6 goals from our leading scorer. Holy crap that's dire. Anyway, I think we'll spread the love a little more next year, more similar to 2013. Diego and Rowe will come back stronger. I'm going Charlie with 12 (assuming we don't upgrade at striker). Diego and Lee will each have 9-10. Rowe Teal and Jermaine will each have 5-7.
I prefer realist. Yeah obviously everyone tried to stop Nguyen. Arena succeeded. The defense regressed from 2013. Part of the problem? Most here would agree that Soares was arguably the best revs defender in 2014. Until his replacement comes that's a glaring weakness that got weaker. Easier? Ha! Jason Kreis is a proven winner in MLS so NYC is in good hands. He was RSL's first successful coach and built them into an eventual MLS champion and perennial contender. With even more money at his disposal, I'd expect he replicates his success at NYC FC. Orlando won their league and have been competitive for awhile, even giving MLS teams a battle in USOC, beating SKC a couple years ago. Yes, they're an expansion team by being new to MLS but have experienced success playing and winning in the USL. It's different when a Seattle, Portland or Montreal comes into the league vs a brand new expansion club. I'd expect they're going to be formidable even with first year growing pains. Indeed, the whole league has gotten tougher sans Chivas, top to bottom. Teams are spending money, using analytics and really figuring out how to be successful. Good players are choosing to come over when they still have something left in the tank. It's Steven freakin' Gerrard. Apart from Henry, Beckham and Lampard (if he actually shows up in NYC) no prior ex-prem MLS star has come close. Taking the under when Gerrard has half a season vs Donovan has a whole year? Wow, going out on a limb.
You're not a realist, because you take each factor and see it working out to the Revs disadvantage. Ex., NYCFC - you don't say, well on the one hand its a new team that hasn't even played together, has their big signing missing and possibly falling apart and may struggle initially like most expansion teams do but on the other they have a great coach and some very impressive signings ... You only factor in the negative outcome from the Revs perspective, when there are numerous possible outcomes. Well, if there was some genius strategy there, I'd like to hear about it. From what I saw, the Revs were mostly bottled up trying to contain LA's prolific attack (as predicted) and so were limited and pretty cautious about committing to their own attack before they fell behind. He's proven in exactly one situation (not like someone like Arena or even Sigi is). Now, I'd agree that he's pretty likely to be successful building a team over time (as he did at RSL), but this isn't the same situation at all. NYCFC isn't likely to be nearly as patient with the building process and at RSL, he wasn't building/managing a team with world superstars. That's a different kettle of fish. Yes, exactly. You outline a negative scenario as though it's the only possible one, or even the most likely. In fact, it's just one scenario. And yet, Beckham didn't bring instant success and did bring lots of turmoil. And Henry has brought how many championships? And what kind of legacy? Fine, cut it in half if you want. Regardless, if it's half a season, then that's the reality for Donovan's replacement.
As we saw last night with the BCS bowl, and in any number of cup finals in the past, sometimes players just play too tight in finals. My thought is that Nguyen stopped Nguyen as much as Arena's strategy did. Even Jones showed some signs of the pressure affecting him.
I don't know if it was tactial or what, but it was almost bizarre how tentative how we played in the final. Prior to the final, everything was balls to the wall offensively. Anything resembling a counter and we'd get 3, 4, 5 guys in the box in a matter of seconds. But against LA, even when we were down 1-0, everyone played super tentative. Mullins helped change the pace of the game a bit, but everyone was noticeably more restrained. Jones was playing right in front of the backline, and Nguyen was playing a lot deeper than usual too.
They had to respect the LA attack after getting smoked 5-1 earlier in the season. Zardes, Keane, Donovan - so many weapons.