So, you’re down 3-0 on the road. You’ve got young hungry guys on the bench in Toure, Mayaka, etc. LETS BRING IN ESTEVES AND PLAY A BACK 3/5. Taking off a midfielder for a wing back because we can’t get anything going on offense. Yeah that makes sense.
Tuiloma (who has impressed me recently for Portland and NZ) goes around the wall but fortunately off the post. Still 3-0
We have to get points on the road. It’s a must. We got smacked around last night. We looked lifeless and awful. It’s frustrating and I can’t quite figure out why we have the road woes. It’s killing us.
I think a lot of it comes down to roster construction. To me our problems can be distilled down to three things: Our roster depth/bench just isn't getting the job done like they did last year. We didn't do a good enough job replacing the key outgoing players from last year. We completely and spectacularly failed to address any of the major roster issues we had last year. Basically we didn't improve or build upon what we had last year, and consequently ended up regressing. Sprinkle in a few injuries and you see how thin the squad really is. I think its about a 25/75 split between the players and Padraig for blame. At this point I'm not convinced its a coaching issue.
I will say, bringing on Esteves for Kaye was an ODD sub to make against Portland - especially since Portland seemed content with attacking at both Warner and Wilson's lack of pace. Granted, Kaye wasn't having a legendary outing*, nor was really anyone for that matter - but to take a player who's a regular starter for a World Cup team and bench him seemed odd. Especially since we're already down 3 goals, don't play a game for another 10 days, and you're bringing on a defender and leaving on a 34 year old who's gotten beaten / caught out of position quite a bit. Even Liam Ridgewell on the Portland commentary team kept bringing up Warner's lack of pace / ability to close the gap. Since I'm on the topic of age here....Would you believe Diego Chara is 36 - older than EVERYONE on our team not named Drew Moor? It just seemed SO odd to me to make that move - Kaye for Esteves. It's like he was throwing in the towel and just hoping not to get scored on again - instead of letting the guys go out and try to fight for at least some hope of a goal or two. I mean, you're down 3-0 on the road, your road form is already terrible, and you haven't been able to get anything going offensively. So lets park the bus, take Kaye off and leave Warner on. On top of that, what's the worst that's gonna happen if you throw the kitchen sink at Portland and let the "kids of the future" (any of Anderson, Markanich, Max, Mayaka, Toure, Yapi) try and make something for themselves? Get scored on? Well, that's already happened 3 times! And these "kids of the future" are getting reamed for the Rapids 2 anyways. At least try and make something of it and get them MLS minutes with MLS vets around them against MLS players instead of leaving them to wallow in despair on the Rapids 2 team (even though they won their game the other day....just their 3rd of the season). At least then we would've gotten something out of this game. Instead, it sits there as a complete and total loss. *Speaking of outings, isn't it odd that Rubio seemed to be the best player for the Rapids on the pitch- and he wasn't even playing as the forward we want him to be?