(1) Shocking disorganization in defense and midfield. (2) Kante was a cone (3) Ralston isn't Ralston (4) Noonan can play (5) Joseph can't (6) J Capriati is fat
Wow! Where was the defense? Does having Llamosa back there really help that much? The Rev's need some presence in the center of the field. Not necessarily an AMF, but something. Can Noonan play in the center?
Pass the Prozac. Let's spill the bad news early. The Revs got their butts kicked. The game was much less close than the scoreline indicated. If it weren't for Adin B., we could have been down 4 or 5-0 at the half. I had the sense that the Crew took their foot off the pedal in the second half. The best field players were Martino, Denton, Garcia and Buddle. No Rev field player matched them for skill or imagination. On the Rev side, the defenders were usually OK individually (including Kante IMO, vz. above), but seemed to freeze when they had more yellow shirts to mark than they should have had. The entire midfield (even St. Steve) was atrocious. Kamler looked positively ill. They were neither defending nor attacking well, and Crew deserves credit for exploiting the directionless, sluggish Rev 1/2 of the field. Neither Harris nor TnT were able to hold and dish to each other or to anyone else, though TnT was getting battered (not as badly as in Chicago except for Clark.) Harris will not be missed when JMM starts next week. Noonan should probably take Kamler's spot as of now. He can indeed play. He was responsible for most of the Revs' energy in the second half, and created the Rev goal almost singlehandedly. Joseph is nimble and skilled, but strangely tentative. JasonM was OK - a decent option to come off the bench - not the answer. So help me people. What we saw today was a bottom-half-of-the-table team. Should I be worried? If this was a fluke, what is going to improve?
Revolution redux Same old, same old Revolution. Last season, two important things that Nicol got right that some of his predecessors never did was an organized back line and keeping things tight in the center of midfield. The defense was a shambles and Hernandez and Cullen didn't look anything like the pair that played so well down the home stretch. Columbus played the Revolution off of the park. The 2-1 scoreline flattered the Revos. Brown held them in it and Noonan provided a spark. Nothing else to get excited about. Joe-Max will make a difference. But without new blood in central midfield and a tightened defense, that difference will be no better than third in the East. Everyone in the league now knows how to stop the current personel on this team, which probably changed the least of any in MLS. We've always been screaming for a little continuity. We have it from the best two month run in club history. But it would be just the Revos luck to finally decide to stand pat when changes were really needed in order to move forward.
I would hope it would be sometime before Shalrie takes off those warmups again. I know the blame cannot be all on him, but he looked so slow and disinterested...and only as he was right in the middle of the efin field.
Buddle only played like 20 some minutes and Garcia was terrible, I thought McBride was much better than both of them combined.
The only good part of that game was the last 10 minutes. Jason Moore wasn't the greatest but he played better then kamler. Noonan was creating oppurtunites. The subs, except Joseph, made an impact. The revs just didn't want this game, and it showed. Hopefully next week it will be different.
A poor effort. Granted, I think the Crew are the best of the East this year, loaded with talent, experience and they are hungry for success. But, the Revs had no midfield, the Crew played balls over them and into the defense where they won most balls. The defense was disorganized and always a step behind. Ralston looked slow, Wolde was ineffective, and they double-teamed Taylor all day long. Having Joe-Max in should really help take the pressure off him. A bad start but the Crew are a quality side.
That was pitiful. Not only was it bad soccer, it was bad entertainment. Anyone who had to sit through that one should get their money back. Actually, I may want my entire season ticket money back. I really don't know where to start. Other than Brown, nobody showed up to play. OK maybe Noonan wanted to play too. There is something wrong when a team can't even get inspired to play in their home opener. Is there something else going on here? Do they all just want to be traded to another team? My daughter had a U-17 state cup game at the same time as the Rev game. It seems that I went to the wrong game. The girls won, in PKs after two overtime periods. 120 minutes of apparently exciting soccer. I just don't know why I decided to go to see the Revs. Someone enlighten me. It's not even entertainment anymore.
it seemed the crew were racing to get the 50/50 balls <and winning them, on the ground and in the air> while the rev's were just walking around and seemed to almost jog to the 50/50 balls. to me that was the biggest difference in the game; and jmm would not have helped you out today, sorry to report.
It was fairly ugly... But in the scheme of things...I thought that Joseph was FAR from the ugliest. And as far as I know, those were his first MLS minutes. I think he's worth another look.
It's funny how people see the game differently, because the talk was my side of the press box that when he first game on, Joseph seemed like he was one of the few Revs that wanted to play, and that he was one of the better New England players in the second half. There was one play where I don't know if he didn't see the ball or if he was just lazy getting to it - but he should have done better. He was, however, miles ahead of Hernandez, who never should have stepped foot on the pitch today. Talk about ineffective.
Can someone put a gag on this fool? As for the game, Columbus are just a far better team, it's just that simple.
Ugh! It is clear that the boys just don't have the conditioning right now. They were slow to every ball. Crew have played a lot more games and are in much better game shape. Adin was super and kept us in this game until late. Taylor was trying but just got no service. Ralston looked off. Back line was strong given how many break away chances they had to deal with but not organized enough. Joseph looked tentative but Hernandez could not have looked less interested in being on the field. That free kick of his was sad. I think that SN has to figure out how to get some attack in the middle of the field which might mean playing JMM as attacking mid with Leo in a holding role and Wolde and TT up top. I thought last week W and T had a good understanding but not this week. Good to see Noonan though- he seemed like a positive and sparked some forward play from Ralston as well. Got to find a way to play forward guys!
Lets be cool folks---it's not time to panic. The Crew were the better team tonight and they clearly showed that they are further along in preparation for the season than the Revs. They were a half step quicker than the Revs all night and it made the Revs look slow and at times disinterested. This will change as the Revs get a few more competative matches under their belt. Cullen and Hernandez were dinged up as was Llamosa and on top of that we were without JMM. The Revs have a solid roster and they will win a lot of games, esp if they can find that last piece of the puzzle SN has been looking for. Hey, there were a few positives: it didn't rain, it was good to see a lot of old friends and the new Rider parking area is wonderful.
The play of Noonan was encouraging. I am very glad to see this. I admit that I was very skeptical when he was drafted, and I am glad that he is apparently going to prove me wrong.
In the first half the Revs did nothing to challenge the Crew in the middle third. They seemed to lack any energy or determination. We're lucky it wasn't 4-0 or 5-0 at the half. Brown was terrific in goal, but his distribution and clearances leave a lot to be desired. Why can't he punt or kick the ball farther than midfield? It's a real disadvantage to let the other team start at midfield every time. I didn't think Shalrie Joseph played badly. He was surely better than Hernandez. Noonan looks like a player, and I suspect will take over from Kamler soon. It's a long season. The last fifteen minutes today were encouraging. So lets "build" on that.
Please enlighten me on Joseph. I will admit that I am a fairly young student of the game, and I may not see everything I should be seeing, BUT... Not once did I see him advance the ball forward...he was incredibly slow, he was beaten EVERY time to a 50/50, and you could read his decision making process with a sundial. For someone in the middle making some pretty important decisions in deciding which way the play goes...it seemed like a waste of ball movement going to through him. What did I miss? Sorry if I am completely off on this, I was just expecting some productivity from the midfield, I should have known better.
Nicol on Joseph: "Shalrie (Joseph) did what we asked him to. He put people under pressure and he won us some balls." The kid's not a natural central midfielder. He was a forward at St. John's before they moved him to sweeper for his senior season. If he's not Juan Sebastian Veron, it's because he hasn't played the position before. I thought he was fairly active, I thought he did a nice job winning balls, I thought he did a pretty good job of keeping possession, and I thought for the most part he stepped up into the offense at the right times. The Revs' biggest problem in this game was that they gave the ball away too easily, and Joseph helped them correct that, to some degree.
Agree on all counts. Guys, stop pointing to Joseph...first minutes, amongst a team that wasn't showing up for the game. Give him a break. I was utterly flabbergasted not only by the lack of ability to get any 50-50 ball, but also the number of times the Crew would just run through or around a Rev to get either a pass intended for them or even to intercept the ball after the first touch. It was just HORRENDOUS! Once again, the plan was to pressure the ball and not worry about us making them pay. The boys looked panicked and out of sorts almost all match. SN was obviously p.o.ed with the effort, using all three subs to try and ignite the team. Besides the above, the one point that stood out to me, was when the Crew passed the ball back and forth in front of our goal three times within 10 yards of the goal. Once they missed (thank goodness) I looked up and who is standing at the 40 yard line, but Hernandez! What's up with that?? Besides that, the defense did miss the field leadership of Llamosa...Rusty played great, but for some reason Kante looked lost out there today. With Kante, Hernandez and Cullen not having good days...we were in for a long game. We were VERY fortunate not to be down 3-0 at half and 4 or 5 - 0 was not out of the question. Two one on one saves by Brown, a missed, but difficult, one on one miss by McBride and one or two Martino shots and it would have been even uglier....can we get someone like Martino..PLEASE?? I still say, have Moore play attacking midfield and move one of Hernandez or Cullen to the bench. Wolde at least is running out there. That way, JMM can help carry the ball through midfield. With Ralston on his right and Kamler/Noonan on his left and Taylor in front of him, that should help us break down the other teams quite effectively. At least until we find a true 'creative midfielder'. Goodness I hope Ngodze is the real deal and is ours too.!! We have a better team than what was shown tonight and I am not saying we stink as a team. We just stunk tonight. I hope they learned just how fine a line it is between success and failure. Columbus outclassed us tonight.
Yes, you are right, it wasn't Shalrie's fault...and I am not singling him out as the reason we lost. I was just trying to figure him out, since he is rather large out there, he just caught my attention! The Revs were ALL pretty unimaginative in the passing department, and the Crew always seemed to be one step ahead. The boys in blue and red looked at times like they had never played together. Did we aver string more than 2 or 3 passes together, (not counting going backwards)? BTW, the little girl next to us thought Columbus looked like marshmellow peeps! In retrospect, the Revs were the ones playing soft all night.
This is just great. Put a kid into a game for the first time, and put him in a position that he's never played before. What does that say about this team's lack of depth? What does it say about MLS's roster restrictions? It says a great deal about the quality of product. Imagine Grady Little saying at a press conference, "The kid had a rough first game on the mound, but I didn't think that he did too badly because we brought him up as a catcher.'' Only in MLS.
It says volumes about our depth, or rather lack thereof. I don't blame MLS' roster restrictions, but rather our front office's failure to make the best use of those slots. Other teams certainly seem to have more balanced rosters. For our 21 slots we are carrying 3 GK (1 DR), 7 D (1 DR), 5 wide M (1 DR - Leonard?), 2 CM, 3 F and TF III (DR). That means that if anything is wrong with Cullen or Hernandez we are playing someone (JMM, Ralston, Kamler, Joseph, etc..) out of position in the middle of the pitch. Hopefully that will change when our mystery new CM is revealed to fill the 18th senior roster slot, but on past from I doubt it will. Maybe next year we will be able to get our hands on a good young P-40 CM that can play while still being parked on the DR....In the meantime we should still be better than at least two of DCU, Metro, or Chicago and can still probably make the conference finals against Columbus.