That was bad soccer and they should feel bad about making us pay for it.
General impressions:
- Backline of Riley - Burling - Watts - Moor. Pablo, WTF are you thinking? Only Dallas' woeful shooting saved us from a loss.
- Moor was not the captain, Cronin was. Moor was played out of position. That worries me.
- Drew Moor was listed at left back but was playing as a third center back to clean up Watts' mistakes.
- So glad we went out and got Doyle signed and got him here early so he could spend 225 of the last 270 minutes of play on the bench.
- Then when Doyle gets into the game Pablo moves Powers to the outside. Once again it proved that Powers needs to play in the center.
- Serna. Should. Play. Every. Game.
- The Dallas keeper deserved a time-wasting yellow. He did not deserve that time-wasting yellow though as he literally could not get a ball from anyone. Poor decision from the official.
- Clint Irwin badly botched the Dallas goal and I'm sure he knows that. Nobody's perfect all the time.
- This team doesn't look like it plays together during the week. We see great individual skill and teammates who aren't expecting it.
- Pablo didn't make a tactical change last night. All his subs were like for like, the formation didn't change, and the style of play never changed. He didn't coach the team at all beyond keeping an eye on fitness levels. He is not a coach.
- We now need to play at 1.63 pts/game the rest of the way to even think about the playoffs.
- #PabloOut
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1 comment:
Alright... I can admit when I'm wrong. I don't like it, but I can admit it.
So, the other day you and I had a conversation about Pablo, and whether he should remain as coach. Then he goes and does this. Is he intentionally trying to make me look stupid? I think he reads your blog and didn't like my comments about his mustache. It was gone by game time by the way.
The lineup and subs in this game made very little sense. Moor at left back?! I can understand resting Harrington, but you can't tell me that Moor is a better fullback than Burch. Where was Shane O'Neill? In my opinion he is a far better option than Watts, and he just had a great tournament in France. Last season Moor and O'Neill played really well together, now O'Neill isn't even making the bench? Other than that, I was OK with the line up. As you know I'm not a big fan of Pittinari so far, so I am OK with him sitting for Sarvas. But, when Doyle came in they should have moved Solignac to the outside instead of Powers. He spent most of the game drifting out there anyway. What does it say about our team when our best play down the left side came from our lone striker? Unfortunately he wasn't in the middle to get on the end of his own crosses, and neither was anyone else.
I'm not sure why Solignac is getting the start over Doyle. He has played twice as many minutes, and has the same number of goals..ZERO! I wasn't real stoked about the signing of Doyle to begin with. In his prime (4-5 years ago) he only averaged a goal every 6 games, not exactly prolific, but since we spent the money we should probably play him. He's never going to integrate into the team from the bench, so play him from the start and let him figure it out. If he's not 90 minutes fit, then Solignac can come off the bench. Solignac may respond to the loss of playing time as well.
I came away from this game with the exact same feeling as the Portland game... if Dallas (Portland) was a decent team, we would have lost by 3 or 4 goals. We maintain pretty good shape on defense, but when we get the ball no one is getting into dangerous positions. They're not finding empty space to play in, or creating space for their teammates. When the forward drifts outside no one is getting forward to make themselves available for the pass. No one is making follow up runs, so who ever is up top is all alone, and has no outlet pass available.
At least we didn't play long ball all game long again!
This team has the talent to compete for a playoff berth, and it's not too late. We are only 7 points out with 19 games to play. But, they need to come together as a team. You can see the effort and urgency from individuals, but they seem to lack that team unity. For all of Mastroeni's talk of mentality, they don't seem willing to put it all on the line for one another. They aren't fighting to be in position to help one another. You would think that they would be getting pissed off at not getting full points, especially at home, but they seem resigned to poor results. Is that lack of mentality, or lack of tactical preparedness, or both?
You're right that something has to change. I'm still not ready to say that it is the coach, as I really want Mastroeni to succeed. But things really need to turn around pretty soon. We can't go into every season playing for high draft picks.
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