Since TxBill started the "I was wrong about Ngwenya" thread, I thought I'd pose the same question about all of us who have been saying that the Houston defense was weak and we needed help. Look at the stats - Houston leads the league allowing the fewest goals per game (0.83). While the team only has three shutouts in league play, they also have only given up more than 1 goal in only 1 game (2 goals by DC United). So, in twelve games, they have given up 2 goals once, 1 goal 7 times, and 0 goals 3 times. Pretty good, wouldn't you say? I was there along with many of the rest of you, complaining about the defense, saying we needed to do something to fix it. So now I am ready to say "I was wrong". Statiscally, this defense is the best in the league, and is ahead of last year's pace (40 goals in 32 games, or 1.25 goals per game). They are actually slightly ahead of the San Jose Earthquakes 2005 team (the Quakes allowed 0.97 goals per game), the team some of us have been holding up as an example of a great defense and the team that led MLS in 2005 in fewest goals allowed. In fact, the history of MLS, the best defenses as measured by goals allowed per game, were: 2006 - New England (1.09) 2005 - San Jose (0.96) 2004 - Kansas City (1.00) 2003 - San Jose and LA tied (1.17) 2002 - LA (1.18) 2001 - San Jose (1.11) 2000 - Kansas City (0.90) 1999 - LA (0.90) 1998 - LA (1.37) 1997 - Columbus (1.28) 1996 - MetroStars (1.49) So the Houston defense is on pace to allow fewer goals per game than any MLS team in history! I'm not saying this is going to continue, but it sure is an interesting stat at this point in the season (over 1/3 of the way in) Now, I guess I'm still a little leary about this defense, as it seems like they break down and give up a lot of dangerous scoring chances. But, based on their results so far this year, I was wrong!
still a bit of the season to be played-and let's move Mr. Clean into the middle. His clean shaven head is getting burned a lot on the wings.
Even 5 games ago, when we couldn't seem to buy a win, if you looked at our goals allowed, we were still among the very best in the league (behind Chivas at the time). Our defense has been top notch all season long. The commentators in last night's broadcast broke it down - experienced defenders who play well together and who have played together for some time. They're also tough. Credit has to go to the coach for making this an absolute priority. "Defense wins championships." "Defense wins championships."
According to ESPN anyway, Chivas had the lowest goals-against average, until Thursday night. They'd given up (I think) 7 goals until 4 on Thursday. Things can change in a hurry. But hopefully that won't happen to us.
Honestly, Mulrooney hasn't impressed me that much. He's made some horrible back passes (must have been that short time in Canada), including the one that Pat had to take a red card for. Mulrooney's getting better, but I wouldn't consider him one of the reasons for our improved D. Plus he's been playing midfield the past few games.
Aha! I can honestly say that I was standing up for our D during our slump, with the occasional Gray bashing. I did bash on Waibel against Pachuca, but I guess bashing is not correct, I pointed out he had lost some speed and was consistently getting burned. Anywho, it appears Waibel is still slow but he's a good defender and positions himself very well...and I admit, especially to ViciousLA, that we missed the transition play he brings to the game. That could have helped us out in the early season. Anywho, I maintained that even though they looked shaky, they had barely let in any goals and that I was way more concerned with the offense. It seems the D now transitions better to the O. And I have to say, again, that maybe now I see what The Dom sees in Gray. I tell you what, smooth some of his rough edges and he's going to be great (you heard it here first). He has the size, speed, athleticism to dominate box to box. He just has to work on his game a bit more. While I'm thumping my chest, I'm not going back to find my post to tell you all I told you so, but I was one of the few around here who kept saying, In Dom I Trust.
I used to say that Brian Mullan was the most underappreciated player on the Dynamo. At the end of last year and all year this year, people are taking notice and are starting to give him the respect he deserves. There is another player that IMHO takes his place. This player hardly ever gets mentioned. He makes runs all the time. He is never mentioned as making mistakes. He has only been called up to the USMNT once in the last two years that I know of. He goes out and gets the job done for 90 plus minutes every game. Maybe I am a homer, but I don't understand why he doesn't wear the stars and stripes. Please enlighten me as to why he doesn't get more credit and notoriety. I am now declaring my man love for Wade Barrett.
Interesting stats. As others (and dynamofan) have noted, it is still only 1/3 of the way into the season. I will be surprised if the team can keep this pace up. But, I do agree that the defense plays well together and has done a good job of denying goals in MLS (and most of preseason; the only real blip on the radar this year has been the Pachuca game in Mexico). One comment on the 2005 Quakes - their defense pretty much sucked in the first two months of the season. But then Danny Califf got healthy and Troy Dayak and Waibel got injured (Dayak was really having a poor start to the season), and Danny O'Rourke was benched and Rico Clark was put into defensive midfield. If you break the Earthquakes 2005 stats into two parts: First 8 games (without Califf and Clark, with Dayak and O'Rourke) - 13 goals allowed Last 24 games - 18 goals allowed (0.75 goals per game) So the defense that we were really excited about and that led the Earthquakes to the Supporters shield (Califf, Barrett, Gray, Robinson, and Clark at defensive mid) was allowing goals at a 0.75 goals per game pace for the last 24 games. The Dynamo still have a little way to go in order to catch up to that. For me, the "wild card" (pun intended) in this year's Dynamo defense is Eddie Robinson. Califf seemed to provide a big calming influence on Eddie that Cochrane does not, and Califf was able to direct the defense. This year, Eddie seems to be doing better, IMO, of directing the defense from the middle and positioning himself better to win balls, not always relying on his strength. He is still getting carded too often (5 cards in 12 games versus 11 cards in 25 games last year, about the same pace), but he's doing much better in drawing fouls, so maybe the refs are recognizing his skills more and not always assuming that Eddie is the one who fouls, the forwards foul him a lot (Eddie has committed 32 fouls and suffered 37 in 12 games, versus last year he committed 58 and drew 38 in 25 games....fouling at about the same pace, but drawing fouls at twice the rate). To me this means Eddie is learning to play more intelligently.
I think Eddie definitely has learned to keep his cool better - or at least literally walk away from situations that could end badly for him. I've noticed several times this year when he clearly decided to walk away from a confrontation or from the ref after a foul. At times last year, he would've kept going and either wound up with a card or winding up the ref. This year, he's much more likely to just let it go and get back into the game.
It can change in a hurry in one game, but... The key to the dynamo defense has been and continues to be the midfield. As long as the midfield is keeping pressure off the defense by forcing opponents to send long balls to the forwards and by holding a majority of the possession, the GAA will be low. I still think the defense has made too many dumb mistakes, but since they arent put on the spot nearly as much as some other teams, the GAA stays down.
The next couple of weeks should be a test for the defense. We play the current #1 (FCD), #2 (KC), #3 (NY), and #6 (DCU) teams in the league in our next four games. Those are 4 of the top 5 scoring teams in the league.
Good point newtex - the test is coming up. Based on goals per game, here is the ranking of the teams in MLS: RBNY - 2.00 goals per game KC - 1.82 NE - 1.73 DC - 1.70 Hou - 1.58 Dallas - 1.57 Chv - 1.55 Col - 1.25 TFC- 1.18 Chi - 1.17 Cbus - 1.00 LA - 1.00 RSL - 0.55 So the team will be facing 4 of the top 6 (not top 5, since Houston has snuck ahead of Dallas in goals per game ) scoring teams. Having said that, Houston has already played everyone except KC and RSL, so they have done pretty well against the top scoring teams. And they haven't had a chance to pad their stats yet by playing RSL What I actually find amazing is that Houston is now #5 in goals scored per game. A 4 goal outbreak can do wonders for stats!
I was not wrong on the defense (wrong on FO & youth players, draft, trades, check, wrong on Ngwenya, check). Not wrong on the defense. I for one, when everyone was freaking out about the lackluster start, was pointing out that the defense was dominating. The offense was what was letting us down. Now that the offense is kicking into high gear, the league needs to watch out. I can't wait to see what they (the defense) can do against Angel.
Wade Barrett is the best left back in MLS (at least that I can think of). What people really don't understand about Wade Barrett is that Brad Davis does not really play as a 2 way midfielder on the left. He drifts centrally quite a bit and does not cover near the ground that Mullan does on the right. When you are at Robinson you will often notice the Dynamo in this very interesting formation that is a 2-3-1-2-2. The outside backs and Clark will form a line across the field with 2 center backs behind them and Clark and DeRo roaming in front of them. Mullan then plays up and down the right line sorta in his own little world but definitely more advanced than Clark and more withdrawn than Brad Davis and De Rosario. Houston plays a pretty balanced and typical 4-4-2, but at the same time the players do shift back and forth between my above example and the 4-4-2. Its pretty interesting to watch if you are there in person.
Well, so far the defense has most definitely been up to the test! ZERO goals allowed in 3 games against some of the top offenses in the league. Can they do it again on Sunday against DCU? At this point, the defense is allowing 0.667 goals per game, an unbelievable stat. And it's officially halfway through the regular season as of Thursday's game. The next 3 games will be big tests, not so much because of the competition (except for DCU) but because they have 4 games (counting USOC) in 8 days, and they don't have a lot of backup defenders on the roster.
Houston's D has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past few weeks. Add to that the offensive output, and it makes you have to wonder: can anything stop their momentum at this point? They've won with everyone there. They've won with the stars off with the national teams. They've had the best in the league thrown at them, and came up smiling and three points higher each time (with the exception of the FCD game, 1 pt.). I surmise that the DC United game will end with the same results as 6 of the past 7 games have - Dynamo win.
Fact: Houston has a great defense. Fact: Craig Waibel plays defense for Houston. Coincidence? I think not.
What's most remarkable to me about the D's form of late is that this isn't even the 5 best we have. (I count the DM as a member of the D, he's the up field point man after all.) We've been running with this: Waibel -- Cochrane - Robinson - Barrett -------------- Mulrooney --------------Soon we'll have this available: Waibel --- Ianni --- Robinson - Barrett ---------------- Clark ---------------- I think it's only going to get better from here. If that's even possible...
Goals allowed per game through July 5: HOU 0.67 CHV 1.08 NER 1.23 FCD 1.24 COL 1.31 DCU 1.31 CLB 1.40 KCW 1.43 NYRB 1.43 LAG 1.45 CHI 1.50 RSL 1.62 TFC 1.64 The Dynamo have only given up 4 goals in their 8 home games and 6 goals in the 7 road games. Chivas USA is the only team better at home only surrendering 1 goal in their 6 home games. Of course, they haven't played us there yet.