United's depth

Kudos to the front office, despite most of this fanbase wanting them out on their keysters before June rolled around..

As I said then and am saying now, it just needed some time to gel.. Obviously the injuries and callups affected this team early on, but we are starting to play well at just the right time..

This thing is far from over.. Now this team has to fight the inconsistencies of winning two-losing two, winning two-losing two..

A nice 3-5 game winning streak would be just about expected now seeing that the players are just getting very comfortable with each other..

However, I think the injury to Rimando will hurt us more than we think..

Did Warren kick ass last night in his brief time? Absolutely, but you know and I know that one muffed clearance or one brain fart in goal will bring the critics out in droves.. We need the same patience with Doug now that we needed with this whole team early in the season..

Seriously though, the depth on this team is sickening...

 

What's sickening is that Ivanov is apparently considered a starter and Namoff is on the bench.

 

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

True, but Ivanov has done nothing to deserve a benching at this point since his re-inclusion into the starting X1.. Nor did Namoff to be fair to him as well..

I think Hudson was thinking that Ivanov gets into attack much better than Bryan does now..

I know Galin has been woefully inconsistent this season, but that wasn't to be unexpected seeing as he doesn't speak English or didn't know the pace or style of play of MLS..

Based on his play since being installed as right back against LA at RFK, he has been very good IMHO...

 

We are very deep in defenders and midfielders, except for defensive mid. The effectiveness of our forwards, however must still be demonstrated on a consistent basis.

One thing I have noticed is, with the exception of Ralph, that most of the heretofore lauded rookies (ala Rico Clark, Magee) have hit a plateau or have experienced a significant decline in effectiveness. Some of us said a couple of months back that Ray & co. were bringing the youngsters along in a smart, measured way (A League games, USOC games, friendlies and MLS minutes here and there). These experiments revealed the deficiencies in Barclay's game and with Carroll and there was no need to thrust Carroll into MLS contests (which are all key for DC United) in order to find out that the kid was not yet ready for prime time.

Warren is brimming with confidence and though Esky is not scoring (and has "cost us" several points this year) he is being pesky as a late sub. Convey seems to be responding to Ray's compassionate coaxing, Cheyo has really responded to Ray and John's good cop-bad cop, and the jury is still out on Teeno (though I thought he looked very good in midfield this season during his brief uninjured time). We've got a third keeper on the developmental squad who is very raw, but at least there is some depth there. Stokesy would be playing except for the experienced players ahead of him on the depth chart -- but he's been brought along magnificently, IMO, and will be a major force in the air in coming seasons.

Whenever Etch is on the field, it becomes painfully obvious that we don't have the necessary quality in defensive midfield to cover Etch's ground for half the game.

Our finishing percentage on set pieces is ridiculously low and we seem to waste too many opportunities at goal. So I don't think we're deep at forward, and our goals for total backs that up. Hopefully, Thiago is the answer at forward so that Earnie can continue to athletically direct the attack.

If Thiago is not the answer to our forward depth and if Esky continues to fall short of reasonable expectations, we are in trouble. You've got to score to win and Columbus, New England and Chicago all have stronger forward play than we do. The Metros face the same uncertainties at forward that we do. So let's not get too carried away with back-slapping just yet.

GM