Damn, I need to get my vision checked. When I look at that I see Rodrigues and Tommy Thompson in the midfield.
Yeah because what we’re running out now is working so well. The only way we get the ball into the final 3rd these days is when Rodrigues dribbles though midfield. So maybe not such a bad idea.
I don't think its that out of the box thinking. You can easily pivot from a 3 back to a 4 back, he just plays a deep Defensive midfielder role, I would also do anything to get Greuzo off the field. When your in the position we have with 19 people healthy and 2 of them are keepers and Baldisimo, you sometimes have to get creative like New England who has damn near the whole lineup on IR.
I prefer the 3-2-3-2 (or 3-5-3 if you prefer) of those two formations - it puts Rodrigues in a position where his stupid shit doesn't hurt and allows him much more freedom. I also think Lopez as a withdrawn forward might make offenses stop concentrating exclusively on our wings (particularly Espinoza) quite so much and give more space to the attack. Two jugglers in the attack (TT and Lopez) can beat a guy and not just pass backwards (Gruezo)... Hey - it's worth a try.
I think our basic problem on offense is that we can't hold possession long enough to create chances. We can't even connect the 1st couple of passes that would allow us to try to play someone thru. IOW we can't even play enough possession to play direct! I went thru a list the other day - who is starting these days that is a good possession player? I think I only came up with Yueill, Hernán, and Espinoza, and even Hernán is a question mark because he's generally playing hero ball. Gruezo is generally pretty solid in possession but he usually makes the safe pass. Occasionally he sprays the ball out wide, and he's actually pretty good at that. I'm not saying that the reason we're bad is that we're missing Monteiro but for all of his gumming up / slowing down of the offense, the guy worked his tail off to hold possession for us. He'd just follow the ball and provide an outlet for the next guy and slowly work the ball into the final 3rd. I'm trying to think of guys on the bench that are at least decent in possession. In last night's game, Morales, and maybe TT (though he's mostly become a "safe pass" guy), Baldi, and maybe Verhoeven.
From my vantage, Quakes are noticeably inferior to every opponent in completing forward and non-backward passes to teammates. Basic incompetency that pervades most the team. They lose possession easily as a result. I don’t have the data to confirm my impressions.
Yeah unfortunately our team is just not that good at that soccer thing - trapping the ball, being able to hold it under pressure and then picking out a good pass. When I watch Columbus, a team that seems to be the class of the league, I see the opposite. Every player looks good in possession. And then they bring 5 guys off the bench and same thing - every player looks good in possession. I keep thinking man, Wilfried is just not gonna have a guy on his team who isn’t a quality player in terms of possession. I don’t think it’s a training thing. I think it’s how they’ve selected their players. So I think the only style that makes sense for us to try to win the ball by pressing and then play direct. When we play good possession teams we struggle to win the ball. That explains our struggles in our recent games against Houston, SKC, and LAG. But unfortunately every team is good in possession compared to us, so every game is a struggle. St. Louis is not known as a possession team but they’re a pressing team, and much better at pressing than us. That would explain the 15 shots to 1 in the 1st half against St. Louis. I think this team is worse than 2018, though if we had Daniel in goal maybe we’d be about the same or a little better. There’s never been a season where I had so little confidence that we’d win a game as it’s starting.
Update: Ian RusseL - 6 games, 4 at home - 1 win 5 losses - 0.5 PPG - 2 goals scored, or 0.33 goals scored per game - That's while facing some of the worst teams in MLS (St Louis, Chicago, SKC, Minnesota) Is the rest of MLS not aware that we have the 2020 USL coach of the year?? Maybe they fell asleep... MLS 360 on AppleTV: "I'm not shocked. It should be 4-5 nil, San Jose in this match specifically tonight, they look like they have no gameplan, they have no fight, they have no willingness to even get stuck into a tackle. Look at it, it's lackluster..."
Not sure what game "MLS 360" was watching. Brian McBride had it about right. We had the chances, just didn't execute. It's not much harder than that.
I can tell you why “I” didn’t execute. I wasn’t playing. That’s why. As for anyone else you’ll have to ask them. I don’t think anyone’s trying to fail or not trying hard enough. When a player is in a “slump” usually the problem is the opposite - trying too hard, i.e. pressing.
This is a really good question! We didn't get a sustained new coach bounce. (Was it just 1 game?) The guys look like they are in an even bigger funk than they were with Luchi, cuz now Espinoza sucks and Hernan has sunk into "What am I doing here?" mode. I suppose Ian's only option is to try different players in different positions every week. But that means disorganization and we continue to lose games, unless we get a fluke goal here and there. Right now, Benji is the only bright spot in Ian's efforts.
Progress? We haven’t been playing very well under Ian but not leaking goals as badly while most of the defense is out injured is…something. I think at this point Ian needs to try to keep the guys from checking out. I thought our effort was OK last night except for a lack of urgency late in the game. Fatigue could have been a factor but we had a fair number of subs in.
Losing continuously , conceding own goals two weeks in a row? That isn’t progress in any team in the world and certainly not in my book. Most teams anywhere would also be wanting to fire Ian regardless of how long he has been in charge. He probably would be on the chopping block in most leagues. I see absolutely no improvement whatsoever and losing 2-0 or 6-2 is still a loss where nothing is changing. We need to get rid of at least 7-8 players and sign a whole new crop.
Russell is the INTERIM coach on an already lost season. Firing him is not a reasonable answer. Evaluate after the season who should be the new coach.
Sure, and it would also help to get back some of the 7 players we’re missing on defense. Daniel should be back soon, as well as Munie and at some point I presume Akapo and Costa. Wilson is done for the season I think.
It’s the same story every year. I am running out of time. Pretty soon I’m going to be cheering the Quakes from Santa Clara Memorial Park. There in no tomorrow!
Wait, I thought the offseason was for trimming the budget and saving Fisher a buck? Oh, you mean on a team that's actually trying. Quakes offseason is how we ended up in this situation. You have to be ready to go at the start of the year. As you correctly noted, Quakes weren't ready and our season was over by game #3. Well done Rick Astley.