Gomis stops a lot of crosses but he's not quick enough without a defensive minded LWB.
Franklin has some good qualities that will make him a good MLS player, but he might be the last guy you want in that position.
Give them credit, there has been no quit tonight.
There 3rd goal was a classic "get to the post no matter what" goal - we haven't had a guy do that since Jozy in 2017.
how much money does thompsons parents pay TFC to put him on the field. I know were short of players but man I can't wait for us to build depth so that guy can be the 5th string sub or given an opportunity elsewhere.
Its not a good look when you literally don't have a role or an identity, and your only skillset are- i'm gritty, put my head down and will accept whereever I'm told to play (sorry edited*, was being distracted while typin lol). At this point he's put out there as a placeholder so that we don't go down a man when we need to take ppl off for fitness reasons, he's providing minimal attacking or defensive value in any role he's throne in lol
Last edited by FiveThreeTwo; 04-13-2024 at 08:27 PM.
Selfish….
Well, we shot ourselves in the foot again.
Good effort, Owusu and Bernardeschi both played great.
Coello and a few bad calls, and we're leaving with three.
So 3 defeats in a row 11 against only 2 for in the last 3 games , no Long next week the disaster continues not to long before last place overall is in sight , what a mess !
Too many passengers, not enough drivers.
Someone tell me again what Osorio brings to TFC in 2024? Rode the coat tails of a great team during our run. Sorry not captain material and definitely not DP worthy. Another Altidore signing for what was done in the past, not looking at the future . Need to restructure his contract if possible.
i can hear herdman now....the leadership group really put in a shift tonight
And he wouldn't be wrong.
That's a game we deserved to draw, and in fact should have won. We were undone by two individual errors for the first goals, and an inexplicable MLS trademark referee call on the build up to the third.
Such a frustrating game. This should have been, and deserved to be, the 'grind out the result when everyone shows up to stop the rot' game. It is what it is. But I'm actually encouraged by the performance, given whose out. We aren't great and we aren't pretty, but that's a good away performance that deserved a result. The team absolutely showed up today.
Starting to worry about Sean Johnson, though. That's two games in a row with mistakes leading to goals. Hope it's post injury rust and not a sign of him losing a step, as he's been rock solid for us up until now.
The first goal was an uncontested shot from the very top of the box, on a hard angle into the lower corner. Johnson would have had to be 7'8" to have saved that.
Coello gave away a cheap one, and no one contested the first shot. The last goal doesn't happen if the ref blows the two fouls on Long, seconds before.
Given that Long's first yellow shouldn't have been a card, maybe they can appeal it.
Either way, points lost, but mostly because Coello, once again, played a stupidly dangerous pass.
His reaction to it was pretty damn poor, too.
Oso and Johnson both played fine. Oso was quite good around the box at the end.
Bernardeschi and Owusu played their socks off. Longstaff was alright, Flores was good. Gomis looked a little unsure but couldn't have done anything about that shit pass.
Can people who think Oso was crap tonight explain what they saw to come to that opinion?
i dont want to shit on herdmans parade but dont look now 8 pts from 8 games last season give up 8 goals,this season 10 pts after 8 giving up 10 goals in the last 3 games.and most of them are school boy mistakes.
Johnson’s positioning on the second goal looked kind of whack. He was sliding all the way over to the near post leaving the angle on the far post overly open. Of course you cover near post first but usually guys will edge in just a little so they can cover more of the far post angle knowing they can stick a foot or a hand out quick to cover part of the near post space. Not the reason we lost but starting to look at him a bit more for signs of decline.
I thought they fought hard and perhaps deserved a bit more. But some of the usual shortcomings continue to hold this team back.
Once again, Bernardeschi was so much more effective as a wingback, concentrating on creating service for others.
I'm really not down on the performance, just the handful of small mistakes that cost us points. We really did get sort of jobbed; there was a point where they kicked the ball away and DIDN'T get a yellow, even though Osorio got one for the same thing earlier in the game. HE looked apoplectic over it. Long was mugged several times with no whistle, Bernardeschi was hacked and didn't get calls.
I'm sure he missed some on us, too. Shit job, generally.
For whatever it’s worth, I was out at a bar tonight and after discussing with just under a dozen folks the general sentiment was split between a) I can’t believe he’s a DP (not good enough to warrant it). b) He sure does throw his hands up and complain about his teammates a lot for a captain, and c) this is Bradley 2.0, he’s gonna play a whole lot more than his play warrants.
I thought he was OK.
I thought he had a mixed bag. he didn't play particularly well in the first 60 mins, but his last 30 when we were playing with some desperation were great.
The one really optimistic note from tonight is we tried actually putting some dangerous low balls into the box and got two goals out of it. That should give them some confidence we can actually score goals. Now we just need to stop leaking them.
This Osorio hate is pretty unwarranted. He's shoe-horned into a role we all know isn't his best position and also one that nobody else on the team (who is healthy at the moment) would do better at. The midfield wasn't able to advance the ball yesterday with any sort of effectiveness. Players who were further up the field, like Osorio rarely got a pass in a good position. Really, we missed speed in wide areas to balance out the field and that made it difficult for Coello and Flores to operate. But also, you can see the limitations in the game of each of these guys as they can be pressed into bad passes / decisions when they have limited time on the ball. Osorio's slightly overpaid, only a DP because TFC mismanaged its cap space and had to sign the designation to him.
Re: JMR. I appreciate his wing play was one of the catalysts for us getting back into the game in the 2nd half but someone has to sit him down and get him to adopt a more aggressive "adult" mentality out there. His play sometimes feels sort of whimsical and aloof. You're playing against men now, if you want to win a challenge you have to go in with intensity, if you want to be effective I the attacking 3rd you need to be decisive, and when you receive the ball you should already have an awareness of what you want to do with it without having to pick your head up and looking around for 3-4 seconds. He should be past this by now after several years with the first team. Our youth coach sucks.
It’s not Osorio hate it is a fact that he is a poor leader, if he was just a midfielder Osorio would be better, look at his body language on the field, shoulders drop, arms waving around and chewing out his teammates when he screws up just as often, have you listened to his team talks, no inspiration or drive. Oso just be a decent player, not a shitty leader which translates into a shitty player.
I argued when they named him that he doesn't seem the type. Wears his feelings too publicly and usually not when they're positive.
Still doesn't, not really. But none of our players do, other than maybe Sean Johnston or Kevin Long.
We have a generally petulant feel. It's cropped up a few times in this three game run; Coello's attempt to shirk blame after the pass was a good example.
I thought Osorio generally played well yesterday, though.
I think it's really hard to define leadership based on what you see on the field, and the clues we look for, imo, are mostly theatrics. Screaming and shouting looks good, but does it actually do anything? Messi is a great leader, his teammates seem like they'd follow him into war, but more often than not, he's not out there screaming and chest pounding. When he wore the captains armband, Xavi was a great captain and leader, but again, you're not gonna see him running around pounding his chest, or trying to take the ball off a defender and just charge directly to goal. That doesn't make him a bad leader. Granted, these are players, naturally, you can't compare to Oso, but I'm just trying to say leadership can mean more than the guy red in the face screaming, which is mostly the extent of what we can find and define as good leadership. There's many, many examples of successful captains winning trophies left and right who are not that type.
I've no idea if Oso is a good captain, but it's just to say, it's impossible to know. What we look for - the theatrics, to me, don't matter, and with the wrong player in the wrong team can be counter productive.
It's what Herdman wants him to do, is he out there keeping the team to the game plan? It's how he shows up for the team in the locker-room, is he a bridge between the players and management? Can people talk to him, is he out there mentoring and leading in the training ground, putting his arm around people who need it, keeping the team together? Can the team look to him when the chips are down, and know what he's going to do? Do people respect him, and want to work with him, and follow his instructions or example? It's so hard for us to know as we just don't have enough information. To me, he's played quite decently in the last couple of games, but I'm not sure what leadership people are looking for specifically.
Given it's hard to define leadership by looking at it from the stands, I'd try to look at the outcomes I'd expect from either good or bad leadership. To me, the locker room from the outside looking in looks to be in the best shape it's been probably since 2019. I do see a team, a flawed team, but I do see a team showing up for each other. I see a managers game plan being followed. I see players heads not dropping, and us continuing to play well and stick to our guns even during a bad patch. I see a team that should have ground out a really good result yesterday, and deserved too, despite a starting XI that is not a particularly strong one. To me, that's the result of leadership, so I don't look at this team in general and think it lacks leadership. I could name 50 problems before I'd get to that, personally, which says to me Oso is probably at least doing an adequate job.
Again, not saying he is a good leader, just, I don't think we have anything close to the information needed to tell.
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 04-14-2024 at 10:53 AM.