Every single non-playoff team was predicted to be either complete dogshit or has been surprisingly disastrous, without exception. We are part of that group, like it or not.
Yeah, so were we expecting the Crew to do well? Is that Rydstrom's fault? Go eat a steak. Your brain needs the protein.
I expect more than 0 goals in 2 home games. I expect more than 0.23 xG in literally any game. I don't think that's asking too much. Disagree?
I'll give Rydstrom credit, he switched to his preferred formation, so he tried something. Unfortunately, changing formation didn't change the effectiveness (or lack there of) of the tactics, whatever they were.
He's not special and I have no personal conviction about him, but what would you like him to do? He was handed a 2014 Honda Civic and told to go win NASCAR races.
I went through every MLS game this year, only four times has a team had a worse xG than us tonight, and two of those occasions the team had a red card within the first 25 minutes. Excluding those two red cards, that makes tonight's performance the third worst offensive showing at full strength in the entire league. Third worse performance league wide, at home, half of that against a B-team. Everyone deserves blame. My big worries are that I still have no idea what we're trying to do besides be slow, and that potentially those first two games were fool's gold and thar Rydstrom has already been found out.
You may be right. I said in November they needed to make dramatic changes to the roster and they did nothing of consequence. So I'm not surprised they are this bad. It was obvious last year that Nagbe's presence was inflating the team's results.
I agree. But also... there are worse teams than us with more points, and it's not exactly like we've had the hardest opening schedule. Rydstrom deserves more time, it's only been four games, but it's also ok to say it's been pretty crap and clueless so far. Maybe that changes, maybe it doesn't. Right now though the players, coach, and GM all look bad. I don't see that as a controversial take.
Sigh. I didn't say fire him. I'm asking what has he done so far that's been good? I'm struggling to come up with anything. I could tell you what Nancy was doing after a couple games. Ditto with Caleb freakin' Porter. Ditto with Bethalter. Rydstrom? No idea. There is a former MLS head coach on the bench next to him, that also happens to have a far superior understanding of this club, roster, and league than Rydstrom. The Courtois hire wasn't made by mistake (though it is Issa we're talking about, so maybe it was lol). And Berhalter and Nancy were taking over teams that didn't make the playoffs the year before, so let's not have some revisionist history that they had great squads in place from the start because they didn't.
Do any teams in MLS have a DP that rides the bench for multiple games? I think that puts us at an extreme disadvantage. I’m not sure Rydström gets that just yet. Lack of scoring aside, Gazdag is at least capable of passing a ball. Something the 19 year old has proven he’s inconsistent at. Nothing gets better by standing still. Need to make some adjustments soon.
Courtois relies on a physical and high paced team. So um i dont see him getting much more out of this roster. The spine of the team aged out, and we missed on at least 2 u22s and a DP. Thats a tough hand in a salary cap league, unless you can win on draft picks and youth academy kids. Speaking of, it might be time to trot out a few of them. Michael Bradley benched his DP and let the kids loose.
Both of those guys inherited teams that had more talent on the roster than rydstrom did this season and both had full preseasons (at minimum both got a creative #10 that could pull the strings). We have exactly 0 creative players on terribly put together roster.
I've seen enough.. this is a system issue not a personnel. Placing Rossi in the wrong position, having no structure to offense, way too many heel passes and flicks that went nowhere. This is not a playoff team under this head coach and his structure. I hope Issa understands this sooner than later. FYI, has anyone seen FC Celtic's record since Nancy left? Nancy was fired January 5, 2026. Since then, FC Celtic has gone 12-2-3. My point is ... it's the players fitting into the system. If we want Rydstrom, then the players are not going to fit. I'd rather have Nancy back than change players. Remember last year, we made the playoffs basically without Wassam.... this is still a playoff team but not under this structure.
You lost me at "I'd rather bring back my toxic ex than flip the roster." The only reason the Crew made the playoffs last year was because they had the best midfielder in MLS history holding things together. We saw in the games when Nagbe was rested how easily opposing teams played through the midfield. Nancy would not be getting any better results; even prime Bruce Arena would struggle to get results with no midfield, no #10, and a geriatric in the middle of the backline. The Crew might have scored a couple more goals if Nancy was still here but they'd have conceded a lot more too. Plus he's become an egotistical asshole and he torched the place on his way out of Columbus. The one thing I will hammer Rydström on so far is that his substitution protocol is somehow more maddening than Nancy's. Last week, they used only one sub. This week, the first player subbed out was Gomes who was the best guy out there. Henrik is not only starting Camacho but also leaving him in to play the full 90. I realize he's stuck with a bunch of useless players right now, but at some point a coach has to try something different and get fresh legs in the game to hang on and secure points. But ultimately, I have no interest in watching the Crew be cannon fodder for one of the top teams in round 1 again. I'd rather they treat this as a gap year and turn over 75% of the roster to fix the spine and have some difference makers who play exciting soccer. If they can't contend for trophies, it's better to tear it down and rebuild it than to sit in purgatory.
I'll say this again--Gomes likely wasn't fully match fit. 60 min therefore made sense and was likely set up in advance.
One thing I've noticed--one way to challenge the Crew apparently is to foul a lot. 5-1 on cards and 12-4 on fouls. And then one uses the the sub rules to get the yellow carded players out of there. We need more "bite" in this team. Not dirty play but not putting up with this nonsense. Same has been true of the Jackets, BTW.
Yeah, the defense could very well still be a total mess. Chicago was without their DP striker and started a guy who hadn’t scored in about 3 years, and Nashville didn’t even try to score until the second half, which they did. Easily. Gomes looked nice, yes, but when the Crew runs up against a decent team that’s full strength and actually trying the entire time I think it will go poorly.
New England beat Cincy 6-1 (lol) so now Columbus is 14th out of 15 teams in the East, only 0 point Philly is worse.