We saw two things tonight: -A 3 man back line -A 5 man midfield, that involved using the wings. Firstly, I don't know if Bob plans to use the 3 man back, or if he will go back to 4. But, i think it's a great thing. Jolley, to me, has always been better on the outside. And with Pope and Addo switching in and out, it looks like a strong back. Combine that with the fact I don't have to see Digi play defense, and I think the 3 man back is the way to go. Only thing is, can we depend on Addo? It looked like tonight he proved he can be trusted. He played well + composed. Hopefully he keeps it up. 2ndly. After the first half VS N.E. Bob came out in the 2nd half with his players playing up the wings. It didn't really work, as we hadn't done ANY of that in previous games. all season, all points of attack were right up the middle. Mid-way through the season, teams figured this out, and stopped us. NONSTOP. Now, Bob came out in this game with a new plan. You could tell he wanted to use the flanks. He had Digi( a good flank mid--as much as i hate him on def.)and Clark on the outside. You could tell, Bob told them to get their asses on the touchline. It opens the field up, creates attacking down the wing, creates space for forwards and mids to run to the corner and receive a ball towards space. It also creates stuff up the middle, because space is freed up with your flank mids on the extreme outside. This spreads the defense, and keeps it guessing. Now my question is this...Did Bob Bradley do this on purpose. Did he wait until the end of the season, so that his team would be playing his new system perfectly right at playoff time? Did he wait so that other teams could not find an effective way to defend against such a system. I remember at the ESC party in Feb at Nathan Hales...Bob said something like.."ya see the thing is...in MLS, you only have to be good at the end. All you have to do is get into the playoffs, and if you play well then, you've got a good shot at winning everything" To me, this is a team thats gonna play even better as time goes on. We have a new system that players must still get used to. And we also have a new striker who showed promise for a few minutes tonight. we have 3 straight games against DCU, and quite frankly, i think we're gonna beat the living crap out of them. We'll see.
It is not the answer, but when things are not going good you have to change something. We have ordinary wingers as wingers on attack that's the problem, and that is not likely to change before the end of the season and the playoffs. They also have to know when to attack and when to play defensive or we can be out numbered in the back and will probably will be out numbered in the back when we play certain teams. Not a good sign if one has dreams of a championship. The new Guy kind of seems to have slow feet (lacks quickness) but I will wait and see when he is game fit. If he can head the ball now, and if our wings can make a lot of crosses before a defender is in their face and crosses that the keeper can't gobble up. Then we ight score some goals. I don't think I would be happy if I was Bradley.
New Strategy Finally, a change in strategy. Win, lose, or draw, .. this is what this fan has been looking for. This time we had flankers involved and were able to spread their defense as well as provide an offensive threat of our own. It wasn't pretty, but go with it for awhile, develop it, and see what happens. With some frontline accuracy, this game could have easily resulted in a 5-0 romp. And that's not including Woly's "goal of the year." We don't necessarily have mediocre players, ... we have just had some mediocre direction. Now that we've made some positive changes, let's ride it out and put a couple of Cups in our pocket. We have the talent; the rest is hard work.
Watching Joe addo play so well it seems impossible that Kenny Arena was actually playing over him a few months ago when Pope was injured. Joe addo can play. Let's give the Polish guy some time. He does look like a Savarese type player without the speed. Must be good in the air.
I prefer the Metros using 3-5-2 because we have great defenders and we need to create more scoring opportunities. I was surprised that Bob started Addo instead of Ziadle but Addo showed that he can play. I would like the Metros play 3-5-2: Walker Pope-------Addo-------Jolley Clark----------Williams--------DiGiamarino Guevara--------Lisi Juskowiak-----------Mathis