Would rather the three points, but without Insigne, a road point will do. On we go.
Would rather the three points, but without Insigne, a road point will do. On we go.
So, having watched only the highlights… this caught my eye.Originally Posted by MikeForbes
MB made two brutal giveaways on outlet passes off possession changes, in the 11th and 13th minute, that both should have led to Nashville goals. He looked just like Kaye has looked in multiple games.
Which makes me think Bob has to rethink this part of his scheme. The search for the lightning strike in transition is not working for this personnel group.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
yup, another 90 minutes as well...but I am coming to terms with it, BB will never take his son off...no matter what.
As for Insigne, when do we expect him back? It will take quite a while to get into game shape as well...so we won't see Insigne at his best for quite some time...just hoping we can get some wins before he comes.
A draw while not bad on the road, is still another 2 points lost....we need wins.
This feels like the right take. Nashville isn’t San Jose. That is a good team.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
No kidding, this seems to happen every game, and I don't understand it. His goal record does not support this at all
Kaye played well and looked alive today. A lot of passes connected, forward plays, and movements. Hopefully he can be consistently like this.
Coello’s passing is exceptional and accurate. We should know more about his skills, vision, and tactical awareness when he gets more playtime, but it seems like he can spot out and deliver passes at wide ranges. He might need to work on his defensive positioning and physical ability overtime and he will be a well-rounded midfielder. He’s an exciting player because the potential is there. Can’t wait to see him more on the field.
1 point isn’t too bad away, I’ll take that. But we need to find ways to get 3 points, especially at home. We won’t move up the table like this.
Another clean sheet and on the road, I’ll take it ! Add Insigne on the pitch, could’ve been 3 points
The entire midfield had trouble with it for 20 mins.
The quick touch stuff is risky as a buildup strategy. When it works, they overrun the cover and we get a break. But it gets coughed up way too often.
I was pleased with the effort last night. We were well organized defensively for the most part and we could have easily had 1-2 goals in the second half. We just need to start converting some of these draws into victories.
How much of that is that we're now okay with 'coughing' it up given that we seem to be winning the ball back more often and in better defensive positions more often than in the past?
Something that's become a trend is that we have one of the highest tackle %ages in the league and are in the top quartile in tackles not in the attacking 3rd. We've made the most clearances and are one of 10 teams not to gaffe one this year. I'm going to say it: Bob was right, our defense has been fixed.
There's no way coughing up possession outside our own box and hoping they don't score is part of any game plan. But yes, our defence can cover so much better now
I don't think we are though - for as 'good' as our aerial is supposed to be (which I think would be indicative of that pray we don't give up goals on crosses anymore playstyle), we take like the 3rd least aerial duels in the league. We're not just not coughing up possession anymore (that 28% possession game in Atlanta drags down our 49.1% average this year a lot), it's reflected in our passing short and medium.
It's simply a factor of both - we're both not giving up the ball and more tenacious when we don't have it.
We gave up maybe three pretty big breakaways that Nashville could have scored from by passing to them in a dangerous area. I am not buying any numbers that says we're not coughing up possession anymore. We might not be doing it alot, but we are doing it in dangerous enough areas which is far worse than consistently turning it over in the final third. A better team scores off at least one of those turnovers yesterday. That isn't part of a game plan and isn't something that just isn't happening, it's something we need to (and I'll assume are) work on as we can't keep getting away with it, better teams will punish us
It's a solvable problem, it may even be something we never see again, but we can't pretend we didn't all see it yesterday
Now, our progressive passing is dogwater and we certainly are one of the most set-piece heavy teams in the league, but we're also playing with placeholders at striker.
But we're creating as many as we give up and that's kind of MLS for you. Usually the absolute best teams can't play perfect matches consistently so it's about minimizing damage off poor play/giveaways. ATM we're doing that decently and that's more than we could say in a few years.
Unfortunately, the first part there just isn't true over the season so far. Our xG per 90 is .91, our xG against per 90 is 1.48. That's the 4th worst differential in the league so far - MLS xG (Expected Goals) | FootyStats. So we are just not minimizing damage or gaining more from attack than we're losing so far
Now, I haven't seen xG for last night but I'd be shocked if we didn't outperform Nashville, so it certainly was true last night. But overall, we are definitely not executing a gameplan that is creating as much as we're giving up, we're very far from that and likely actually overshooting our performance with our points earned so far (in other words, we've been a bit lucky to gain the points we've gotten, we're 9th highest on over performance of xG so far which can be misleading but that's definitely in line with my 'eye test' assessment too)
Basically this team has problems but they are solvable (And some of the own half turnover stuff perhaps somewhat excusable, if you're being kind, with a pretty new team still gelling) and Insigine coming back will change things completely, but we have to be realistic about what we've seen so far.
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 04-09-2023 at 11:01 AM.
What I was happy to see was Bob willing to go to the bench at 60 minutes (not counting the McNaughton at half since that was a forced change compared to an adjustment sub) rather than waiting until 80th or so or not at all being locked into his original XI. Would've liked Sevania to stay, but at least he's willing to go earlier now. (Granted it does seem like he's a bit locked into his subs and it's always Sevania + Kerr/Akinola who come off, while the rest stay on every game)
Last edited by rydermike; 04-09-2023 at 11:33 AM.
I think it's kind of telling that even though we're trying to setup in their end, most of our run-of-play chances are coming in transition.
I wasn't referring to XG. I was referring to creating turnovers as was mentioned in the post I responded to.
I watched the part of the first half I’d missed live and came away less impressed. However, basically I’m encouraged. Previously, in the matches I saw, it wasn’t possible to play as we did in Nashville: to play to not make mistakes, to play with care while also playing still higher, getting better as the match progressed.
Yes, it’s MLS, there will be mistakes and even glaring mistakes but overall we seemed to play within ourselves. I think we’ll be less ragged in the final third when we have guys playing there who belong there. But even so, over the course of the match, we sorted out a way of making Bernie count.
Not only a clean sheet on the road but that clean sheet didn’t look much in doubt toward the end of the match. We had 60% of the possession, and were unlucky not to score in the last ten minutes. Willis was hot and made some good saves.
MB didn’t have a good match but his mistakes seemed to come in clusters. Interestingly, when Coello was subbed on, he played more as a 6 briefly with MB playing higher and things were quite secure. I think this is a valuable configuration to use on occasion. If Coello continues to play well and MAK plays as he did last night I can see the case for a somewhat fluid and interchanging midfield 3. Micheal was never really a 6 and his offensive stats are still excellent.
Nashville coach whining about an offside call that Apple + didn't think was even worth being part of the replays...Nashville didn't score on the play.
All you need to know about their manager.
SO...why this song?
Because against Nashville, the first goal (cut) usually wins
MAK with a pass completion rate of 96.2%, that was the highest of ANY player to attempt at least 110 passes in an MLS match since 2010.
If I was him, I would be doing the fingers in ears and eyes closed celebration towards the haters right now
As a certified 'hater', if he can keep up this rate of play, it'll shut a lot of us up but we know that's the problem. We know he's good, we know he's got the potential, but we also know that for every 96%, there's games where he has like 8 unforced errors, with 4 of them being very noticeable on TV.MAK with a pass completion rate of 96.2%, that was the highest of ANY player to attempt at least 110 passes in an MLS match since 2010.
If I was him, I would be doing the fingers in ears and eyes closed celebration towards the haters right now
He has looked better the last few games. Here's hoping it continues.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
The thing is Bernardeschi is coughing up unforced errors at about the same rate as MAK does when he is off his game and they're just as bad/noticible but he gets a pass. Realistically, pretty much everyone has looked bad at some point in this regard. Osorio has had some real ugly moments for sure.
The hater criteria isn't always based on actualities here. MAK will always have haters as we moved Priso for him & paid $1M in GAM. I expect him to 100% take over the MB rage for being total shit when MB retires no matter how good MAK plays from now on.
I was down on MAK and also was impressed by the Nashville eprformance and would love to see him keep it up
But this comparison doesn't make sense. You can't compare the amount of giveaways of two players and then say that makes them the same. An attacking, creative player who scores, assists and creates chances a at a higher rate than anyone on the team will naturally have turnovers. That's the nature of high risk:high reward play. A central mid fielder who is far less creative should not have the same amount of giveaways on square passes that aren't advancing the play, that's high risk:low reward. Messi gave the ball away much more than Busquets, that doesn't mean Busquets was a better player.
It's not that one 'gets a pass' because of some bias, it's that they're two completely different situations. MAK *was* turning over the ball cheaply and needlessly, and it was hugely detrimental to our play. Berna does it, too, but it's not needless and part of a strategy that gets us goals, they aren't the same thing
Now saying all that, MAK looked way better in that area recently so if all that's behind us then awesome, hopefully we can see that LAFC player we wanted to get in the trade
Half the time Bernadeschi coughs it up it's in the middle third as he has dropped back to get touches. He is giving it up cheaply in the exact same areas as MAK. I am not counting him working around the opponent's area, that stuff is tricky and expected to not come off. I am referring to plays like at Nashville when he made a seriously poor sideways pass near the centre line and just gave it away. He does track back hard for it when it happens but if he is dropping deep in midfield then the same rules apply for whoever is there because if it goes the other way for a goal against it doesn't matter if a winger or a CM gave it up, it's still a GA.
He's great in the final third but detrimental defensively and in the buildup. We'd be better just playing him as a striker.
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