The summer swells anon
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Have at It People
The summer swells anon
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Have at It People
a real test of skill and strength - I'm expecting a draw here but I want us to win - we can't afford to be lackadasical and good form is always appreciated.
Portland has been good, but not great lately. 2-0-5 in their last 7 games. We'll need our offence to be rolling at 110%, but I think we can take this one.
Do we have Kaye back yet? Love that we have Laryea now so if we could just get Kaye back in the lineup it would be golden.
Well let's hope our guys don't get too banged up as Portland has the most yellow cards in the league sitting on 73, I thought Nashville had a lot but i guess they only had 57. I liked seeing the ref very early on pointing at Insigne and saying no more fouls on him.
Again... hoping...
Toronto FC, MLS
Portland is a tough opponent for anyone. Probably the most consistently underrated franchise in MLS. With that said, if we play like we did last weekend (with some better defending on setpieces), we should be able to grab 3 points.
Need better defending, regardless of not having quality CBs. Conceding three goals is unacceptable. MacNaughton is on the right track, but needs to do better, you don't run away from attackers.
Time is running out for Jiménez. Eight games with no goals or assists. Either produce or Akinola takes your spot. Frankly, I would prefer to start Akinola until JJ shows improvement.
If all goes well, TFC win 3-1.
We shall see.
Looking at the quality of our eleven - over 450 caps between Canada, US and Italy including 6 active players - all experienced but McNaughton. Pretty impressive that he’s holding his own as a late blooming CPLer.
And yeah, I sense Mavinga’s had a wake up call. And it would be to his advantage to be smarter (less reckless) defensively… his speed won’t last forever. All the same, his ability to carry the ball out of the back and pass should suit Bob’s style and be to our good advantage.
As others have pointed out, two of Nashville’s three were bullshit. On the first, Bono did nothing more than he had to do to stop the strike, got the ball only, and the man went down when he stepped on top of Bono. If anything it should have a foul in our favour.
The second was clearly offside. Bad reffing, bad VAR. It’s naive to think a ref can see anything under the lights with crap video on a screen. Our culture is a bit dumb when it comes to screens and video.
All to say, that was in essence a 4-1 win.
Last edited by los sonadores; 08-09-2022 at 08:33 PM.
Even Nashville’s announcing crew, in replaying the penalty “block” by Bono in slow motion, admitted it wasn’t a penalty. Sapong is already over him and reaches back with his foot, kicking off Bono, who has already passed him.
And Bunbury was clearly offside, too. They showed several angles in the TSN replay and he was a half yard off, not even close.
I have zero doubt those were both terrible calls.
Bono was reckless on sliding out when the forward had no angle and it was 100% penalty. Just a dumb play by him.
Second goal, Bradley beat again easily on a header and its in the back of the net. Not sure if onside or not, but should have never even happened.
And we did get lucky mcarty missed from point blank in the 4th minute when Oso left him...then another one around the 18th minute when (again) Bradley let Romney have a free header...and then the last play of the game, we gave up another free header that just missed the back post.
4-3 was a fair result I think, and glad to get out of there with the 3 points.
Need to win all the home games to make playoffs.
Portland are decent but I suspect that we'll have too much for them with a fully fit team.
3 1 or 2 0 win imo
portland are yet to beat a team from the east (2 draws, 2 losses), and are yet to win an away game outside cascadia (wins vs sounders and van only away wins all year).
they are a decent side especially going forward but with a week to prepare at home and a full complement to choose from we should have too much for them.
Portland smothers games in the midfield. They make the game chippy & ensure there is no flow. They can be destroyed with a decent through ball but you have to have your guys given the time to make that pass.
I suspect JJ might have a decent game if Insigne & Bernardeschi & Oso & Kaye(?) can get on the ball with time.
This is the sort of game where Nelson's patented "getting into a good area and then stopping to think while they all get back into position" technique is going to really hurt us. Like a defender showing a forward to his weak side, I suspect Portland will give up space to Nelson.
Yeah, there was one 2 vs 2 counter in the first half last game where Nelson should have given it to Insigne but instead goes and then inexplicably stops, gets surrounded and loses the ball. You can imagine how pissed Insigne was on that one.
No doubt the game plan will be double on Ingisne and Fede, and let Nelson have the ball. And also target us on set pieces like Nashville did.
This is a typical attitude for some. All season we've defended set pieces well enough as most of our issues came from getting caught on the break from the wings but we happen to have a match against a team that targets this as a main part of their offense and scores so this is now our achilles heel. And of course it has to be pinned on MB.
Charlotte also targets this and MB got a WHO Scored rating over 9 and I saw no mention of this then. Or ever really before this week.
Nelson did really well in the last game; his stat line was solid and he was in the league’s young players of the week round up. But obviously we saw in Charlotte how well Kaye works with this system.
I suspect if they try to double either winger, it’ll open huge holes for Oso and Jimenez to move into, which then shifts the rest of the defence over and leaves the back post open for the other winger.
It’s sort of why Bradley uses it, I think. If your two most skilled and quickest players are both wingers, the middle clears out really frequently. Jimenez hasn’t seen much of the ball in scoring positions but he does make very solid dummy runs, so that contributes as well.
A lot depends on which ref we get and how much they get away with. If it’s Fotis Bazakos, we might be in trouble, as you could basically shoot a guy with a Smith & Wesson M&P .40 cal and he’d wave ‘play on.’
If it’s Victor Rivas, all of our skill players should just retire before the game because he misses fucking everything.
Last edited by jloome; 08-10-2022 at 09:35 AM.
For the most part, it seemed Romney was beating everyone from TFC that match; had TFC's number 'in the air'.
On the second, it has been already noted that Criscito appeared the closet to, and should have marked, Bunbury; not Bernardeschi's fault.
The initial Romney head on that play seemed to have three TFC members teaming him of which Bradley was one and behind him.
Fair enough on the third, Bradley did track his opponent for a moment. Perhaps an experience/judgement call.
He may have broke off when he realized the trajectory of the kick. Maybe he just got picked by his own teammate and/or opponent?
I think we are all in agreement, everyone on the pitch for TFC has to defend corners and set pieces way better!
Especially since we want to move forward in the standings and playoffs.
BTW, we all have our pet peeves regarding this team's roster.
For some, fairly, it involves the MBradley question.
IMHO, for a series of reasons, unless the situation devolves drastically...
The reality is that his position does not get meaningfully addressed until the next summer or following winter's windows.
The organization, yes his father!, views MBradley as the last on-field concern / piece of the puzzle for now.
I see the Bradley situation as blatant nepotism. With Bob’s plan of a complete rebuild what was the point of playing his 35 year old son? We have experimented with kids in all positions, why not sit Mike down for several games and give some younger players a run? Have the kids learned anything?I don’t see it. TFC has conceded 42 goals this year, a Michael Bradley errant pass , missing a marking assignment, and losing out on an aerial challenge has directly led to 7 goals. Would playing a kid in his position have made things worse?
First, we're obviously in an accelerated rebuild. The summer window was the start of the season so to speak. Could MB have sat in the first half? Sure but BB was trying to salvage whatever he could until the summer window.
Second, what kid do we have could play his position since the ball comes out through him often. Have to be somebody who doesn't lay off soft sideways passes and that eliminates almost all our kids.
Third, since we weren't intentionally in tank mode, and this has been asked a lot times by a few people, who could play in MB's position and actually be more effective even? Not hypothetically better like Priso before his move, but actually better.
So yes, we could have been worse. We could have been dead last in the standings and GA.
Strongly disagree with everything you say above,Who could play Bradley’s position? How about Oso, what about a Priso Poz Oso midfield ? You can add one of the kids and go with a four man midfield. I’m sorry I seem negative towards Bradley but his play last year and in many games this year has been very difficult to watch. His calling out players on field when half the time he is the one responsible has left me with a bad taste,