Is all the Answers
******
Have at It People
Is all the Answers
******
Have at It People
Well, sky's the limit right?
NYC look no great so far, gave up that late goal vs. Portland, so maybe they're in for a rebound performance. Ot maybe they're just shite.
Hopefully Richie will be back.
Bandbox stadium this braintrust and a lot of the team have never played in - everything I've read is you have to experience this at least once to understand the angles & the lack of space.
I think we struggle in this match.
I absolutely hate watching games played in Yankee Stadium. And I gotta agree with OG, the narrow pitch is something that will be a big adjustment for a lot of players. It might also call for a more narrow formation.
So...the last time we played in Yankee Stadium was 2021 (New Jersey last year & Queens in 2022)
An eventful very "TFC" game...including a delightful bit of Moulinho. The only 2 players from that game still on our roster are Richie & Ayo.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/competitions/mls-regular-season/2021/matches/nycvstor-05-15-2021/
Last edited by OgtheDim; 03-10-2024 at 09:00 AM.
If we can get a point and no injuries that's a win for me.
1-0 Insigne 80+ minute winner incoming
NYFC have been pretty awful so far. Real demoralizing lost to the Timbers on the last kick of the game this week.
If we beat them at home, they'll probably sack Nick Cushing. He's felt like he's been hanging of for a while now.
Doyle’s column this week is more interesting on NYC than on us:
“Here are the postgame remarks of New York City FC midfielder Keaton Parks, as reported by the Blue Balls NYCFC Podcast:
“I think we have a lot of young guys that don't know how to play for results. … We need to grind out [expletive] results and not just bask in one-goal leads and [expletive].”
Yeah… it was that kind of match for the Pigeons on Saturday afternoon, in which they got a 1-0 lead early and turned it into a 2-1 loss very, very late against the visiting Portland Timbers. NYCFC are one of just three pointless teams – no wins, no draws and three losses in three games. Santiago Rodríguez’s 10th-minute goal in this one is the only time they’ve scored all season.
Here’s the story in two graphs. First, possession in five-minute intervals:
NYC - POR possession intervals
That’s NYCFC coming out of the gates with more of the ball, which they used to take the early lead. By the 25th minute, however, it’s the Timbers who are getting more of the ball, tilting the field and beginning to control the game.
For some teams that’s ok. Nashville, for example, love it when they take an early lead, because they will always trade field position and ball possession for room to counterattack. The more of the ball you have, the more dangerous they become. It’s hard-wired into their DNA.
NYCFC have never been built like that. And you can see it in our second graph, which is the Attacking Momentum chart provided by Sofascore using Opta data:
NYC - POR attacking momentum
(Confusingly it is NYCFC represented by the green bars and Portland represented by the blue bars).
There is no counterattacking threat here. As NYCFC give up more of the ball they get less and less dangerous, while being more and more vulnerable. Head coach Nick Cushing compounded this by taking an attacker off for a third deep-lying midfielder with 23 minutes to go.
Here are Cushing’s words on the decision to make that sub.
“We weren't intense enough in those moments, especially when the ball's coming into the midfield with Keaton Parks and Andrés Perea,” Cushing said and, uh, yeah – that’s the manager and the starting central midfielder, one of the longest-serving guys on the team, sniping at each other in the press. “That's why we put Justin Haak in, just to get more competition, get more competitive in the middle of the field, because I actually don't think the game was overly tactical.
“I think when we pushed them back and put them under pressure, they kicked the ball long. But when we sat and we weren't aggressive and we were a little bit passive, they played through us and we're not at our best when we do that. You can see in the first and the second half we're not a team that plays passive and waits and plays on counterattack. We don't do that very well.”
As mentioned above, he’s definitely right about that last part. But as the momentum graph shows, it was basically all Timbers all the time in the second half. Including and maybe especially after the sub.
I’m not going to say the two goals at the end were inevitable – I thought the Pigeons would hold on for a point – but they weren’t at all undeserved.
Cushing has now been in charge for 67 games. NYCFC are collecting 1.20 ppg during that span, which is significantly lower than any of the three previous head coaches in the Bronx, and a pretty substantial disappointment given the outlay across the last two transfer windows.
Portland’s outlay has been nothing close to what NYCFC have spent, but they haven’t much needed it so far as they’ve got seven points and eight goals through three games. Even so, help is on the way as they’re reportedly putting the finishing touches on a deal to purchase center forward Jonathan “Cabecita” Rodriguez from Liga MX giants Club América.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/orlan...rom-matchday-4
Wasn't in the lineup that game, for some reason.
Here's the game day thread for that match
http://forums.redpatchboys.ca/showth...=1#post1934613
(Hmmm...I gotta start creating a spreadsheet of what I've done in the past for videos)
Some of the thoughts on that thread about Ayo are...prescient.
Last edited by OgtheDim; 03-11-2024 at 08:33 PM.
My takes were as good as ever in 2021.
"Caldwell almost cried when he had to say that Auro was preferred at CM to Ralph Priso."
"Dwyer and Mullinho could be the greatest strike duo of the modern era. Atleast the most violent"
There is a lot of unease going around social media with NYCFC fans. They have already started calling for Cushings head. I hate playing on that narrow field. I think that NYCFC's mental state is too fragile right now and we grind out the win. Berna breaks through this game and we take a 2-1 win back home
Also, Richie tweaked his hamstring again and is out for at least two more weeks.
On the upside, Kobe played decently in his limited time. He doesn't offer much going forward but he's defending well.
We get Chris Wittyingham for announcer. Former NFL radio guy who has been doing Spanish MLS since 2017 but now does English as well. The resume does not suggest a deeply engaged footie guy.
We're going to lose Osorio and Flores for the Atlanta game on March 23, so it would be good to get points in this one.
IIUC, may be worthwhile to consider that ATLUTD likely could lose more from a selection of…
‘Slisz, Lobjanidze, Giakoumakis, Almada, Hernandez, Abram, Gregersen, Wiley, Fortune, and Cohen’.
Oh, that would be much better. We might even be better off in that circumstance. Depends on how well Longstaff plays as a six, I guess. Given that he grew up in the English system, which is highly tactical from quite early, it's quite possible he's a like-for-like replacement, as it's all down to speed of read in that position.
Giakoumakis is a world-class striker, he really is. Double digits every year, league leader in Holland, Scotland now MLS, and not by small margins. Watch the dude; he's a positional machine, absolutely clinic finisher. If he was slightly bigger and faster, he'd be at Man City. I'm not convinced he shouldn't be in the Prem anyway, despite not being a specimen.
Giakoumakis is the exact type of striker I'd love our front office to get
Richie confirmed out for three weeks, hammy. Johnson out for another week, also hammy. Kerr back but not fit enough to start yet.
I wonder if the long muscle stuff at this time of year is temperature-change influenced, with the more extreme shifts from outdoors to indoor training causing ligament issues.
Herdman presser
https://www.torontofc.ca/video/lates...-march-14-2024
So far, players called up seem to be:
Luis Abram (D, Peru)
Giorgos Giakoumakis (F, Greece)
and Oso plus Flores for us.
Should be interesting how Herdman will respond with Oso and Flores gone.
I’m thinking it might be Coelo and Longstaff in a double pivot. Not sure that either of those guys can be Flores but also they’re not especially 8s or 10s (though more ten than eight?)… all the same I can see Longstaff further forward of the two more often.
^
Likely. However, Herdman may slot in Longstaff upfront for Osorio’s role with the Italians while inserting someone else, perhaps Rosted or even sliding Gomis in for Flores; in that latter case, if not Rosted in the back three, then maybe Mabika sees the pitch?