First let me say that I did not see this match. Second, I frequently find Novak's choices and timing of substitutions to be puzzling. That said, I recognize that he should have a lot more information and insight regarding the players, etc., so I generally consider that when his moves don't appear to make sense, he must have additional information that supports his actions. In the case of Wilson for Adu, I think it's goofy at first look, but it should be noted that in sloppy conditions, skill gets diluted much more than athleticism. I'm not saying it was a smart move, but I would guess that PN considered that Wilson could be more effective in the wet conditions. Hustle does make a difference and on a wet and sloppy field, it becomes more important. Finesse and skills are great, but playing in a swamp they are much less effective. I still think Wilson for Adu when you're down a goal is a goofy move, but it's not quite as dumb as it looks at first glance. "Just my opinions."
Nowak's comments about Adu are strange and a little worrisome. I never like to hear coaches single one player out for criticism. Soccer is such a team game that it makes even less sense. For my money, Freddy played well on Saturday. His passing and his runs without the ball were both quite good. He was not as effective as he was against Salt Lake because the Metrostars fouled him constantly and the ref turned a blind eye. But that's no reason to pull him off the field. Heretofore, Nowak has had his forwards play all over the field. Both Moreno and Tino both go deep or wide as the circumstances dictate. (I am not sure I like these tactics, but that is how DC has been playing all year.) Criticizing Freddy for doing the same thing strikes me as peculiar. I am afraid that Nowak is getting a little frustrated with this team. He has bet all his money on several players -- Dema, Carroll, Gomez and Moreno, in particular -- but the results have not necessarily been there. With one thing and another, Nowak has run out of options and/or ideas. I am not terribly surprised that he chose to take his frustrations out on one of the younger players, but, at the same time, it's not very smart coaching and somewhat unfair to Freddy.
I disagree. The development and use of Jamil Walker is strong evidence that Nowak will reward hard work and results. As for "betting all your money" on Gomez and Moreno to be the offensive engines -- I'm in with the mortgage on that, there is no one else on DCU that a professional coach would turn to. Carroll's work rate is phenomenal and he is more experienced that Simms. The only puzzlement is Dema, but he has puzzled coaches and fans since he entered the league. Moreover, even though Dema has substantial limitations as a wing player, who else on the left side is better on this team? Nowak has to coach the roster that the front office provides within the salary cap and other strictures of MLS. He does a very good job under those circumstances.
Obviously he sucks as a coach and the DCU faithful should make it know to management that you want him fired at the end of the season! Yes. Fire Nowak! Or sell him to Chicago. That's the ticket!
Anyone know where I can hire a small plane to fly a banner over the stadium on Saturday? I'm also looking for ideas for a sign. "Nowak Afuera" just doesn't have any rhythm to it.
I mentioned this to a bunch of people at the post game and at the reserve match, Nowak made his mistake in taking out Gros for Walker. This put Adu out wide in an uncomfortable situation of attacking and defending the left side. Mo Johnson reacts by putting a stronger right sided player in there to go at Adu and pen him in the back and put pressure on Prideaux. So, after the second goal comes from that side, Nowak sees the need for someone stronger to stabilize our left side - he subs Adu for Wilson to get some better defensive work. A move which compounds his original error because while we got stronger defensively, we also lost any attacking prowess out of the left. Wilson is a lot of things but an attacking player against MLS level competition, he's not. A better pattern would have been Walker for Olsen and let Adu and Gomez run the attack or Gomez for Walker and let Adu run the attack. Gros and Kovalenko were controlling their wings and forcing the play forward and creating chances. Y'all may think that Dema is a hack but he was controlling his side of the field before the substitution. He provided both defensive and offensive support. While he got called for offside several times, I'm not one to believe that the MLS referees get these calls right with any sort of regularity.
You are missing my point. Nowak was frustrated after Saturday's loss. That much is beyond dispute. It is also beyond dispute that he has made a major committment to several players, notably Caroll, Gomez, Moreno, and Kovalenko. Saying that is not a criticism of Nowak or his decisions, simply stating the obvious. I suspect that Nowak cannot understand why the team continues to stumble from time to time and, particularly why the players he has chosen fail to deliver. I suspect that it is a lot easier to grump about Freddy, who after all is a minor player in Nowak's current scheme, than it is to confront the reality that the team Nowak has assembled may not be as good as he would like.
I don't know what "made a major commitment" means. If it means "Nowak will always start these players, no matter how they play," this is manifestly false in Carroll's case. We know that Nowak is willing to bench Carroll if he feels that Carroll is playing sufficiently poorly and someone else can play DM better, because he has. After a run of poor form from Carroll earlier in the season, he had a stretch of a few matches where he did not start, and only came on late; Simms took his starting job. I suspect that invisible gnomes inhabit my refrigerator.
It has long been theorized that the invisible gnomes have died at the HQ of the Scum and because they are invisible no one can find their bodies. They have become angry little gnome spirits and have cursed the Scum with ass teams. It is more ridiculous that the FO hasnt figured this out yet -- you would think they may try to call Ghost Busters for some assistance but again, their front office is so poor they cant find a phone book and the tomato can they were using for communication is filled with Little Michael's tears for daddy.
No, you certainly don't understand what a "major commitment" means. How about "relies heavily on" or "plays under almost all circumstances?" Saying this is not necessarily, I repeat, a criticism of Nowak or of this players. (Although it is telling that some interprete it as such. Could it be that some of the true believers are beginning to have doubts?) It is only stating the obvious. Nowak made rather odd comments in explaining his substitution for Adu on Saturday. Odd both in the sense that Nowak usually does not discuss, much less criticize, individual players with the press and in the sense that the comments did not seem to fit the facts. If these comments are not a product of Nowak's frustration with the team in general, how do you explain them?
No known gnomes--so that is why Bradley was fired. Seriously though, BC's and Rev's explanation makes sense. There is this tendency to assume that b/c Freddy has immense talent with the ball, if we put him out there than grand things will just naturally happen. It continuously reminds me of a Far Side cartoon where two mathmaticians are reviewing a formula and one says to the other "this is where I have a problem with your equation" and he's pointing to one element of the complex computations where it says "and then a miracle occurs." It's not coaching to put a good player out the field and just assume that they'll create a miracle. Sometimes Moreno, Adu, Gomez or others do create miracles. But Nowak has to put together a system and scheme and tactics that work given what we face. Part of the reason that Adu has been unimpressive against NE is that Nicol is a fine coach who scouts and adjusts tactically. If you play to your tendency, he takes them away and makes you look slow and halting (or you resort to one v. one play--sound anything like some of the recent matches Freddy has had against NE?). The second is that Heaps, Joseph, et. al. are big and very willing to body slam players, especially smaller, lighter guys. I'm not arguing they're thugs. I'm saying that they recognize some teams are lighter, don't have Brian Ching on their frontline and if the ref will let you do it, they'll manhandle the opposition. Well, that is what happened against Metro. Abbey called an inconsistent game consistently only by the late, indecisive nature of his calls AND the tolerance for a lot of bodyslamming and pushing players to the ground. Not just grabbing or tugger but outright pushes into the ground. Metro sought to play compact (and the lead only allowed them to do more of it). Then Adu ended up on the wing. The circumstances just didn't fit his game. He'd have been more effective in the middle (but even then, less so b/c unless you say "Adu then makes a miracle happen") he's dealing with a compact defense, lots of bodies and he's not going to dribble through that--that is exactly what a coach would want, an attacker to try and dribble through his compact, congested defense. Did Adu do some nice work in the game? Absolutely. I don't see him being pulled as "punishment." But the game had evolved into something that he didn't fit well in. Furthermore, he wasn't connecting well with teammates. I'm not arguing he was being selfish or pouting. But I repeatedly saw return balls and he'd run into different space (or didn't run). He wasn't on the same page with some of his teammates. If you're looking to find a way to break down the Metros defense, you've got several options. Going outside, going over the top, speed combined with quick transitions/1-touch work. Adu was given a chance to see what he could do outside and instead Stemmler created a matchup problem. He's not going to win balls in the air though his service (if we'd had a good tall target like Knox Cameron) might help. He's not combining well with teammates (even though he's a good passer and is unselfish, but in part the field condition also doesn't lend itself to quick combination work). And his default is to run at people (which is what the Metros want in this situation: deny the ball to Moreno and Gomez, have Adu or Walker run at them with the ball on a waterlogged pitch with a ref that will let them manhandle the player to stop them OR stop play to get reorganized). I don't argue Wilson is a strong wing player. He's not a natural winger. But our need to have to play him at that role against Catolica and in the Metros match highlites something I argued in the UC post-game results: MLS doesn't have strong wing play and our team in particular isn't real impressive at wing play. If Nowak needs to go outside, his options are extremely limited. BTW, if I were developing a scheme to use against DCU in the playoffs, it would look a lot like the one MoJo showed us in the Metros game: --play compact. --stop play whenever possible. That means bigger defenders on smaller attackers, body contact to slow up Walker and Adu, go for whatever the ref will let you get away with. But destroy the flow of play. --seek to counter (it helps if you have a Djorkaeff). If NE tried this to some extent (the first Gillette match where both sides looked futile the first half then they score on the late Noonan goal). If I were Chicago (and had guys like Brown and Curtin plus some opportunistic attackers like Mapp and Rolfe) I'd try it.
I agree that the coach lost the game for us totally. Nowak tends to use his subs very poorly if at all. Taking out a gifted attacking player in place of a fullback with subpar offensive skills is just plain dumb.
My assessment of Adu's play would be somewhat more positive. I didn't think that he was on a different page than his teammates, for example. But I do agree that the physical style of play and the compact nature of the Metros defense made it difficult for Adu, as well as for DC in general. If Nowak had said something similar when asked about the substitution, no one would have thought it odd. But he didn't.
And against FC Dallas in the US Open Cup at Germantown - Takes off all of our distributers (Gomez, Quaranta & Olsen) which leaves Adu alone and isolated up top Of course, sometimes the odd sub does work, like Dema moving into A-Mid for Gomez and then watching him score on a breakaway - But that was more a sign of weakness on the other team than the wisdom of Nowaks subbing - I think Nowak needs a good "NO-Man" to voice opinions about who's working or not and which set of players are working together or not, and to recommend subbing - And to give a second opinion of subbing - Any takers out there?
Ditto. It makes me wonder, do I need to start this again after ranting early last season- subs, especially this time of the season, need to be reactive not only to our players on the pitch, nor their players, but to your opponent's bench as well. Sooner this is paid attention to, the sooner we all stop scratching our heads and second-guessing moves and whether or not said moves cost us matches, standing points, cups, etc. Optimistically, I think the loss drove the point home to Nowak. Heaven knows it lit up these boards enough.
this is good stuff. i tend to look at most post game criticisms as "arm chair quarterbacking", but this is a pretty articulate description of the situation. it's really disappointing that nowak is viewed by the consensus as a poor tactician, he was always viewed as a heady player in his heyday.
Ah, but there's the rub. There's a big difference between playing and coaching, much as many former players would like to deny it.
i agree. gros shouldn't have been taken out and he shouldn't have been made to play in the reserve division game the next morning. he is one of the guys on the field with the highest work rate and should get as much rest as possible to keep the work rate high. Adu was the one who caused the winning goal. His lack of tracking back on the left wing made Brandon come out to defend the outside mid's cross leaving the near post open. all i saw was after the goal was freddy standing near half field with a bewildered look on his face that Brandon was upset with him. Brandon is used to having gros track back to defend and he can cover the near post. the game at the very least would have been a tie if gros had been left in the game. bring in jamil walker for adu if you want more attack. gros attacks just as well as anybody. all of the subs left me wondering. shockman
Like I said before, I'd agree that Nowak does this with Moreno and Gomez, less so with Dema, and definitely less so with Carroll. Who did you have in mind here as a "true believer" who's "beginning to have doubts"? (keeping in mind, of course, that I've been markedly critical of Nowak's substitution pattern in this thread, in the Metros post-game thread, in the Catolica post-game threads, and in other such threads) Yes, obviously Nowak plays Carroll under almost all circumstances. Except, of course, when Nowak benches Carroll. I agree that his explanation was odd. How do I explain them? I don't. I don't understand them. But the fact that I don't understand them, and that they don't make sense to me, doesn't drive me to making a psychoanalytic judgment about his inner thoughts and feelings that I have no basis for and no inside information to use for support. Put another way, I have as much reason to believe your suspicions about what's going on in his head as I have to believe the proposition that he was distracted by an ongoing dispute with an auto mechanic and thus didn't think before he answered the question. Both propositions seem equally well supported: that is to say, not at all. And I don't see anything to be gained by offering up a counter-explanation that also would have no evidentiary basis.
But here's the crux of my problem with your explanation, Joe. It's not merely the case that his options are extremely limited; it's the case that Wilson is not even an option in that regard. I agree that Freddy is not a natural winger, and that his presence there created a defensive issue. But replacing him with Wilson doesn't/didn't clearly solve that issue, while simultaneously raising a new issue associated with the subsequent decrease in offensive threat . . .at a time when we were down a goal. I agree that it's silly to expect Freddy to just create a miracle. But OTOH, I have seen Freddy create great goals before; that just isn't going to happen with John Wilson.
That was a curious choice but oh well it didn't work. It is not as if it is the end of the world. I am glad that Nowak is thing outside the box a little bit. As for me, I think Wilson is best when played as a defender that ocassionally creeps up for a touch of offense.