Is this a good start George? I haven't been able to watch any preseason action, so I have no idea if the MF is truly the Revs weak point. I still think this team is ready to give it another go at the Eastern Conference title, even if that means we have to be over .500 this year.
Perfect I would say it's hopefully do to the lack of fitness We came up against a team that is in the middle of their season while we are still ramping up for hours Let's just hope it's that and not something more systemic I am still not thrilled at our right side only midfield
Maybe Ngodzo is this year's "answer" to our problems. I can't wait for the Revs to come home so that I can see Noonan and the new trialist work on the ball in person. I think if either of these guys shows the ability to 1) defend and 2) hit a decent cross; we should be in a good position.
i'm less concerned about a left sided attack - as kalmer compensated well during ralsons quiet playoff run. also - you can't send the right and left side forward all the time without being exposed. plus joey did some nice work in the LDA game on the left. the main problem i see is swiss chesse d-mid area. this contributes to the long ball only attack more than a left sided weakness. i maintain that a left side upgrade is not the biggest need.
The reason the midfiled can't "stop" anyone is that, without any kind of attacking threat other than Ralston, it's a midfield too singularly devoted to "stopping" people. When the your team's midfield is not a threat to push the ball up, that allows the other team all sorts of luxuries on offense. Guys who normally wouldn't get into the act start making runs on the offensive side of the ball, knowing that the space opened behind them is relatively safe. People commit forward who would normally lie back. To use the tired old cliche, when you start acting like a nail, you tend to get hammered. Sounds like this is what happened on Bloody Sunday. So to my mind, the problem doesn't lie in failings of the defensive midfield, but the lack of an offensive one.
Which is why I think JMM is the most important piece of the puzzle. If he is played as an AMF, teams won't be able to send their midfielders forward as much. If we were good on the counter last year, I'd love to see how good we'd be with JMM taking advantage of that extra space. Certainly we'd be much better than having Hernandez or Cullen filling that role.
sure thats part of it - an attacking threat alleviates pressure. but thats like me fixing your broken arm by kicking you in the shin. i would argue that with a mid that controls the field, wins balls and can hold, and spring attacks is what is missing. an 'a-mid' that can't get the ball in a danagerous position will end up like cate or aw of past teams. standing around w/thumb up A$$. the result of what we have is the nail effect we see now - mid get hammerd, if they win the ball, then long ball to ralston down the line, or wolde/twellment up top. with 3 people marking each of them. so forget about a number 10 and frankDA jogo bonito. piotr nowak would have brought this to the team. the a-mid/d-mid designation does not exist in Nicol's system.
(In a Rick Pitino voice) Well Piotr Nowak is not walking through that door, so you can just forget about that! I'm not sure what your argument is though, because you already said we should concentrate on our two center midfielders. If we don't have an a-mid, d-mid setup, what do you think we'll do? I'm sorry, but if JMM is paired with Cullen or Hernandez in the middle, I'll be shocked to see them getting equal chances to push the ball forward. And if JMM plays forward and we're left with the other two as our CMs, then we're in trouble.
we didn't have an amid-dmid set up all last year. i don't think you will see us playing a "diamond" midfield. (unless we sign ronaldinho) forget the amid idea. tactically it will not work for us.
My impression of what went wrong Sunday was not that the Revs didn't win any balls - just that after they did, they promptly handed back the ball or blooted it aimlessly upfield. This type of behavior usually happens when you don't have enough offensive options to channel the ball out of your own end. Put Chris Armas in the lineup right now and you're not going to stop many teams from pressuring. You've got to provide some danger to break out and attack. And...er...Leo Cullen ain't it. This was a problem last year (down the stretch and in the Final), and it's still a problem now. The question is why it's taking so long to resolve. At least that's my opinion.
I think that SN tailored his system to the personnel he had available to him last year. Since we've never had an attacking mid during Nicol's tenure, it's hard to predict what he would do with one. Also, when he's been commenting on the trialists, he says a lot of things like "the player was good, but he does the same kind of things Cullen and Hernandez does. We want someone who will push into the attack more". As for the game on Sunday, my perspective of those blurred little images was that Kamler didn't do much but our passing was probably better than it was last year, the competition was just better. We could probably play like that in the MLS and win more games than we did last year. There's one hitch to getting an attacking mid, though. Who plays at D-mid? Cullen and Hernandez pair up as two D-mids who can both go into the attack, but I don't think that either of them could do much damage as the sole D-mid. Based on what I've heard about Joseph (tall, fast, rangy, covers a lot of space, and, I think, former D-mid) I'd like to see him grow into this spot.
Just wondering, what role do you see JMM playing? If it is in MF, do you think that he will be enough to relieve the pressure?
Did you read Nicol's assessment of Cristian Uribe? He commented (this is a paraphrase) that Uribe was a little too defensive-minded, and that he was looking for someone to add more to the attack. Probably not a "one way player" (like Cate), but someone with more of an attacking aptitude. Tactically, Nicols seems to think it will work - if he can find the right player. Otherwise, what's the team going to do, play four defensive midfielders and hope the ball bounces into the other team's goal off a flubbed goal kick? As far as Joe max is concerned, I honestly don't know where he fits in. I haven't seen him play a full match in years, and he doesn't seem to be match-fit now. I suppose he might make a decent attacking mid (he's never really beeen a distributor) if he can make it onto the field.
I've thought of this, but can't let myself get excited about the possibilities. A strong D-mid in front of a better-than-average defense and an excellent goalie would make this team incredible, IMHO.
I hope jmm pans out. looking for someone to add more to the attack is not the same as a #10 in the mold of a valderama, cate, AW, or even the role jmm has played from the middle. nicol is right to look for someone to push the attack, hold the ball, etc. and this does not conflict with what I said. the AMID IS DEAD. the way the revs played last year, only ralston consistenly pushed and attacked as an option. the tip of the spear was on the right side, and wandered to the middle, diagonally to attack, with heaps filling behind. both cullen and hernanzed are d mids. if they were more versitle, and could go forward as well as they could defend, then nicol would be happier, im sure. he probably is looking for more goals, and offesnsive support from the middle. but i doubt you will see the prototypical amid ever play on a nicol team. just ask APC.
I agree 100%. this is a very good assesment. don't get caught up in the semantics of my answer - an A-Mid ( as i think of an amid) is not the (nicols) answer. a central midfielder that can defend and be a threat to attack, pass and score is. not a one way amid that would never see the ball unless launched by inacurate longballs from mike burns.. or pierce or whatever... this is why AW, Cate or APC were ineffictive. they got sick of watching the ball go over thier head. nicol is looking for a hernanez or cullen be a legit threat w/the ball, (like nowak) instead of your guranteed lateral/back pass, or long ball forward. win the ball, attack as a unit.
I find it hard to imagine that Nicol is looking for a straight up #10 attacking midfielder. If so, APC would have played MUCH much more last season. My analysis, after watching the better half of last year's midfield, is that Nicol likes to play with two central holding defensive midfielders that win balls in the midfield and distribute out wide. Also notice how our midfield became much much more solid and we started winning games once we ditched the diamond midfield of Rooney as the a-mid and Semedo as the d-mid, and moved Hernandez and Cullen into the two d-mid spots. It also seemed that the two wide midfielders, Ralston and Kamler, were in a more advanced attacking position, and it seemed like they were the ones creating the attack, although it was Ralston more so than Kamler, with the two wide defenders doing the defensive jobs out wide. With that said, It seems like the two central midfielders are the more conservative mids, while the outside advanced mids are more focused on the attack. Perhaps we'd be better suited with an attacking mid that can step in on the left side of midfield and create on the attack, and take some of or all of, the burden off of Ralston, than finding an attacking mid who plays more centrally - that'll still cause us to favor the right side in the attack, and still leaves our left side weak. And for some reason, Cate keeps coming to mind when i think of an attack-minded midfielder to sign, or re-sign in his case. Surely he can be placed out on the left side, no?
i think cate fits in the apc/aw mold. Nicol (or was it ray hudson) called them Luxury Players. right now, the revs cm can be contained. you know they have to give it up. save for a 35 yd bomb from hernandez, they got nothing. my guess is he wants someone hard nosed defensively, that takes up ground offensivly and makes defensive players respect them. not a skill player, but a go for the throat player. put one of those in the middle, and i bet who every you stick on the left looks a whole lot free.
Didn't Cate have an alias - Chacon? Sorry, to me these guys were the same player. Nimble, slight, clever with the ball, but unaware of the concept of playing "two ways" and easily knocked off the ball by a steady breeze. I don't think Cate would have been any more Nicol's cup of tea than Chacon. Another thing that no one has mentioned is that this team has a marked lack of pure speed on offense. Neither Ralston or Twellman have ever been called "speed-burners", and Joe Max isn't likely to adopt that moniker either. So if the revs are going to get an attacking player, he might as well have some wheels (as neither Cate or Chacon did).
APC wasn't able to cut it as an attacking mid when Nicol tried to play him there and he wasn't very successful when FC played him there and he didn't play that position in Miami. The only way he could get into the midfield in LA is if they decided that with Cobi, Sasha, Elliot, and Vagenas out there they could afford a "luxury player". He's not strong or fast and he can't posess the ball for long. Even though Cate was limited, he could hold onto the ball, beat a guy or two off the dribble, and then make a pass. The only time APC was able to accomplish this (by the accounts that I read) was against the Western Mass Pioneers or some other such team. I'm not saying that Cate would have been the answer, but I don't know where the whole "APC is a talented attacking mid" thing came from. It certainly wasn't from watching him play in the MLS.
The only person that I've seen who would fall into that category would be Griffiths, who sat on the bench while Noonan came into the game for Kamler. Noonan looked good (well, he looked like an effective blob of pixels), but I don't think he's a burner. Maybe Westfield would fit the bill. If we're going to put speed into our offense I would expect it to be at forward or wide, not at attacking mid. Even though Twellman isn't that fast he is dangerous enough to occupy 2 defenders when he doesn't have the ball, which is why we are able to get by reasonably well without a burner. If we do go with an attacking mid, it will probably become apparent real soon that we don't have speed at D-mid. Joey, Leo, and DH all seem like good fits for a 2 D-mid set, not having to cover too much space. It would be great if Rusty (who has great game speed) or Shalrie Joseph (the scouting reports on him included the words fast and athletic) could grow into that role.
I don't see that at all, unless the only comparison is their defensive value. Chacon couldn't hold the ball for more than 2 seconds. Cate could carry it for 10, 20, 30 yards - the problem was always the final pass not hooking up, and I don't really think that was his fault. Later, when he got frustrated, he just fell into holding the ball too long, period.