This Team Is Lost

3 games in, 6 shots on goal, 0 in the last game.  Not only is this team not good on offense, it appears to be getting worse.  On Saturday night there appeared to be no plan, no strategy, just an effort to get the ball towards the San Jose goal and hope that somebody makes something happen.  Well, not surprisingly, nobody did.

We'll quickly touch on the defense this game, which was actually pretty good.  They only allowed 4 shots on goal and those were largely hit right at Yarbrough or were long-distance low percentage shots.  Unfortunately one of those long distance shots went in, and even then it needed a deflection off of Acosta and Yarbrough still got a hand to it but couldn't keep it out.  You could certainly blame Acosta for not stepping up to the ball a bit more aggressively but otherwise you have to tip your cap and say they got the break they were looking for.

Now on offense, its a different story.  There's not a person healthy on the roster right now that anyone in MLS should fear.  I love what Yapi is showing, but he's not a threat yet.  Our wingers have been non-existent.  Ronan has looked good, but hasn't shown himself to be a threat in front of goal.  Cole Bassett seems to have come back not with a chip on his shoulder but with an inflated ego.  He seemed more interested in being annoyed with his teammates than trying to score in San Jose.

To show you how ineffective our attack was, our best xG in this game was 0.2.  From Andreas Maxsø (Yapi was second at 0.14).  That's the second time in two games that a central defender has had the best xG (Abubakar had 0.39 against Seattle).  In comparison Barrios has 0.42 and Nicholson has 0.30...for the whole season.  Million-dollar signing Cabral has a whopping 0.0 so far.  Yapi's 1.23 xG leads the team after 3 games.

There's just no cohesive attack.  Until that's fixed teams will just absorb what little pressure we can put on without any concern.  It appears the attack this season is fully dependent on Diego Rubio, which is poor strategy and poor roster building.

Man of the Match: Andreas Maxsø.  As mentioned he had the best chance at goal, and he led a pretty good defensive effort.  In a game where nobody did much of anything, that stands out.