Yeah, it was a very special goal. And the funny thing is after he just runs back to the center spot without much celebration. Ice cold. It'd be good to keep Dejan and replace Chicharito with a playmaking forward that can play beneath or alongside him.
I'm honestly sort of exasperated at this point. How often have we seen the team totally capitulate around this point of the season? Different coaches, different players -- doesn't matter. They just seem to hit some kind of wall. It's very disheartening. There are flaws in each, but this seems bigger than personnel and coaching. Obviously clearing the FO is a priority but it doesn't seem ever likely to happen. I mean, even if we sold a metric ass-load of Chicharito jerseys, can it really be enough to off-set paying out Schelotto, Gio dos Santos, Skjelvic and, most likely, having to do the same with Costa and Cabral? We're talking millions wasted.
Seriously if he doesn't I will be shocked. The dude is DP quality. The Serbia national team should give him serious consideration.
Highlight Time Folks Vanney Post Game : Once again he proves that he does see the problem which is why I'm not ready to fire him just yet. Imagine this game if it had used the starters I suggested from the beginning both with Cabral in Grandsir's place? ----------------Chicha--DeJan Cabral--Raveloson--Delgado--Costa Edwards--Williams-----Sega-----Araujo ------------------------Bonds Even with the mistakes that lead to goal we make the insane comeback and get the win for sure. I'd argue that we likely would see less goals out of San Jose as they would have been too busy trying to defend against our attack and we wouldn't have been exposing our backline to there's as much thanks to the old men in the midfield killing our momentum in the form of Sasha and Vazquez. We got Colorado in Saturday and We Need To Win. Rest Edwards again or bring him in off the bench if needed and do the same for either Raveloson or Delgado. But Costa and Cabral need to play from out of the gate and DeJan better be figured into every possible lineup going forward, only sitting out in the name of rest or sickness. Sasha and Vazquez are emergency only and team practice players only going forward. ----------------Chicha--DeJan Cabral---------------------------------Costa -------------Raveloson--Delgado Edwards--Williams-----Sega-----Araujo ------------------------Bonds First Choice Subs: Efrain, Grandsir, Aguirre, DePuy, Brugman, Gasper, Leerdam, Zavaleta and Klinnsman I will be calling for the above every time from here on out unless Brugman proves a stud.
Wonder if Chicharito and Delgado will be available for next game. If they just tested positive on Tuesday or Wednesday, they won’t even have been in isolation five days yet by Saturday.
Hmmm,...If they were out due to Covid and not just in the name of resting players, then yes they will indeed miss this upcoming game as well unfortunately. We won't see them again until Atlanta at the earliest. In that case we will likely see (If Vanney is smart enough) Efra and Aguirre in this next game to replace those 2. My revised preferred lineup we will look as follows,... --------------------DeJan Cabral------------Efra-----------------Costa ----------Raveloson--Aguirre They have two commandments. #1: Feed DeJan Like We Fed Zlatan #2: No Dumb Turnovers
If I'm not mistaken, the heath & safety protocol means clubs test per league rules and player who tests positive must stay out until he tests negative twice consecutively. Don't know how much time between the negative tests but it's possible neither Chicha nor Delgado had any symptoms but got caught out on tests. If they had symptoms then prolly shouldn't play Colorado game. This would be good chance to see Brugman with Raveloson. I doubt he needs much coaching time. It's more a question of getting physically fit.
I appreciate the sentiment, but Colorado haven't been bad at home; they've only lost twice (for comparison's sake, we've lost 5 times at home). I don't think winning there will be easy or simple and with two key players missing (Chicharito hasn't been in good form, but he's still a starting striker that could add firepower in the 60th, otherwise) will be a big challenge. For me, this is a good game to get "back to basics" and focus on getting a shut-out in a 0-0 tie. Any goals we score is icing on the cake, but first priority for this team at this point has to be to arrest the conceding of multiple goals. This team has to prove it can walk before they can run again. It could just be personnel or the way the team is balanced, but we seem to be a very inefficient team that expels lots of energy to create fairly mediocre chances. I would play very conservatively for this one.
With how easy we can bleed goals from mistakes the faster we score the better. If Chicha is going to be missing that makes the urgency more dire. Playing for a draw might be a mistake. I get what you are saying though. If you are hard to score on you can do like Bruce's old LA squads and go on winless yet unbeaten streaks when the team's attack is struggling. Also I think Chicha's form is not an issue. He has been effected by crap service and being played as lone striker too often during times of crap service. However,...if we keep starting DeJan and Costa(now that his foot is actually healed and works) and if Cabral, Grandsir and Efra can be at minimum solid enough to get the ball in dangerous spots consistently that will get us over the slump we are in at the moment. Vanney just needs to play them together more. I still have faith. We aren't dead yet.
We aren't dead yet, just circling the drain. This Brugman guy might be the thing that bumps us out of that spiral. I liked how Costa looked. Hopefully that's not a flash in the pan. I agree that Chich is not out of it just yet. Just suffering the same slump the team is going through. Colorado will be tough. Not because that bottom dwelling team is tough but because it doesn't matter who the other team is. When its not individual gaffs or bad team organization at any sector of the field it is our coach making bad decisions in starting line-ups or in-game substitutions or a combination therein. We are our own worst enemies. The box of chocolates approach.
I'm not counting us out, but we have to recover the defensive form from the earlier part of the season to stay in the playoff picture, IMO. To me, the challenge is we rely a lot on our fullbacks to create chances; Raheem and Julian are two of our top 3 assisters (maybe surprisingly, Efrain is the other). The challenge I see with that is the more aggressive they are, the more vulnerable we are to being exposed in transition. Costa's assists and key passes / 90 are actually not bad (in his relatively few minutes, he's one of the team leaders in key passes) so it may not be crazy to expect him to step up and provide more playmaking should he get the start. I see no specific reason to expect that from Cabral (of course, he did just get his 1st assist of the season, so who knows?). Efra and Julian also went the full 90, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them come on as subs. So for me the question remains, where will chances come from? Fun fact: Lletget's current assist tally for NE would put him in 2nd for our team. He was tied for 3rd last year and was 3rd in key passes (behind only Sacha and Victor) last season. The lack of a consistent playmaker looms large.
Yep I agree with you, and likewise had the same question. This also goes back to my earlier thinking from the last game that the midfield is exacerbating the teams defensive issues. If Edwards and Julian were told to hang back and hold the line solid, we would need our midfield to be super on top of creating goals. This team can not afford to be slow in the middle. So guys like Sasha and Victor really hurt us in this area despite the fact that their great minds for the game help us. Guys like Cabral and Grandsir lack the ability to finish which is a huge hindrance to the team's attack. However they are super fast on the wings, are willing to run super hard for 90 minutes and they put the ball in dangerous spaces consistently which is their biggest plus. Raveloson and Delgado have descent speed, a high work rate and are willing to not only play real defense in the middle, but also push forward into the attack. Plus both can actually finish a shot. With 3 goals and 4 assists Raveloson has proven to be the better candidate going forward between the 2 CM's. This is why I think the answer to "where will the service come from" must ultimately be in the form of two things. 1 Playing 2 strikers fulltime. One that can create his own shot (DeJan) and one that is a master poacher(Chicharito) 2 Douglas Costa or should I say, Costa's healed foot being something that is not a fluke If Costa's form from this game and the last game are indeed the truth, then he might now,...FINALLY,...earn his paycheck and DP status. If DeJan and Chicha are their to receive his(Costa's) passes while also getting them from the wings in Cabral and Grandsir then those 2 have the power to replicate the same level of damage that Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan heaped upon the league as "Keanovan". DeJan has shown that he can read Chicha's runs and Chicha has shown he can read DeJan's in return. The thing that has hindered all of this from taking place is a combination of Vanney taking forever to play these people together at the same time and the Front Office signing a DP in Costa that needed half a season to return from injury. Proving that they didn't learn their lesson with the Chicharito signing as he required an entire season just to recover his knees. At this point the new signing of Brugman will be played as a pure CDM in the middle and so Vanney must now make a choice between Delgado and Raveloson as the starting CM that will push forward. And if Costa is going to start then Grandsir will need to be the man off the bench as Cabral will likely get the start on the other wing. The future midfield to forward line might look as follows,... (Option1) -----------------------DeJan---Chicha Cabral--------Rayan/Marco-----Brugman-----Costa or I can see Vanney going with the following,... (Option2) Cabral/DeJan------Chicha------Costa ----------------Rayan--------Marco ---------------------Brugman I'd prefer option1
I come in peace to ask a question about Costa. In the beginning of the second half he was the most dangerous player on the field and I was thinking he, alone, would change the outcome of that game. We make a change and put old man Shea Salinas in and I thought Salinas would just man mark Costa to control that, but he was generally all over the field and didn't end up really tied to Costa. I could be missing something but, from that time forward, it seemed like Costa disappeared. What changed from the Galaxy perspective after that first 15 minutes of relentless attack in the second half?
My impression is that bringing in Kljestan for Aguirre a few minutes later really slowed down the Galaxy's attack, although it's certainly possible that our players (including Costa) only had a 15 minute burst of energy in them to make that kind of concerted push or that the other subs San Jose made alongside Salinas combined to hamper Costa and who was with him.
Honestly, Costa is really good at looking dangerous without actually being dangerous to the other team all that much.
Simply put Vanney subbed out Aguirre for Sasha Kljestan forcing the entire midfield to not only slow in attack but slow in defensive recovery due to his multiple turnovers or being beat by his man. Playing Sasha as a central defender is only the kind of thing you should do if the bench is thin and people were being hauled off the pitch due to injuries. If anything Vanney should have put Leerdam into this game if he thought Aguirre was gassed. That being said when Costa did get the ball forward he started multiple attacks including almost scoring twice himself and then eventually getting an assist. (See game highlights around minute 57, 58, 59 & 87)
Costa's fitness basically allows him to play 10-15 minutes of actual quality soccer, and then jogs around the field occasionally being able to whip in a cross.