Yes, overall it’s a huge improvement. We can say “it’s only Chicago” and we were lucky of course but we did lose 2-0 to cinci under Armas (a team that is just as bad).Originally Posted by rydermike
All that said, we’ve clearly removed one problem only to be shown a few others. Namely roster construction and fitness issues.
Luke Singh is awful. Omar is past it. Holy cow that back line
Singh's experiences was actually worse then Hagglund playing FB against Dallas
Hagglund got beat by pace that night & had to be rearranged out
Singh - he got beat by his poor positioning choices. It was almost like he expected somebody to always bail him out. For Pete's sake, Moulinho had more tackles then him last night & almost as many duels (with the same % won)
OK, he's only 20 so last night & this week watching film should be about him learning
&
Watching last night, Singh's trajectory should be that of Pineda, the Homegrown CB Chicago had. OK, he's been not always great but he's steady back there & trying to lead the line at his age.
Its not going to happen but heck, I'd take a straight swap of Pineda for Gonzalez. They just signed him for a new contract but that is the sort of HG talent level Singh needs to get to in the next 3 years.
At a certain point, somebody’s just got to call out the club for doing a crap job with its development pathway. Should of had someone capable of filling in along the back line yesterday without completely unsettling the team.
We have 2 defenders who have been in our system for years, both supposedly of reasonable quality. Neither gets a sniff of the field. We have another that looks raw as hell when he gets first team minutes.
We have a physical phenom who has silky skills but also looks positionally ambiguous.
We have some kind of a wide/ forward player with good enough pace and overall skill set for first team football but is tactically defunct and looks like he’s never received coaching.
The once consensus “best prospect in North America for his age group” is nowhere to be seen.
And we have one CM prospect who looks decent but a bit raw at times.
In totality, doesn’t exactly suggest they know what they are doing or are good at it
There is some issue there, yeah.
But also we’ve had games crammed 3 days apart so minimal recovery time plus an extremely hot summer. That would contribute too.
Can't stop thinking about how much time and points we wasted by not firing Armas sooner. We surely could be closer to a playoff position by now.
This is what makes me kinda pissed off - we had a 4 game stretch where we lost by one goal - Orlando twice, Columbus, Nashville. We win two of those, we're in the thick of it, 2 points back. We get that 2 ppg pace on those games, we're basically there.
So I only watched in bits and pieces last night, and just watched the 15 minute extended highlight package. My thoughts (apologies if repeating the thoughts of others).
- people are giving Dwyer a lot of stick but he was totally responsible for the first goal. Created the turnover then cleverly stayed out of Soteldo's way given he was offside (I could see argument that he affected play and that goal shouldn’t have counted btw)
- Pozo's shooting, my god, he looks like Adam Braz in 2007 out there. Does he have the yips? (Easter egg for Ted Lasso fans there)
- as others said, cannot recall a game where we were outplayed so badly and won
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
I heard Lawrence was injured in the last Jamaica game and came out, any updates on how badly?
Having some real full-backs back at some point should helpfully help the back line...???
It was clear in the second half that Perez had talked to him about how to play fullback, literally. In the first half, he let multiple guys just run to the byline and cross, pinching in as if he was defending a central zone in a back three.
In the second half, he immediately began to drift to cover that guy, but was obviously nervous about who was sneaking in behind him, because you could see Priso tell him not to worry, that he'd drop and cover the hole, and a second later that happened.
But his read and positioning were nowhere near MLS level.
Outside of the fact that our youth development is being wasted, I realize that being pasted in the USL Championship repeatedly wasn't good for morale, but it had to be better for development than playing in USL-1.
Keep in mind that our current top scorer McLaughlin, who has eight goals in 13, or something, got a shot at both Houston AND in the USL Championship, scored zero goals across a dozen games, and is TWENTY-FOUR.
In other words, it's a cast-off league like the CPL or the Conference in England, for guys trying to make it back to a higher level or bigger club. It's going to challenge our guys but it's not going to prepare them for MLS.
Our youth are raw, and should be getting junk minutes: if we're up 3-0, you give a Luke Singh a half of football. You don't stick kids in at this skill and experience level and given them ACTUAL RESPONSIBILTY, that's insane.
Play them in cup matches, in exhibitions, in late minutes until they're ready to contribute. If, as Vanney clearly believed with Fraser and othes, they are NOT ready to play regularly after a couple of seasons of safe exposure, there's something seriously wrong with our production pipeline.
PRISO has shown that although he still struggles at times, he CAN read the game at MLS speed and is positionally strong.
Singh is just a great athlete. His pass to Soteldo down the wing to spring the second goal was a thing of beauty and if they handle him properly he has great potential. But super NOT ready for this level.
I wonder about Romeo, too. The club he was at in Denmark are pretty tiny, and he still didn't manage to become the full-time starter, just depth.
We have very skilled youth with very poor read of the game. So far, only Priso and Okello look close to being first teamers, and I'm pretty sure we pulled Okello early twice this year because he didn't really know where he was supposed to be on the pitch (given that they keep moving him positionally, this shouldn't be shocking.)
Last edited by jloome; 07-25-2021 at 10:33 AM.
We have never figured this out. Part of it is the talent pool.
Ontario had a stronger youth development system than most places in North America before TFC got here. It wasn’t a greenfield situation like in Dallas.
We walked in and competed with (and pissed off) Sigma etc and those organizations still funnel their best to Europe, same as always. (Somebody once posted a list of GTA players in Europe - it was stunning. something like 20 guys aged 18-20. This was around 5 years ago.)
Until we have a couple of guys that we sell on to Europe the best won’t come to our Academy.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
yes...its great to get the points,but our D is still shambolic.this team still has flaws,im sure the return of lareya ,oso, lawrence and yes captain zava will help,jus to put endoh on the bench.boy do they ever need another cb,i wonder if our PEP has the guts to sit gonzo next week
I agree with the return of some of our stronger players helping, especially since I believe in Endoh... as a super-sub. Having Osorio and 3/4ths of a starting backline (yes, I do believe Zavs actually does have some potential now with some positive experience with El Salvador) will only make things better.
singh should never play fullback ever again, that was truly awful.
didn't close down, didn't get tight to his man, seemingly just jogging around.
can't blame him too much tbf, as he was out of position and in there at the last second, but still. i think probably 80% of their chances were directly from his side, which the fire immediately started targeting.
assuming canada/jamaica don't make gold cup final, we should have 4 fullbacks available next week though, so we should be in much better shape for the next games.
We had no business winning this game.......
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/GameFlowxPG/status/1419296822561026048
missing all 4 of our fullbacks was always going to be a huge defensive liability, and it proved so (especially singh at LB).
however xG over 1 game can be misleading, we got into a lot of really dangerous positions and ending up trying to walk it in or not get shot off, all of which will go down as 0 xg.
Our xG is never all that good - precisely because we try to walk it in every game
He's playing tonight, so all appears to be fine.
I think part of the reason people are giving Dwyer some stick is yet again this game he completely bobbled the ball multiple times when we were in a threatening position. He had Yefe wide open at the top of the box a couple of times and simply just over ran the ball. If looks could kill Yefe would have gotten life
FYI
Team flew back into Toronto Saturday night....Perez saying they want to maximise home life right now and that was the reason why the trip in that day.
Nice in theory, TFC has only been up 3-0 once this season, and that game nearly wasn't a win. Luke Singh wouldn't get a lot of chances under your proposal.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
Well this is sort of the dilemma we find ourselves in. How do we get these youth players with potential experience so they can develop into capable parts of our roster? And why does this gap always seem so large with the rare exceptions of Priso and Shaffleburg? (Who I would argue need to be given time, as a priority, if we want them to actually develop).
HE SHOULDN'T!!!
He's not ready, not by a mile. He's been promoted to the first team too quickly, it seems obvious watching him.
If a team at our level is never leading late in a game by enough to put in youth.... then the last thing they should be doing is playing youth.
Let's keep in mind that Singh was sent out on loan and didn't get a start. He couldn't even get starts for most of Brondby's U19 team games.
He's physically talented but he has zero read of the game so far, and is being thrown in at times (and positions) when he's guaranteed to be up against major pressure.
There's a reason other teams don't do this.
Keep in mind that all the youth FC Dallas are selling had already made the first team and were starting OVER other options. They weren't just filling backup roles, they were key players at 18, 19, 20.
Give Priso one more year and he'll be that at 19, likely. But NONE of the others have show they're close to that consistency.
Equally, if Rocco Romeo can't get regular starts in the Danish Second Divsion, at a tiny club, he's probably not ready for here. I mean, I'd still like to see what he looks like, but it seems unlikely these loan teams are missing something. They're taking a flyer on potential signings because of raw talent and STILL deciding they're not good enough.
We have a major youth development problem, as others have mentioned. Sigma is graduating five times as many players to pro ranks, and nearly always at a higher level. At some point, if all this raw talent is going to waste, the quality of coaching has to be called into question, or the recruitment strategy, or both.
Regardless, it's clear that Okello, Singh, Nelson are still a ways off. We don't know about Rutty as we never see him, but that's sort of telling, too: we signed him to a FIRST-TEAM DEAL last year, and he's started one of his five appearances at 14 TFC II. Are they protecting him pending immediate sale?
Because either that or injury are the only reasons, if he's talented enough for the first team, that he shouldn't be making some noise at the USL-One level, which is basically CPL quality.
Last edited by jloome; 07-26-2021 at 11:22 AM.
Doesn't matter that we were out-played, We won and that is what matters. Just need to keep getting results no matter how shitty they are.
Keep in mind we were missing:
- Osorio
- Laryea / Auro
- Lawrence
- Ayo
- Westburg
All legit starters and would make a huge difference on the game
The bigger issue is that these 3 very vital players are clearly not fit
- Jozy
- Pozuelo
- Gonzalez
- Dwyer (although he is coming around and I didn't expect him to be anything more than a sub this year)
nearly wasn't a win because of some terrible defending...by luke singh.
he's not an MLS quality player at this moment, should be with TFCII right now.
I don't recall Singh being so terrible when playing CB. I think he just doesn't have experience in the position he was forced into this game. We're incredibly lucky not to have given up more goals that way.
I think it could be argued that Mavinga and Singh should have played in each other’s position. It couldn’t have been worse than the catastrophe of Singh at LB.
Last edited by Kamp Berg; 07-26-2021 at 07:49 PM.
The thing that makes me feel okay about Singh is his composure and confidence. When he’s on the ball he’s picking out passes that he has no business seeing or delivering. He did it to kickstart the second goal. Just pure composure on the ball to be able to remain calm, see the play and pick a pass like he did. All the more during a tire fire of a game. Definitely the kind of player who will bend not break and learn from mistakes imo. Not sure Julian Dunn has ever recovered from being fed to the wolves in 2018.
I hope this game can forever end the Bono vs Q debate
It won't because each player has different strengths.
Some of the comments here have been like Bono has lost his way and is no longer a good keeper. Well, he's a keeper who brought us to an MLS Cup final and I don't see any regression in his abilities. What has happened is that the league has changed.
Bono is a much better shot-stopper, so against a team like Chicago where there is a lot of direct shooting, Bono is the better choice.
For more technical teams, Q's strengths of better positioning and distribution shines.
I don't see why we have to choose one over the other all of the time.
In MLS today there are more teams that play to Q's strengths than Bono's, but an astute coach will play each of them in the right situation.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 07-28-2021 at 08:51 AM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
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