Rapids Winless In 4

Another game, another late goal conceded, another loss.  In our last three losses in this four game run all of them had the winning goal conceded after the 70th minute.

While there's certainly blame to go around on both of Vancouver's goals we have to talk about the goalkeeping.  On the first goal Steffen completely misreads the cross on a ball he could have come for.  Instead he allows it to bounce in the 6-yard box with nobody around it.  Travis didn't see his man behind him, but Steffen still gets beat near post after the misread.  On the second Maxso steps up away from his man but Vines and Keegan don't, leaving he man onside.  Steffen gets the ball but not enough, then is slow (as is Vines) to reacting to the potential to still save it.

Steffen is the 4th highest paid keeper in MLS.  He has to make those saves, at least one of them.  The keeper is always going to be asked to come up big after a defender has made a mistake, that's practically the definition of the job.  The last few weeks Steffen hasn't.  From Matt Doyle' weekly recap column:

They’ve conceded 13 goals in those four games, and while I’m not pointing the finger solely at Zack Steffen, the bad data’s starting to pile up: in American Soccer Analysis’s database, which goes back to 2013, Steffen’s got the worst shot-stopping marks – by a mile – of any ‘keeper with more than 1500 minutes in a season.

To put it into perspective, Gallese’s giving up 0.30 more goals per 90 than he should be. No one in the ASA database has even gone +0.40 or worse. Steffen, right now, at +0.55.

 More on this during the international break, but keeping is a problem and its been a fairly consistent issue under Padraig Smith and Fran Taylor.

Credit should be given to Kevin Cabral, who made a nice off-ball run to free up the passing lane for Mihailovic's goal.  More and more I think Cabral just needs to be move back a bit more into a true mid spot instead of an attacking winger who's expected to score.  He can do a lot of the midfield work really well, he just can't shoot.

We're now at the midpoint of the season and have two weeks off to get some things figured out.  We need to get our defense focused for 90 minutes and get better performances from our keeper, while on the other end keep allowing Mihailovic and Navarro to round into form.

Man of the Match: Djordje Miihailovic.  Not only did he have the goal but he was dangerous throughout the game.  We're finally getting DP-level play out of him.