He's color commentary/a face rather than an analytical guy. Most of the athlete guys are brought in for color so to speak, like the old NFL booths. There are some that provide nuance, detail, and hefty analysis, but if you listen to say their podcast, it's anecdotes and off the cuff impressions and intuitions, it's not what say Michael Cox is bringing at theathletic. Take it for what it is. I like the insights into the past, and I don't really care about what he thinks with regards to the present (beyond his understanding of the particulars like camp experience, WC pressure etc, vague stuff). Same with Charlie Davies. Best not to be wrapped up in their limitations, and just look and note the nice little nuggets that are revealing of the past, how Bradley handled this, what Arena was like with that, what was wrong over there etc, but deeply meaningful insights? Nah. They are entertainers.
This is an insane take. Carnell has 3 full seasons. He has won a division and a shield. Even if he flames out, almost every team in the league would be happy with winning a trophy one year and flaming out the next. God knows DC United fans would kill for that. Are you the same poster who trashed Carnell earlier? Repeating it doesn’t make it less afactual.
Kudos to Carnell for sending out the kids. The whole team is a bit panicky right now -- need to calm down as they are down a goal.
Yea it didn’t make sense for him not to get any minutes over the weekend if he wasn’t being saved for this game.
Couldn’t edit. Surprised he was a halftime sub. Haven’t watched any of the game but maybe Sullivan was just having an off game.
I’m not to worried on the City side because they do an excellent job with their academy and are very good about selling guys on. It’s very much a profit center for them. The main issue is he can’t till he’s 18 but could have gone elsewhere on the continent. I don’t know how much of a good move Dortmund would have been though given they seem to be moving away from the days where they bring in tons of young players. The club to go to in my mind would have been Barcelona. They have a big culture of bringing guys through the academy, and also because of their financial issues they can’t afford to bring in big name players from the outside.
He wasn't good, though basically no one except maybe Iloski had a good half for Philly. Had a couple of good moments but was pretty off in terms of accuracy -- like the whole team was definitely juiced and a bit too eager. Ref also was letting América maul Philly and he was getting bullied at times.
Watch it late last night. The only true negative I saw, was the lack of elite elite pace, which isn't a big deal this year, as we saw Pulisic have a big improvement around the same age as him, but he can separate for the first few steps, but needed a little more top end to be more of a 1v1 threat. I wont look too much into the inaccuracy because that's the nature of Carnell's system, plus that's one of his strengths.
Cavan won't likely ever have Christian's pace, but he's also a central mid. Quickness is going to be much more important for his game and his short steps and burst seem strong. Agree on the last point -- not a great day but I think everyone was hyped and it isn't an issue with him.
His first touch let him down several times in that game but he still provided a couple of bright moments. The center ball with his non-dominant right foot comes to mind (also the end-line flick move he almost pulled off). But yeah... the whole team seems out of sorts. I don't necessarily think giving him a couple of games off is a bad thing but I don't like that he was pulled at the half in that game and then given time off in the subsequent MLS ones. It makes it seem like the coach placed a legit amount of blame on him for said poor half... If I am thinking it then it I am sure the player has. Have one poor half... even when the entire team is struggling and you are going to sit. IMO, based on the roster/performances I think Cavan should be starting at least one of four games and should be a primary sub for the other three.
It's pretty clear Carnell holds Cavan to a different standard than the rest of the attackers. For example: Anello completed 1 or 10 passes vs San Jose but still started the next match. None of the front 5 have played well- maybe Bedoya during some sub appearances. What I would do is tell Cavan he's going to play 30 mins the next 6-7 games, give him your complete backing and let him cook. Carnell mentioned on multiple occasions Cavan feels the need to make something happen every time he touches the ball. Getting pulled at halftime and sitting him out a game only puts more pressure on him. He needs time and backing to adapt to the speed and then everything else will follow. Young players need to be put in situations where they can succeed, I don't think Carnell is doing that with him.
Yes, I didn't phrase it well but I think Carnell was wrong to so clearly put the bad half on Cavan. he was not a fundamental issue and could have been part of the solution. I felt the same way about his comments about doing too much. Stop acting like Cavan should play like Indiana Vassilev. That's a waste.
He’s not a good coach. Should be fired very soon. He’s spent most of this season trying his best to ruin Cavan’s confidence. We would be doing better if he spent that time coming up with an attacking plan that works for a professional soccer team.
I don't know that he's not a good coach. I just don't really think he's a very creative offensive coach, very flexible or the guy you want coaching young offensive players. He won a Shield last year. So he can do that. I'm not sure you're a bad coach if you can do that. Philly had talent, but this wasn't Dave Roberts with the Dodgers; this was good talent and a very good result. But they pulled a ton of talent off the team -- no Wagner, no Baribo, no Uhre, Quinn is hurt and they lost Glesnes as well. That's your two top strikers, including a guy who really did create goals out of nothing, your best chance creator, probably your second or third best chance creator in Quinn and your long time starting CB and centerpiece of the defense. Ooof. He's absolutely not the guy to come up with something creative offensively. Of course, is there even something creative offensively? He's got Iloski and Westfield and Cavan ... but like, there's just so many holes. Perhaps, for the team, the best thing is try to grind out point. That's just not the best for Cavan, which is why I was worried about Carnell. But Philly's goals are not 100% about Cavan. And they absolutely pulled the rug out from underneath Carnell. Everyone should have seen some level of crash coming.
Carnell was honestly one of the worst coaches from a general developmental standpoint they could have gotten. Car crash ball gives you a decent floor (usually) but has a pretty limited ceiling, especially when all your actual creative players are gone or you don't trust them with minutes yet. The fanbase is already turning on them this year because ugly soccer is fine if you win, but if you don't all the old gripes about how cheap Sugarman is and how they're wasting their academy to play Indy and the corpse of Bedoya will (and are) come out.
Sullivan was much better last night. Had a couple passes that should have been finished. Despite doing so well it is odd he came off at the 60th minute. He must have some kind of minutes restriction.
He's 16 years old, playing at altitude in a high intensity game......... Fresh legs were needed. Plus there's a game on Saturday.
Agreed, could've easily had two assists to Korzeniowski and Harriel. He settled into the game after a bit of a sloppy start. He looked like he belonged out there. My one criticism is he's trying to turn everything into a goal as fast as possible, even if he's 50 yards from goal. There were a couple times last night where he played a low probability one-touch pass when he could've taken the ball with time to turn and figure it out. It seems like it's turning off his teammates a bit. On the contrary, his play in the final third is wildly effective. Hope he begins to get MLS starts, he's clearly good enough right now.
That is pretty much the Union’s style of play. You definitely have a good point with the FO decisions, but i think even taking that into consideration his team selection even outside of Cavan has been goofy. The strategy in MLS out of all leagues… of playing high work rate players with 2 big strikers to hoof the ball aimlessly to is wild in my opinion.
Philly could have won with a goal. It was a weird substitution. He also didn't play over the weekend. It's not going to affect Cavan either way -- 30 more minutes is meaningless, I think. But for his team's sake, it felt like Carnell was doing pre-set rotations. He does know he's 0-4 in league and now out of CCC, right? His emotion on the sidelines seemed like he understands, but man does his decision making not. Now that CCC is done, it'll be interesting to see if Carnell understands he needs to play Iloski, Westfield and Cavan together if he wants to actually create anything but forced turnovers. I'd also move Iloski up because your forwards are absolutely dire. Genier Martinez looks like a disaster. The SuperDraft has a much better record than young South American CBs in MLS. I'm not sure why but quite a few come up and are all over the place.
The team strategy is not Carnell's decision. The dude has been a Red Bull guy for a while, so I doubt he'd change it, but Philly went to this style when Ernst Tanner came in and it's dictated from him. Tanner was at Red Bull Salzburg before Philly. People don't remember much now, but when Earnie was at Philly, they tried to play much more like Earnie wanted the USMNT to play, and Curtain did that until Tanner came and then switched. For Philly's budget, this general style of play is absolutely, 100% a good idea. There's no reason for Philly to be small market; look at their other teams, it's not a small market. But their owner is "poor" compared to everyone else and thus ... this. You aren't going to go get Messi. But you can have a bunch of cheap kids who can run I don't think Carnell's a particularly good coach beyond this. I think he can teach Red Bull, and Red Bull is pretty effective. But he's never coached a team at this level with a different style, and I don't think he's every demonstrated an ability to creatively shift and adjust style to play. With RB2 and RB, he was able to be dogmatic. With St. Louis, he was pretty dogmatic. And here, he's been dogmatic. In St. Louis, his talent wasn't great, and then the little talent he had got hurt. He wasn't able to compensate, but I don't think a creative offensive scheme was going to work. I really don't think many coaches can do that, especially at the MLS level. It's a somewhat similar situation here in some ways. And I'm not sure I'd blame Carnell if he were pulling the levers and nothing was working. I have a very low opinion of the striker core -- Damiani is both not great and not a Red Bull striker so it's super odd. Alladoh looks like he fits a transition game much better but is very raw. He's pulling very few levers. How much is attempted rotation we will now find out. But yesterday was the first time he's started both Iloski and Cavan, I think. But not Westfield. I'd move Iloski up because you need someone who can finish. And especially if Carnell is going to insist on playing Vassilev. Westfield needs to play big minutes. I do wonder how much of this is basically Tanner dictating that Carnell's goal isn't to win but this year is a transition year for the team. The replacements he's brought in are largely raw as hell. So yeah, this early season rotation reminds me of those baseball managers who always say it's a long season as if a game in April means less than a game in September. There's so much focus on staying fresh for the whole season he seems to be ignoring that they've fallen out of one competition and seem like they are pretty done for the Shield. Are they just playing for a mediocre season? Feels like it.
The question is whether it’s because he wants to play him more minutes generally. Cause it’s one thing to come out early because your minutes are being managed and another if barely plays this week and going forward.