Hate to say it but Nicol went to the twellman well to many times tonight. taylor was hurting his team. He admitted at half time his touch was off and should have never taken the PK. Taylor should have been take off. Whats with the Leonard sub? There was no better option on the bench? Brown scores a hat trick and get pine time for it...ya i know he was hurt but he was ready for tonight. Bottom line, this is a game they should have one and Nicol cost them 3 points.
"Hate to say it but Nicol went to the twellman well to many times tonight.." Have to agree - it seemed that almost every cross was in from the wing looking for him. That being said we have to remember that Brown's been hurt and still isn't 100% according to the coach, Noonan's pace and touch seemed a bit off, but I liked what I saw from Marshall. Cancela continues to impress - how long have we waited for a midfielder like him? Can't say this is a game that we really should have won (even playing a man up for a good portion of the match,) but it's certainly the sort of game that we can't afford to draw or lose. I see some good things, but we're running out of time... The Magpie
Twellman had lots of opportunities tonight and he just wasn't ready. He needed more time to recover or maybe more practice time. As for Leonard, at least he can play defense as well and speed down the field. Chris Brown should have gone in for Twellman, but I think Leonard was a wise choice.
I think there was way too many times people didn't pull the trigger, or waited too long to pull the trigger.
Just got back from not only the first Rev match I've been to in over a month, but the first Rev match I've seen in over a month. Frustrating!!!!! One kept coming to me throughout the second half,and the more I think about it the more I believe it. It may be sacrilege to say, but I'm going to come out and say it anyway. I want Taylor Twellman off my field and I want him off now! If I had to gameplan against the Revs for next week I'd just have 10 men marking Taylor because nobody else is going to try anything. It's been the same crap all year, it's as if Nicol passed out a memo at the beginning of the season that read "All Rev goals this season must be scored by Taylor Twellman" and the only person who didn't get this memo was Brian Kamler. There was no attacking creativity whatsoever on exhibit tonight. The only bits of inspired play were not with goal in mind, but with mind to feed a blanketed-by-three-men Taylor Twellman. I'm not knocking Taylor, he's certainly a gifted goalscorer, although his work-rate has dropped considerably as of late (a lot of balls he would have worked for last season he now watches as he glares at teammates for not getting it to him well enough). He still is however, a weapon, and a valuable one at that. I'm just seeing a team that has become overly dependent on one weapon, regarding their other 10 weapons impotent. I honestly think at this point that the Revs would be a more dangerous opponent with Taylor on the bench. And now that I have blasphemed Revland Jesus I will quietly back away.
Wow. that's a tough critique on your team. However you do seem to be right. Noone tried anything creative, and instead everyone seemed to dribble around and look to make another pass to TT. I don't understand why good teams don't step up to the plate and attack from all angles.
i agree with thelimechicken. When Twellman was out and Brown in, he had a hat trick. Do you think that would have happened with Twellman in? Not likely. In that game the team worked together, they looked good, ALL played well, and they came out on top. So what's different now ... Twellman is back and everyone looks to him to carry the team. It's time for the Rev. to be a team, not a one man show.
I don't understand what Nicol has against subs. You could see both teams tiring at the end and the Revolution had used only one sub. Surely someone off the bench, Brown for example, could have come in and been a threat. I would have put in him for Twellman since Taylor was clearly off his game today. Effective use of subs seems to be one of Nicols weaknesses in my mind.
More later, but for now I have exactly 3 thoughts: --By the end of the game, I had absolutely no idea what Prus thought was a foul. --Add me to the list of people who didn't understand why Nicol didn't add some fresh legs late. --Chris Carrieri is smart, talented and the very model of a modern gutless punk.
I thought the defense played extremely well. As for all the Twellman comments, let me remind you of something. All the chances the Revs were getting was with one forward, Twellman. When Kamler got red carded, Noonan moved to the outside, leaving Twellman all alone up top (something he's use to). When Leonard came in, Noonan played more of an attackin mid instead of a straight forward with Twellman. Maybe Wynalda can answer your question about Twellman getting all the balls to him. "He always seems to find the right spots to be in and that's something you can’t teach. He just has it.
A team that cannot win • TnT got his internal gyroscope still off balance. He was as good as Wolde Harris. Lots of effort but nothing to show. And PK ARE NOT TO BE MISSED! Tha Pk was taken as if he was wearing Cinderella crystal shoes! *Why nobody shoots in goal? Was Noonan pun ished for taking a shot from far away? •With one man advantage why Noonan was playing midfield? Why TNT as the only forward, when one has a man advantage? • The dribbling had to go on and on until the REVs lost the ball, because everybody woiuld stay behind hugging the center circle. • The cRapids were playing like crap and the REVs still can stink more. • If all they can play is shower in the area, they should have tried I. Kante, at least he may knock the ball and the defender into the goal.
Losing patience with SN Twellman was alone at front from minute one. Noonan was in the middle of the field. I remember one situation when he was behind the center line when the play was near tha Rapids box ( already 11x10). I think the REV strategy was wrong from the start and got worse when they did not take advantage of the the first red card.
Twellman was off all night, which has to be expected. Given the way he was going I had a feeling he was going to miss the penalty. Cancela should have taken it.
Too bad about that missed PK. I didn't think Cancela had a good night, personally. Not trying to knock the guy or anything, but he was just off tonight, I thought. I thought this was the kind of game that would have suited Fabbro pretty well. We were working around the edge of the 18, and taking and distributing passes is what Fabbro seems to do best. Oh well. We had some chances, couldn't capitalize.
What does Nicol have against using the subs? Would've loved to have seen Brown or Fabbro in there, but maybe he (and the rest of you guys who follow NE) know something I don't.
I will agree with someone's post earlier that Twellman hurt us more than helped us tonight. As of late, we had been playing well without Twellman, and I think its because we played a more all-around everyone-works-as-a-team game instead of playing the usual everyone-works-as-a-team-to-get-the-ball-to-Taylor strategy. Twellman is not god. Nor will he ever be a god. Eric Cantona was close to being god. Twellman is not Eric Cantona. If we continously try to play the ball to Twellman, we will continue to underachive. He is a great finisher and all, and I do agree with Waldo that he is currently the best American finisher at the moment, but to win, we need more output from the rest of the team, and thats where Nicol comes in.
What an awful ref! Why didn't Carrieri get a card for at least one of his many fouls? Why was Kamler red carded? If his foul deserved a red, why didn't Califf get a red for kicking Twellman in the face? Same thing -- no intent, hard foul from in front? Cancela is terrific, but he does seem to run out of gas at about the 70th minute. Leonard was ok on defense but added nothing on offense. My high-tech analysis: Revs defense was really good. Offense stunk. I agree -- too Twellman-centric. The way things were going, I was so sure TnT would miss the penalty kick that I left the room and refused to watch.
Give this man a cigar! The team is too one dimensional on the attack with taylor. Everyone seems to think "well let me just get him the ball and see what happens. " Without him its seemed like everyone was showing well and making runs. If they could somehow find a way to mesh the two together this team would be awesome. I hate to say this but hopefully the Mutts and LA win tomorrow so we don;t fall further away from the last spot.
A lot of shouldas and post game coaching going on here. On the other hand I'll say that I thought it was a real interesting game to watch. Revs finally discontinued the long balls and played the ball up the field, the result was that they controlled more of the game. It was a bad choice, though for Twellman to take the penalty. Cancella would have buried it. I also had no problem with any of the red cards because in each case the offender could have pulled back a little. In Mastroeni's case he obviously gave an extra kick with both feet, and that was just plain stupid Colorado defense was outstanding. Borchers and Frazier were marvelous together. To me Borchers is about the best new defender I have seen in the league. Those two men were the reason Twellman couldn't do anything and are probably one of the main reasons Colorado has done so well recently. Naturally, I am disappointed that we did not win but I was more that satisfied with the way we played the game.
I seem to have enjoyed myself more than many others last night. I agree that Pepe should have taken the PK, that TnT wasn't sharp, that Noonan would have been more effective working more closely with Twellman, that there could have been more shots from the 18, and that playing everything through Twellman was going to become predictable at the end of the game. I could add that they are never going to win if they insist on making one pass too many, or if they can't finish. But I think those complaints miss the point. IMO, the first 30' featured some of the most creative development ever put on display by the Revs. SN has been bashed on this board for being "too English", but the Revs close control was, at times, really pretty, and was more than the Raps could handle. And has there been a better defensive effort by the team all season? Has Heaps played a better game in a Rev uniform ever? I really felt that until Prus allowed the game to deteriorate, the Revs were reaching for a higher plane of soccer consciousness. The Rapids were ultimately able to bring the game down to a cruder level. I can't understand how two elbows to the face by Rapids players were missed. Let the record show that Rusty and Joey were able to respond at exactly the right level of intensity.
My man of the match. Yes, a lot of the Revs seemed a little off last night (Cancela included), but don't forget there was another team on the field, and on recent form, a pretty damn good one. The 'pids weren't really dangerous before Beckerman was sent off, but they turned it up a notch afterwards. The Revs really failed to use the man advantage and actually seemed to do better after Kamler was sent off. I brought a friend to the game who is an occasional soccer fan, and I was talking to him at half time about how some refs, after issuing a red, seem to look for opportunities to even things out and how I thought Prus might be one of those. Damn! I wish I'd been wrong on that one. Replays might show that Kamler had murder in his heart and an evil gleam in his eye, but it sure looked to me like a collision between two guys going for the ball. Did that bogus red card a couple weeks ago unhing Mark Chung? I've always like him as a player, even though he's always killed us in whatever shirt he was wearing. Sadly, that Mark Chung was nowhere in evidence. If Carrieri hadn't been out there doing his usual Anal Cavity Boogie©, I would have thought it was Freaky Thursday. Chung was grabbing shirts and belly flopping all not, and he didn't even play particularly well. At least, he certainly wasn't the threat I expected.
Just my two pesos, but Jose 'Pepé' Cancela should have been the one taking that PK. I thought that before TnT got up there to take it. After all, TnT's been out of the lineup for a while and is just getting his legs back.
I don't mean to be a trolling Rapids fan, but I've seen more than one Revs fan complain about an elbow to Pierce. Is this the elbow from Spencer right before half that everyone is complaining about? If so, I have to disagree. The replay showed Spencer lining up a shot and he threw his arms out for balance. Pierce isn't even in the frame when Spencer puts his arms out. Then Pierce comes rushing in and slams his chin into Spencer's already outstretched arm and goes down and starts complaining to the ref. Spencer's position wasn't unusual, in that I've seen him throw his arms out like that while taking other shots, so it wasn't obvious that he was trying to take Rusty down. I think Pierce just didn't pull up in time and tried to take advantage of the mistake he made to get a foul called. The really stupid thing Rusty did was to haul down Spencer less than 2 minutes after he had just been complaining about him to the ref. That screams payback foul, and he got the obvious card for it.