When All Else Fails, Change Nothing

From Thursday:

This will be a dour game between the two teams with the least amount of shots on goal this season.  In the end Vancouver has better players and will get a 1-0 win.

Which is exactly what happened.  After 5 losses and 3 straight shutouts though the Rapids decided to stand pat as the transfer window closed today.  They apparently believe that we have the talent we need to compete for the next 2 months before the secondary window opens.  Padraig Smith talked to the Denver Post about the decision:

“We’re not going to do anything,” Smith said of the transfer window, which closes Monday night. “We had a couple of discussions last week and over the weekend with a number of clubs, but nothing ended up working out in a way that we wanted. One of the challenges of this transfer window is that it closes while a lot of leagues are still playing. Teams aren’t quite ready to let players go, players aren’t quite out of contract.”

Smith is right...about the end of the window.  Of course the beginning of the window is in February and players can leave their clubs and join the Rapids in preseason training in January (they just can't play in a competitive match until the window opens). That's also when windows for most teams are open, which gives them a chance to sign a replacement.  That's why most MLS teams make their moves in the offseason, but the Rapids decided to just sign Boateng and call it good.  So its somewhat misleading to claim no that we can't find any teams to agree to the moves we need, since we wasted the prior 2 months of the window.

“We’ve seen a lot of games recently and a number of players we were watching repeatedly, but it’s just a challenge with those teams still playing and still competitive in their leagues,” Smith said. “A lot of this is geared toward making sure we’ve seen players multiple times before we make any move in July.”

You know, like trading for Josh Gatt,  Who had 0 games in 2017 before the trade, 6 in 2016, 1 in 2015 and 0 in 2014.  All due to his injury history.

“Everybody is very frustrated here, because at the end of the day, we’re here to win and that’s the most important thing,” he said. “We do see some positive things on the field in terms of how we move the ball, how quickly we’re moving it, the spaces and the positions the players are taking. Our ability to retain the ball and drive forward is better than it’s been in the past. But at the end of the day, we need to finish. We need to take the chances we’re creating. We need to score more goals. It is difficult to sleep, but we know the direction we’re going, we know how we want to get there. The key thing now is executing on that strategy.” 

The results of that strategy have gotten worse since the big trade.  We earned 4 points, scored 3 goals, and conceded 3 in the 3 games before the trade.  We've gotten 0 points, scored 2 goals, and conceded 9 in the 5 games since the trade (small sample size caveats apply).  We aren't close to executing on this new attacking strategy and from observing the game on the field it appears the players don't even know what the strategy is.

But, the Rapids brain trust has spoken.  We're going with what we've got for the next 10 games.  At the end of it we'll be just past the midpoint of the season.  To be on pace for the playoffs we need 20 points in those 10 games, which is ahead of the best pace we were on last year....