Chris Cummings Sumthin's Up, Hey!

[poppamidnight]

Amado was hurt. He was trying to play through an injury (as he did on Wednesday), and wasn't able to start the second half.

Perhaps before putting words like "send a message" in quotes, you should find an instance of Cummins actually saying that he was trying to "send a message".

HAHAHA, ohh man that make's it even worse,
the sending a message excuse makes more sense that starting an injured player

I brought up how stupid it was to start Serioux a couple weeks back when his injury was really bad, and he barely squeaked out 10 mins of quality defending...

Why waste a sub?

I just don't comprehend that...

You have the day before + the day of to evaluate the guy's,
if their not looking good, why put them in there trying to hope for a decent amount from minutes from them AND/OR risk further aggravating the injury...
(we're looking for the playoffs right??? don't we actually want healthy bodies for that?)

Someone has to give their head a shake in that regards:
Either Cummins is rolling the dice on players health knowing their injury concerns
or
our medical/training staff aren't giving the right information to Cummins

[v00d00daddy]

Vitti for Velez allowed Cummins to move to a 3-5-2 by pushing Brennan and Attakora up the wings. We had 3 forwards on at the time (Barrett-Dichio-Vitti). Bringing another CB on gave us the three we needed at that position to allow Jimmy and Nana to play more attack-minded.

I agree with the sub, tbh. Vitti did have a pretty first half, but he was fading towards the end and 3-5-2 should have given us better ball movement in the midfield (where we were getting beat all night). I just think the change should have come a bit sooner, but I think that's partly down to losing Guevara to injury at the half. That handcuffed Cummins a bit.

So Cummins wanted us to get back into the game on the shoulders of Nana and Brennan...without Guevara (sucks about the injury) and Vitti?

Not to mention the facts:

a) Dichio looked horrible from the minute he came on
b) Barrett looked terrible all game. I would have subbed him out when he tried to bring down that ball from his chest and it bounced out 10 metres. I could have done better than that.
c) Cummins decided we should be playing long ball for some stupid reason.

I don't care what Cummins was thinking. Unless Vitti was hurt, he should have stayed in. If we're relying on Brennan and Nana to push up when we're down a goal or two we should just pack it in as soon as we go down one. It would be less embarrassing.

In fact, why don't we just get rid of Guevara and play 4 strikers up top and keep feeding the ball from Brennan and Frei up to Dichio's head and Barretts......ummm.....defender.

I can't stand to watch this team when they play long ball. It literally made me walk away from the tv last night, on more than one occassion.

[v00d00daddy]

i'm just really annoyed that the lads made RSL look better than they really are.

other than work ethic and ability to string two passes together, RSL wasn't that good. they executed a good game plan but I thought if the lads played their normal game, it would have been a tighter game

Ummm....this is what TFC lacks on most nights when they lose.

You're absolutely right....RSL didn't do much other than the basics of soccer....and it scares me that we omit one, or both, of these two things on more game nights than is acceptable.

[SanStarko]

We need to keep an more even keel and not freak out after every loss and dissect the shit out of everything.

So, so true.

It's a bit of a joke at times. We win a game and we're world beaters and Cummins is a genius. We lose a game and the players suck, we're the worst team in history and Cummins should be sacked.

Fair enough being upset or happy about things. But this swinging from one extreme to the other depending on the result is bizare to say the least.

[ua-kozak_TFC]

So, so true.

It's a bit of a joke at times. We win a game and we're world beaters and Cummins is a genius. We lose a game and the players suck, we're the worst team in history and Cummins should be sacked.

Fair enough being upset or happy about things. But this swinging from one extreme to the other depending on the result is bizare to say the least.

....yea well you gotta dissect every win too... we won 3 gamesagainst teams that are really in a bad shape... and montreal played their reserves. so yea On top of that we have played 11/16 games at home.... good luck with [art 2 of the year if we playing like we have. since we couldn;t capitallize on the home games...

[hodgkiss]

i think it's best that when we are on the road that we change the formation and tactics to a more defensive roll. everyone on the pitch should be defending and just hold the ball up and not make those silly mistakes while trying to attack and/or trying to make things look pretty.

force the opposition to make bad passes and then take adavantage of their silly mistakes.

playing an attacking style at home makes sense but to attack when the guys aren't fully rested/injured is only going to lead to disappointment.

it wasn't just the fact that we couldn't build any kind of attack last night, it was brutal overall. our marking was horrible (due to tired legs and the formation) our passing and position was probably just as worse. you could see frustration on most players faces because their teammates just didn't give many options when we had control of the ball.

now, the first 10 minutes or so looked quite good. they were playing positionally and were slowly building up plays to frustrate rsl but that pass back from guevara was absolutely brutal and it spelled the beginning of the end for the night.

i hope the players have a good long rest and i hope cummins can have some time to think about changing things up a little. i can accept a 1-0 defeat on the road but 3-0 is just plain bad. we start the game with a point. if they defend, there's no excuse not to come out of the game with at least that.


i would rather see something more like this for the road:
btw, this is where i think a guy like harmse will be missed.


-------------------------frei----------------------------

nana----------garcia----------velez----------brennan


cronin-----robinson----guevara----serioux------dero

--------------------------dichio-------------------------

[DichioTFC]

I blame the grey kit...

maybe we should go back to the pink?

[DichioTFC]

btw, if the boys were tired, which i'm sure they were, coach should have had a 5-man backfield and played either for the 0-0 draw or hit long balls up for the counter attack.

but still, what's done is done.

[Beach_Red]

When the team plays on a more even keel, the dissecting will slow down. I can accept losing. It is a fact of soccer. What I cannot accept is losing the way we witnessed last night. If we had seen this effort against Montreal, we would have been watching the CCL from the sidelines again because quite honestly we played like Mtl did against us.

We have seen too many pathetic excuses for soccer this season and on the other hand we have seen some good and great games. I want to see some intensity every game.

This is more a criticism of MLS than of TFC. There isn't a team in the league that plays on an even keel for the whole year. Every team in this league has games that are pathetic excuses for soccer. A few weeks ago most people would have given the Supporters Shield and the MLS Cup to Chivas. Who knows now, maybe Columbus will actually repeat.

I would like to see the same intensity every game, too, but the truth is, it won't make a difference to whether or not the team win the Cup and the players know that.

[Pyeddo]

So Cummins wanted us to get back into the game on the shoulders of Nana and Brennan...without Guevara (sucks about the injury) and Vitti?

Not to mention the facts:

a) Dichio looked horrible from the minute he came on
b) Barrett looked terrible all game. I would have subbed him out when he tried to bring down that ball from his chest and it bounced out 10 metres. I could have done better than that.
c) Cummins decided we should be playing long ball for some stupid reason.

I don't care what Cummins was thinking. Unless Vitti was hurt, he should have stayed in. If we're relying on Brennan and Nana to push up when we're down a goal or two we should just pack it in as soon as we go down one. It would be less embarrassing.

In fact, why don't we just get rid of Guevara and play 4 strikers up top and keep feeding the ball from Brennan and Frei up to Dichio's head and Barretts......ummm.....defender.

I can't stand to watch this team when they play long ball. It literally made me walk away from the tv last night, on more than one occassion.

I'm glad someone agrees with me, Vitti played a great game and looked like he was trying to get his next goal. He looked a little more inspired & motivated.... which is more then I can say for Barrett.

Christ.... Barrett. :\

[Blizzard]

maybe we should go back to the pink?

The newscasts just showed David Miller wearing the Pink 3rd shirt at the Pride Parade.

[BuSaPuNk]

Have to wonder how much they were looking forward to the rest that there getting not playing for almost 2 weeks. Also the games they have played in the last 2 weeks being all pushed together with alot of travel as well. Not a good mix. I wasn't expecting a win but we could have atleast played with a soild backline and not pushed up and played for the tie. Oh well.....another loss on the road....no biggy.

Let's see how they respond when coming back from the break big game against the Dynamo.

[FluSH]

.

You have the day before + the day of to evaluate the guy's,
if their not looking good, why put them in there trying to hope for a decent amount from minutes from them AND/OR risk further aggravating the injury...
(we're looking for the playoffs right??? don't we actually want healthy bodies for that?)

It's not like we have a bench stack with skill out there... options are limited and that's an understatement...

[Blizzard]

HAHAHA, ohh man that make's it even worse,
the sending a message excuse makes more sense that starting an injured player

I brought up how stupid it was to start Serioux a couple weeks back when his injury was really bad, and he barely squeaked out 10 mins of quality defending...

Why waste a sub?

I just don't comprehend that...

You have the day before + the day of to evaluate the guy's,
if their not looking good, why put them in there trying to hope for a decent amount from minutes from them AND/OR risk further aggravating the injury...
(we're looking for the playoffs right??? don't we actually want healthy bodies for that?)

Someone has to give their head a shake in that regards:
Either Cummins is rolling the dice on players health knowing their injury concerns
or
our medical/training staff aren't giving the right information to Cummins

Assumptions!

Amado wanted to play and said he could play. It was only later in the half after a couple of exchanges that caused pain did it really get to the stage where Cummins wouldn't let him play the second.

In the end, it generally comes down to the player saying whether or not he is fit to go.

Cummins did the smart thing by pulling him at the half knowing full well that we need a healthy Amado later in the season but also knowing full well that we weren't going to be coming back without him out there.

[Mikey]

Halfway point in the season and we have 22 points from a potential 48.

Assuming we need to clear 45 for a playoff spot, it's another 23 points from a possible 42, 15 of which are available from home games.

Lets be optimistic and assume 9 points from the remaining home games.

Can they squeeze 14 points from 10 away games?

[[NBF]]

So the fact that everyone is blaming the loss on fatigue and loss of players to international duties makers me wonder why the team is not going after players like Jacob Lensky(who fell out with his dutch club)or some of the young Canadians at MLS clubs.

I think the excuse was they weren't good enough, but for reason they're good enough for other clubs?.... and on top of that we would have a solid group of players able to play through the majority of games during the summer.

If you ask me, Mo Johnston fucked up royally there.

[Derko]

I'll take the altitude excuse and live with it, TFC come back with a win in San Jose and then home to Houston.