I just watched this, and my head is going to explode. Greg Lalath, Jathon "The Produther" Thaghini, and Thimon "Thum Dipthit Named Thimon" Borg dithcuthing "Who'th the Betht Team in MLeTH?" http://mls.neulion.com/mlsvp/console.jsp?catid=112&id=5282 Apparently, LA is the most perfectest soccer team ever.
You know who Ekpo reminds me of? Early sophomore-season Terrell Pryor. A guy who is clearly over-thinking things. I think he might be a lot more effective if we can get him playing on instinct. In football you do that by simplifying the playbook and selecting rapidly developing plays - a lot of three-step drop short throw kind of plays. I don't know how you force that same kind of "execute a snap-decision" mentality in a soccer game, tho. That's probably why I never rose beyond the level of a high school assistant coach. Snort. This is reaching Stephen Colbert levels of absurdity. I approve! This. A million times this. I would love Gaven to be a 15-year Crew player. I was glad when we got him, and I think he's grown quite a bit as a player since then. He's incredibly versatile, and a player I think you can largely count on to "be there".
Hmmm, gotta disagree with some of this. I do agree that Carroll and Moffat aren't performing well when pressured. Stating that Ekpo's doing a better job of that is something of an apples to oranges comparison, however, since he's not playing CM. And he was a train wreck when bobby tried playing him there last season. And I really have to disagree about Gaven in the center; he was our only effective player in that 2nd CM position last season. Moffat's just failed to develop as far as he needs to, and turns the ball over far too often; Danny's just too defensive-minded to play there as a starter; Ekpo was too much of a defensive liability. Gaven played very well in that role, but evidently was seen by Bobby as being too valuable on the right side (in part because Ekpo was too inconsistent as a starter, and has had a hard time going 90 minutes).
Ekpo's problem isn't, for the most part, what he does on the ball, it's that he does nothing off of it. Someone wrote that he constantly gets the ball when he's sourrounded by 2 or three defenders, that's because he doesn't work off the ball to find space behind the defense. With where we were standing in RBA, you could see it plane as day. As for our defense, you can't beat them wide and you can't beat them in the air. Where we have always been vulnerable is with speed and it doesn't matter which of the CBs we have out there. With so much emphisis, rightly so, on stoping Angel, Dane Richards and their midfield were able to take advantage of that weakness. It's also why we have problems with RSL. Not every team has a Dane Richards or Findley to throw at us however. While Brunner and Iro were sliced and diced, they were able to keep with it and make the shots that resulted more difficult which is why we have the two post shots. I don't get the Moffat complaints. I thought he played well watching from the stands. He got himself into good spots and he provided good linking play. I thought Carroll finally looked like Carroll this game too.
The Crew needs to find a way to be patient. The beautiful game from 2008 is missing. Moffat is a strong tough player but he is not a creator. He is a d mid. Ekpo had a horrible game but I think he will do better when he gets some minutes under his belt.
A couple comments here, and I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, but.. 1) It's not the lack of goals (or amount of goals scored) per se that is the problem some (myself included) have with our offense. It's that we get dominated in possession by everyone we play. (except TFC and a depleted NE at home). The fact that the other team has the ball so much (look at how many more corners and shots NY had) generates the problems for our defense. More chance for Hesmer to gift wrap something, or for Iro or Brunner to have a bobble. Now, against teams that aren't that good (TFC, NE, NY) but against better teams (LA, RSL at full strength) I think we'll be punished by better finishing (like last year's playoffs). 2) Regarding our depth, I think we are deep, but we don't utilize it enough. I'd like to see Frankie rested a bit more now than Zayner and O'Rourke are both healthy. Zayner on the left (if Gino can't go) and Danny as a CM (and out of the box) is a like I'd like to see more of. Especially if we put a more offensive player in front of Danny. Duncan, Gaven, Ekpo, Griffit, bloody well anyone in there with one of them. I think both guys (Moffat/Carroll) are tweeners. O'Rourke plays better D and the rest of the guys play better O. As for Ekpo, it wasn't his best game, but it wasn't horrid. Next game should be very interesting. More compact field, could see Gino there.
True Crew, no offense to Ekpo fans but he was really bad last game. His touch was off, he had no shot and he plays no defense.
I don't really disagree that much with you either. But I do want to take on one thing: I hate to break this to everyone, but even in the magical 2008 season, there were games that we won that looked a lot better on the scoreboard than they were on grass. I can't remember how many times I marvelled that we were scoring goals despite not really controlling the play. We could score just by virtue of having good players making good plays, regardless of the flow. Granted, it was better than what we're looking at now, but I think people have deluded themselves into thinking we ran circles around EVERYONE, and we just didn't. There were a bunch of games where we did, but don't forget -- we gave up the first goal 16 or 17 times that year. We're going to score goals. I have little worry there. What's starting to concern me is that we're not going to be able to hold leads, and and that sooner or later, we're going to get buried by all the opportunities that are near misses right now.
Moffat is not a d-mid, you and anyone else who says so are idiots who have no clue what the are talking about. We play 4-4-1-1 which is exactly the way we played in '08. Moffat and Evans are the same player. Attacking mids who sit deep in midfield with defensive responsibities, connect play by getting it to the playmakers, and are expected to arrive in the box late to create options.
Moffat and Evans play the same role. However, Evans is better than Moffat now and when he played for the Crew.
You miss my point on Moffat. He plays like and is better suited as a D Mid who can get stuck in and win the ball. Evans was more of an A mid. In college he was a forward hence he is a better passer, finisher and is better in the air. Thus, the way the Crew play's now is if they have two D mids. You will not see a lot of touches through the spine.
Help me out here; is it socially acceptable to call that bunch The Three Queens? What a pile of utter rubbish. And Greg is the dumber of the two Lalas brothers, which is a frightening thought all by itself.
You miss my point. Moffat is not a d-mid. In Scotland and in Cleveland he played the role he is playing now. We don't play particularly in one spot anywhere on the field. That's why the Crew win. Our greatest ability is to take what the other team gives us becasue we can play in any area the other team gives us. In '08 teams gave the Crew and Guille the middle and we took advantage, in '09 and '10 teams greatly compact on our middle and Guille forcing them wide and we beat them wide.
Moffat is neither an "attacking midfielder", nor a "defensive midfielder", neither as a description of his skill set or of his role. He's a box-to-box midfielder, and that's how we ask him to play. This is one of my biggest peeves about American fans. They think every CM must be either "attacking" or "defensive", and if they aren't a classic #10 they must be a "defensive" midfielder. A box-to-box guy that plays a deep-lying role is not necessarily a defensive midfielder. Maisonneuve sure as hell was involved in the attack, and so is Moffat. How often do you see Brian Carroll in the offensive third? Never. That is a guy playing a defensive midfield position. BC has scored 3 goals in nearly 200 career games. Moffat 4 in 25 or so. Evans played the same role for us; a box-to-box midfielder who looked for opportunities to crash goal. This particular confusion is rampant on the USMNT forums. The ridiculous contention that M Bradley is a "defensive midfielder" drives me batty.
+75. It's like it's an American soccer fan requirement to think that there's no other midfield than a diamond, or for the US, a diamond or an empty bucket.
Having watched this match again, something jumped out at me that I didn't notice the first time. Angel's free kick that hit the crossbar. He didn't hit it with all that much power. Clearly, he was going for placement, and just missed. And I wondered, "Where the hell was Hesmer on that shot?" He didn't come anywhere close. And on the replay, I saw why. He had set up the wall to take out the left side of the net (Hesmer's right), and he cheated towards the other side, figuring that if the shot was on target, that's where it would go. And I got to thinking... in the game at Toluca, Hesmer got beat on a free kick where he didn't cheat, and the shooter put the shot perfectly in the area the Hesmer left unattended. And people here were shredding him because he didn't position himself right, because he didn't account for the wall taking out part of the net. Flash ahead to NYRB, and Hesmer does just that. And wouldn't you know it, where does the free kick go? Over the wall, and towards the area left unattended. I guess my point is, for all the armchair goalkeepers out there: There's no defense for a perfectly taken free kick.
i really dislike that Hesmer guy.. I always see him yelling at his defense for no reason at all. He was in poor position with the lone goal by Tchani and almost gave up 2 others that hit the crossbar
This is what goalkeepers do, except there's almost always a reason: usually someone ********ed up pretty bad in front of him.
In the case of the time I saw him really yelling, it was because Iro has really messed up badly. He looked like he just sort of gave up on marking his guy, so I'm sure Hesmer wasn't too happy with that.
There is a difference between the Angel shot and the Toluca shots. Angel was almost dead center at about 25 yards out. It's a GK's nightmare because it has enough distance to clear the wall and dip under the crossbar, and he has the whole goal to choose from so the keeper in fact HAS to cheat and hope the guy hits the wall or badly misses over (or the GK gets lucky and the guy hits wood like Angel did). The Toluca shots came from Hesmer's right. He needed to cover near post with the wall and protect the back post, was victim of a perfect shot, then got caught cheating on the second one and the guy got himself an extra goal.
To be clear, you could have said this about 99% of the players in MLS not naned Guillermo Barros Schelotto. However, just because his "trajectory" doesn't have him becoming arguably the best player in Crew history, it doesn't mean he couldn't still play very well in the role Guille currently occupies when GBS hangs 'em up. Honestly, the thing I've always been impressed with Gaven is his ability to stay on the ball when he needs to, but also draw fouls at appropriate times. He still doesn't make the best decisions in the box after making his patented 20 yard run down the sideline, but who right now on the Crew does? All said, by the time Eddie Gaven is Guille's current age, he will have ironman games played numbers (thinking Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken, not Robert Downey Jr.) THIS. Anyone from NYC who says they can't be bothered to go "all the way out to NJ" needs to just admit that they are lazy. I made the trip for the NY/Seattle game from NY Penn station. Bring a paper, sit down on a train for 20 minutes, and then walk 5-10 minutes to the stadium. How hard is that? It wasn't any worse than taking the subway from Central Park out to one of the burroughs. I would kill for that type of commute in and around Columbus. Though, you have to admit it would be nice if Moffat ever lived up to those responsibilities other than once in a blue moon. The matchup against L.A. next weekend should be epic, despite both sides missing their World Cup talent.
In no specific order: Carroll O Rouke Moffatt Hejduk's Crosses Padula's Crosses Roger's Crosses Ekpo Thats just to name a few.