Originally Posted by
jloome
I've been thinking about that decision, which I initially thought was sort of a bold gamble, and what might logically have happened.
I think maybe Vanney doesn't have faith in our bench players. So he only plays them in bunches together, rather than platooning or rotating them properly, and in damn near hopeless situations.
I think maybe he's making a serious mistake with how he handles our depth.
Ashtone Morgan is not a shit fullback, and he is not old. He just never plays.
At one point, when he was younger, he might've had a shot at being starting quality. Now, he has no delivery any more and is not fast enough to beat guys offensively... and we play with wingbacks more than half the time.
I don't think Boyd or Hamilton are complete shit, either. Boyd was a competitive player until he was bumped to the Bundesliga and it was out of his depth. He was a U.S. national team player. Even if someone loses some speed to age and injuries, their technique and intelligence doesn't disintegrate completely.
But they never play.
Chapman has real potential to be a starter in MLS. But the tiny amount of activity he's seeing relative to what's required to break through means that it won't happen here.
I watch how top managers handle a roster, and there are simply a lot more individual subs based on performance in a match, and not on long-term planning or projection -- or worse, a lack of faith in certain players.
I don't think a team can win this league anymore without faith in at least most of its roster.
We had four wins coming into this game and yet every time we're ahead, he leaves it until the post 70th minute to make a change. And he never spot starts someone just to give one player a rest or another a reward for good training. It's just "did the guy ahead of you screw up last game?"
It all seems maybe too simplistic, like we are limiting what our squad can be. Certainly, in retrospect, I don't see the point in that many changes without even resting our two top healthy players. It made a tough game harder and it made players who rarely play look bad, and less confident.
Perhaps he has a core mentality issue, where if a player isn't behaviourally the way he likes, he just won't let them play. Again, I'm not sure MLS is the kind of league where a manager inflexible to personality differences will keep winning.
I look at the other guys who at this level produce over and over as coaches -- Tata Martinez, Bradley, Berhalter -- and they all handle different personalities exceptionally well, and they all give younger players more time to show what they have and adapt.