What would anyone think about moving Richard to the back line, Ekelund to d-mid, and L-Do to a-mid? It seems our D is getting exposed a bit much recently, and I have lots of faith in Mulrooney to settle it down - plus I think he's better than Jimmy. Then keep Corrales on one of the wings where he seems to do much better.
On paper, a good idea, and the one time you could get Graziani and DeRosario in the same lineup as Landon. (Literally, I'm thinking Landon could play as the setup player for the strikers, and can literally turn into one himself if he chooses to go forward and shoot instead of pass.) Mulrooney is better suited as a defensive player, while Corrales tends to enjoy pushing the ball forward instead of being a backliner. Since there is a week's break in play, give the kid some rest--he really needs it. Cheers!
Leave Ronnie where he is ... he's rounding into form, and had a great game vs LA; we need his creativity, vision and calmness in the middle of the pitch. He made some great passes that should've led to at least one goal had the forwards finished. I'm thinking of one in the second half where he slipped the ball through the center into Landon's run. A little luck and he would've buried it. Damned LA/Cup jinx!
If we're talking lineup shift, I would like to see Mulrooney fill in at right back for now, move Corrales to defensive mid. He seems to play better in the middle instead of pinned against the sideline. Let Ekelund concentrate on attacking. ---------Donovan-----Graz------------ Lagos------Corrales---Ekelund----Russell (or DeRo) Barrett-----Agoos---Robinson---Mulrooney ---------------Cannon------------------ We need to have Mulrooney and Barrett flying down the wings and overlapping the midfielders. We've had very weak wing play for the last several games. Good things happen when we unbalance our opponents....I could also see DeWayne at forward with Landon at outside mid (but he's going to disappear out there.....)
---------Donovan-----Graz------------ ---------------Ekelund---------------- ----Lagos------Mulrooney-------DeRo-- ---------------Corrales----------------- -----Barrett-----Agoos---Conrad------ ---------------Cannon------------------ Simple enough. Sub Robinson for tired midfielder, put four in the back. Sean
I like the idea of DeRo at right mid, but if he does his unexplained take-on-three-defenders-along-thetouch-line and he is only twenty yards from the goal he is defending....*shudder* he may not have the full "midfielder mentality" to do the tracking prescribes in Frank's formula....
DeRo is a pure striker. Like lddoppleganger mentioned, putting in the midfield would be a dangerous task especially if he has a reluctance to tackle defenders. putting him as a slightly withdrawn forward like McBride for his club might help him a bit--that way he coud either shoot at goal or pass to Graziani or Donovan. It could take the pressure to score off his back--also on the stats sheet he has more assists than he has goals this year so doing that might give him a "playmaking" mindset. Cheers!
Or, DeRo may know how to play two different positions differently, just might not be better at RM than Ian. Didn't really see enough of him there the other night to fully judge. Other than that, I agree 100% with the idea's in Jeff's post, so I won't parrot all that. Could we finally be missing Harut?
I like this, but leave Lagos at left (where he seems to play his strongest) and use DeRo for Russell until Russel regains his form and fitness. Or perhaps give Russell the start and sub in DeRo EARLY at midfield.
I liked DeRo at midfield in the game against that Mexican team. But remember that this is Yallop we are talking about. He won't make any changes unless there is a player injury or yellow card (and sometimes not even then).
correct me if I am wrong, but do you really want to break up on of the best central midfields in the MLS in order to find a place for DeRo and is on/off playing style? Mulrowney at right back should be a short term solution to an injury problem, as it was v Chicago.... Ekelund would go mental if he had to watch DeRo dance himself into trouble while Ekelund was five feet away.....
In a word...no. Remember, we were missing Robinson through yellow cards Wednesday night. I think we missed this season's most improved player more than we missed Harut. And I agree with previous posts...I'd be hesitant to break up the Mulrooney/Ekelund link in the midfield. As I recall, when Richard moved back earlier this season, the Ekelund/Donovan link didn't work nearly as well.
IMHO, missing Robinson Wed night was huge. I could tell Agoos was getting fatigued towards the end of the game. He started taking more and more chances at intercepting the ball, rather than letting the offensive player get the ball and then simply defend him and keep himself between the player and the goal as he had done earlier. I sensed that he knew that if Ruiz got the ball, he wasn't going to be able to keep up defensively, so he took chances. Ruiz finally made him pay. If Robinson was available, I think FY would have made the sub. As it was, he had no fresh players to put in on D, except Ibsen, and I can fully understand why he didn't choose that option with the game on the line.