why we do let in a lot of goals late, and a good coach should be able to try and keep the squad disciplined, but I don't think Vanney is a "discipline" coach, more of a "inspire and motivate" coach, perhaps, which isn't the same thing.
Seven league games remain. Houston, Seattle, Cincinnati, Dallas ×2, SKC and Minnesota. Do we see Riqui play? Do we win any of these? Should we just play the kids?
Play the kids! Painstill isn't going to play any D in these games. Let's see more of that CB from the Colorado game. At least they will run.
Vanney is already on the record that he plans to play the young kids more in league games, now that the playoffs are out of the picture.
just to add to your comment, with rhetorical questions weren't the Galaxy out of the playoffs months ago? shouldn't he have done this back then? I get not wanting to alienate your starters and you do have to keep them fit for leagues cup, but playing Ruess in Miami was asinine and he could have mixed in the youngins with the vets and experimented, but he chose not to, to me a sign of a good coach is adapting to the talent you have available not the talent in the stands and the what ifs. in my opinion the youngins played great against Colorado because they have not been fully indoctrinated into the complicated system and genius of Vanney and still had some free will to actually play soccer. I know I know beating a dead horse but since we have no say or control of whats going on in the Galaxy FO, at least I can vent here.
I get him not wanting to say something publicly but he could have been tinkering with the line up without actually giving up on the season and if he was questioned, he could have said giving a couple of guys some rest and wanted to see what we had on the bench but of course he didn't want to be proactive in doing that. now I'm curious to exactly when there was less than 1 percent of making the playoffs and what changes and what were the results of those games after, hopefully one of the math guys here can shed some light
Well the loss to Seattle two weeks ago sealed the deal because at that point we were no longer able to get enough points that have been needed the past few years to make a playoff slot.
2025 goal creation productivity: Given these results, why are so many so down on our 2nd most productive player (on a per minute basis)?
Well, he's .04 ahead of our backup right back....I don't think him being 2nd speaks as much about his quality as it does the absolute dire production of everyone else on the team.
0.5 g+a/90 is about average for MLS forwards. So I don’t know why everyone is so critical- he’s been given so few minutes to prove himself. Even vs Seattle his movement gave us at least one real chance on goal. He didn’t convert, but even good forwards miss 80% of their shots. And yes our DPs are awful this season.
Small sample size. True of Ramirez as well but Ramirez is a proven goal scorer, with a career 0.66 g+a/90, including 0.69 last year for Columbus. Berry is 0.30 lifetime.
Putting aside Berry's one game in months where he actually started, the decline in Ramirez's minutes can be put down to the emergence of Nasicmento and the revival of Reus, who would often move up the false 9 late in the game so we would still have his distributional skills on the field in a position that demanded less of him defensively. Frankly, I can't disagree with prioritizing either of those players given what else we had on the field. Both of those players made the people around them better (and we absolutely had to find out what we had in Nasci before we made a decision about the purchase option on his loan). Ramirez doesn't really do that. He would have been better playing with Puig.
(likely an unpopular post to follow) I don’t see Nasci ever being a strong forward. The reason is that he is slow. In soccer, speed and/or quickness kills. Donovan was one of the most skilled players the US ever produced, but what made him a megastar was he had excellent speed & quickness to go with that skill. Chicharito in his prime was incredibly quick, and that got him a job at Man U. Keane wasn’t fast, but he was very quick. Those were stars but the need for fast twitch quickness applies to 90% of effective forwards. The only slow-moving forwards who are good are bruisers who are great in the air (think Brian McBride). Unfortunately Nasci (like Berry) is none of those things. He doesn’t get to loose balls quickly, he doesn’t have quick dribbling moves, he’s shown little leaping ability and he doesn’t get off shots quickly. “But he’s young!” I don’t buy this argument either. He was considered a “prodigy” at age 15. I’m guessing that his size & strength made him a handful against other youth players, and his dominance at that age put unfair expectations on him. Since then he has had 4 or 5 years of training with his former club, albeit one of those years was lost to injury IIRC. In his 53 league appearances with Botafogo he had a grand total of 1 goal & 1 assist. Why we signed him is a mystery to me. I do see why some fans like him. He works hard, isn’t a prima donna, and he shows flashes of knowing what to do on the field. The problem is that defenders are quicker than him so laying off a nice ball is pretty much the most that can be expected on a consistent basis. Look I may be wrong but I think I have a decent track record of recognizing real talent vs fools gold. And I will be shocked if Nasci is ever more than a disappointing journeyman in first flight soccer. Again, I don’t know what Kuntz was thinking when we signed him.
I don't think you're responding to my argument, despite quoting me, about why it made sense to start playing Nascimento despite Ramirez being more experienced. I think it was particularly important once it was clear Ramirez wasn't going to make a difference in winning games and we needed to make a decision about Nascimento for his option. Your argument is about why we shouldn't have signed him and shouldn't pick up his option. I don't necessarily disagree with your points, but I do think it's telling that, as I recall, Brazilian fans and commentators felt Nasci was more accurately described as a false 9 than a true striker. His value on this team, much like Reus' value, is that he's one of the few players who has some creative flair and vision, as well as smart movement outside the box. We're basically starving for players who can make up for our lack of those qualities among the healthy midfielders on the team. To Nasci's credit, he has improved pretty significantly with his hold-up play and ability to distribute with his back to the goal, but I don't think those were qualities associated with him at all before he got here. One of the major flaws with this team and Vanney's system is that all decisions about our players come down to how would they play with Puig or, in his absence, how would they help make up for the lack of Puig. One of the reasons the bench players were a bit of a breath of fresh air against the Rapids is that they were basically showing how Vanney's system could be done if we didn't have Puig, Pec, or Paintsil and the players could just play within themselves.