(MiB) Portland Timbers v. Houston Dynamo , July 18

Well this ain’t looking pretty. It took Arnaud what? 4 games to abandon the 4-3-3? Wonder how long it will take Ramos to move on.

 

I’m also perturbed about how much of our offense still seems to be hopeful balls to Elis and then praying he can generate a solo goal. How awful will we be once Elis is gone?

 

Well guess we get too see the no Elis game sooner than later haha

 

I don’t know what type of arrogance you have to have to keep the same game plan that saw your two predecessors dismissed, but Ramos clearly has it.

 

We stay in the fight, look to pull one goal back as we are down now two. Then the correct VAR review has Elis step up to take a well placed PK. GAME ON again!
Then bullsh!t second yellow to our man Elis and the ref just ruins a perfectly good MLS match.
Damn am I steamed!

Well, on to the final group game versus our old enemy LAEG.

DALE DYNAMO!!!

 

I watched the first half. My take away.

That damned virtual reality blue screen crap is very distracting. The commentators were remarking on the "Jumbotrons" weren't those fake? I kept seeing low long shots of either end and there was nothing there, then back to the higher up cameras and magically screens appeared.

If your gonna do that why not just blue screen in fake crowds and noise.

 

Worse, with a bunch of personnel continuity

 

We’re going to get punished all season for this defense and keeper.

I agree the second Elis yellow was bull. He called the flailing response. Youth level stuff.

We keep hiring people to “play a 433” and not “coach.” This defense is horrific and a coach with a brain would play a 451 a la Barrett to protect it. They need to replace Struna and the wingbacks. Really the whole back line because Figueroa is an overage patch.

To me I sensed Ramos was not going to get er done as of the option and re-sign decisions that had too much continuity and particularly in the back. I believe in personnel more than system and we’re simply not good enough. The 433 just exposes it.

 

ICYMI that’s 4 games 2 points 2 losses 2 ties 0 wins. Modest 5 GF — though 4 in the tournament — 10 GA at same pace as early season. 85 GA pace though there’s no way this goes 34 games.

LAG maybe a chance for a result.

I watched the LAG home game in person and what they did wrong was they could get down our wings but with the exception of the cutback goal they were content to repeatedly head to the flag and loft a cross in. We weathered that and kept it to one.

Teams since then have been either beating us around the flank and taking a shot from there, or cutting back in and playing a ground ball into the hole behind the 6.

I’m only watching highlights right now but thus far I get no sense Ramos is tapped into some special sauce. Quintero is the only positive addition, too much continuity, Maric sucks, RB sucks, tactics only continue to expose a team that needs help to chase results. I might defend him if I felt like we were in the process of roster churn but he brought back a ton of people and isn’t playing them radically different. If anything he’s regressed back behind the 442 defensive lesson we’d learned the last 2 years.

 

If we’re committing to offense it needs to be more productive than one 3 goal night and the rest of the schedule maybe we get a goal maybe not, 45 goal season stuff.

I get the idea maybe he though Valentin (or maybe his real idea was Biazama) + Lundkvist was going to be wing offense but in practice it works out where we are more vulnerable for that choice than we are productive.

Tab was a career youth coach before this and I think we basically have another Arnaud or Barrett learning coaching on the job.

I also think that having taken some games from LAFC and LAG in recent years, it is possible those ties are actually regression. LAG seems to be a bad team and we managed a tie. Tying what currently would be the worst team in the league at home is actually a bad sign.

 

why they give up on Deric Maric blows

 

Per Transfer Market's available info. the following are contracts ending in December of 2020 pic.twitter.com/7Al8BnPDrq

— Stay Holdin' FC ⚽️ (@StayHoldinFC) July 16, 2020

According to this list the roster churn you mentioned should be coming this next offseason.

 

I get what you’re saying and hopefully we shed some scrubs next winter. My complaint is what happened last winter.

This is what I am getting at:
“The club picked up contract options on nine players for the 2019 [2020.....haha] season: DF Alejandro Fuenmayor, MF Nico Hansen, DF Sam Junqua, MF Tomás Martínez, FW Tommy McNamara, GK Michael Nelson, FW Christian Ramirez, MF Memo Rodriguez and FW Michael Salazar.

The club declined contract options on three players: MF Eric Bird, MF Juan David Cabezas and GK Tyler Deric. Four players’ contracts expired following the conclusion of the 2019 season: MF Darwin Cerén, DF A.J. DeLaGarza, DF Maynor Figueroa and DF Kevin Garcia. For a number of these players, conversations with the club about returning in 2020 are ongoing.”

https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/2019/11/21/dynamo-announce-roster-moves-ahead-2020-season

We ended up with Ceren and Figueroa back as well.

You can go down that list and find a bunch of people who didn’t need to come back.

To me I see where your “formers” go as indicative of how others value them
AJ — Miami but 0 g 0 min
Bird, Garcia — Tulsa USL
Cabezas, Deric - unsigned FA

also
Quioto 4 g 2 Goals Montreal (!)(!)
Willis 0-2 1.5 GAA Nashville
Hairston 0 g 0 min Minnesota
Beasley retired

so the one recent “former” respected out of town is Quioto. Willis is “respected” enough to play half time for an expansion side but putters along at same mediocrity. to me it’s not a good sign abut your talent if other teams see your players as USL bait or MLS bench. that kind of suggests you’re the last chance saloon before USL. kind of backs up our sense of scrapping the MLS barrel since 2016.

to me a lot of how your season goes is decided in these offseason options and FA determinations. for reasons inexplicable to me, despite missing the playoffs, we routinely “get the band back together” after recent seasons. we’re either nuts or content to put on an entertaining show.

I then think a coach can bring a unit up or down within a range. Ramos so far to me might be more a weight than a help, and on paper the unit he started with needed a miracle to be a playoff team— needed help. to me i feel like Barrett or early Cabrera had more impact than Ramos. maybe Arnaud at the end. I am looking for better results or better soccer and not seeing it, and like i said we seem to have lost whatever we’d learned about defense in recent years. we’re allowing 2.5 GAA and if we can’t get that under 1.5 we’re going nowhere.

 

the defense and 6 situation to me is back to 2015 or 2016 where it’s not even good enough to have a competitive chance. our solution was the 2017 rentals but the problem with end career players is it can be a short term and perhaps as little as one year solution. so we’re basically back where we started.

i even realize their response to the faded veterans was younger players but without fail they have sucked — fuenmayor, struna, lundkvist, bizama.

 

Juve, since the coronavirus solution you seek will require the shutdown of MLS until 2022, your gifted analysis is pointless

 

#MLSisBack | ¿Quién más? 🇦🇷 Diego Valeri extiende el marcador en favor de @SomosTimbers. #PORvHOU#SomosTimbers 2#DejaloTodo 0pic.twitter.com/vIcKr0BFQ0

— Deporte Total USA (@deportetotalusa) July 19, 2020

I have a really hard time believing the Dynamo are any better under Tab than recent prior managers. They looked unmotivated and unorganized to me.

The passage of play in the linked video stands out to me. Nobody puts pressure on ball. The ball is played over top behind the fullback, and nobody's there. No player steps up to the top of box to challenge the Timber's biggest goal threat. The other defender drops off the wide player, enabling the cross into the box.

I want to love Tab. Really do. But I also want to watch a competitive club. He either doesn't have the impact needed to motivate the players or the willingness to amend tactics to suit the traits of his roster.

Ultimately, though, the blame falls on the shoulders of Matt Jordan and the ownership group. They've squandered a once-great club and club culture. Their prized sales guru, Jay Forklift, attacks people (who he's blocked, by the way) on social media and his bosses support it as evidenced by their likes.

I am shocked the ownership group has so many fan supporters on social media. I want a moderately competitive Dynamo. Don't have to make the playoffs, but make me think a match can be won. When a club is actively marketing its capabilities as a great Instagram location, the ship is sinking.

 

My hot take is that I think Barrett and Arnaud might have been the best coaches here post-Dom. Barrett suffered from one of the (maybe the?) worst rosters the team has ever had and the gigantic hole Coyle had dug. Arnaud took too long to trash the 4-3-3, but looked like he was making some progress with the 4-4-2 at the end of last year.

I don't know, but I always thought the best way to build the team was from the back-up, i.e. priority should be to stop leaking goals and once that's accomplished then move-on to other things. Think that's more practical than adhering to a preconceived notion of "latin flare" attacking that we're selling now.

Also, and maybe I'm channeling my out of shape self here, but I have to think building a team that stylistically will not and technically cannot possess the ball isn't a great idea in Houston's climate. A lot of Dynamo losses fit broadly into two categories:

1.) The other team just cedes possession and watches as the Dynamo hopelessly flail around

2.) The Dynamo spend 60 minutes chasing the ball and then get murdered because the entire team is gassed

 

actually, isn't my point at this stage that whether i like it or not we seem to be rolling? to be on my personal boycott the train has to have left the station regardless what i said, no?

in which case i paid attention in the offseason and saw us play live in march so i am not oblivious to what we did right/wrong.

 

cabrera had 2017, although that was a function of a lucky accumulation of a decent defense for a change, with the offense. and then by the next season they were too old and he couldn't coach a less talented, poorer defensive team.

in terms of 2019, when i stood back and looked at what happened, people forget we jumped out of the blocks like a sprinter before blowing up in may. the best part of last year was the first few months under cabrera. that's a string of wins but we forget.

[dirty little secret but at the end of last season i had mentally bailed and was watching them "tape delay" off the DVR a day or 2 late. i felt like the organization hadn't tried so why should i.]

to me it was he got in the running fracas with leading players (like quioto and elis) and they quit on him, and as of gold cup we imploded. it may also have been that CCL required us to drill into shape early which was initially beneficial but then manifested as the season progressed with all the veterans on the team. quioto this season is back to scoring. hmmm

i do agree we went to complete crap and then at the end got some aspects back together with arnaud, but that would be of the WLWLWL type variety. mind you, he figured out an unembarrassing formation eventually and remembered ramirez can play. my response is not so much arnaud is awesome as that at least he had a relative clue.

i feel the same about barrett. barrett was refreshingly drilled and consistently competitive relative to coyle. we weren't very good but they played hard and were in the game most nights. but he didn't seem to get that you need some offense to get results. we wouldn't come out of the shell even for 10-20 minutes at the end to chase something.

i dunno, to me i look at this coaching history and what it tells me is i want more organization and less gimmickry, barrett with offense. even the ones who want attacking soccer, though, probably want at least some defense. i miss being the disciplined team punching above its weight. to me it's like the 433 is now beyond trend, but instead the routine standard and there is no competitive advantage in being a low payroll team playing the same formation everyone else is with more money spent on it. to me the league is ripe again for a team that can bottle up these 433s and churn results.

but as i said the other day, the question is whether the 433 obsession is like a top down decision that to keep some fans in the stands we may not win but we will entertain. personally i would rather watch kinnear ball and be in the playoffs, and i think most houston soccer fans are bandwagoners who want a winner as opposed to aesthete snobs who frown on how it might be done.

personally like i said the other day i feel like we've become fashion watchers like the USMNT -- copying others -- as opposed to leaders. the results speak for themselves. we haven't done anything with the 433 but the one season -- 2017 -- and that was arguably more an alignment of talent than the formation working so well.

 

the only thing i like ramos for so is attitude towards the younger players, but we see nothing tangible from it yet, and until you do, it's almost more what you'd want from a GM or development head as opposed to game manager. and if he had any hand in this 2020 team -- particularly the defense -- he doesn't need to be GM.