Alarm Bells should Be Ringing!

 

If you read my season preview you'll remember I ended with:

 I would expect to have a handful of games this season where we start on the back foot and never get off it.

Well, Saturday was the first of those games.

While the stats showed we played Austin fairly even, the actual game didn't reflect that.  Expansion Austin FC imposed their will on the Rapids, especially in the second half, and showed to the league all the weaknesses fans were concerned the Rapids had entering the season.  The 3-1 score line was maybe a bit generous to the Rapids given what we saw.  Hopefully we'll look back at this game as the worst game of the season for us and we'll bounce back to a better level of play, but so far through two games we're not seeing much to give us hope in that outcome.

Random Thoughts:

• Captain Jack with yet another dead ball assist on the Rapids goal.  Which makes you wonder why we played a short corner later in the game.  Price is arguably the best free kick taker in the league (at least as far as setting up shots, there are better players to shoot on goal from a free kick), why take that out of our arsenal?
• We're going to break down all three Austin goals.  On their first Namli turns it over in midfield but the Rapids have the threat contained, or should, as its 6 Austin attackers against 7 Colorado defenders, plus Yarbrough.  Acosta makes a bad choice to leave his man and go to the ball, then leaves his feet just as the ball is being passed to his man.  Suddenly a controlled situation is now a dangerous one.  The open man is unchallenged to the endline, causing all the Rapids to crash to the near side of the goal.  The ball is crossed in front of a sliding Rubio(?) and Rosneberry does a weird half-volley clearance which disrupts the shot from the Austin attacker but the ball runs past the far post to the wide open Austin attacker that Rosenberry left.  Easy tap-in past Yarbrough.  Trusty and Wilson were non-factors in defense, didn't do anything wrong but weren't in a position to help either.
• On the second goal Rosenberry plays a ball out of the back to Bassett on the sideline.  Bassett then flails around and misses the ball, letting it get stolen easily.  The Rapids, in transition upfield, are now caught flat-footed.  Despite that Wilson does a good job closing down the ball and actually makes a good play to knock the ball away.  A bit of bad luck strikes though as the ball goes right to Rosenberry's man who Keegan overran, which allows a strike to the far post, while Yarbrough was partially screened by Rosenberry.
• On the final goal a simple forward pass ends up being hit either by the Austin attacker with a nice flick-on or by Rosenberry with an unlucky bounce (really hard to tell which one of them got the touch), but either way the ball gets put right into the path of the attacker on the right sideline.  Lewis got caught ball-watching a bit which allows the cross to the center.  A half-bad touch/half pass puts the ball back on the original attacker's foot, who has no pressure from Rosenberry and the shot deflects of Wilson putting Yarbrough out of the play.
• You'll notice one name keeps coming up over and over in those descriptions.  Rosenberry had an awful night.  Maybe the worst he's had as a Rapid.
• That said, there was some bad luck too, Austin got some lucky bounces on their second and third goals.  But the second should never have happened, sloppy play by Bassett set it up.  The third, well, sometimes luck just isn't on your side.
• The core issue we saw in this game though was our paper-thin midfield.  With a middle triangle of Namli, Bassett, and Price we aren't stopping anything.  That puts the backline on their heels all night.  The first move is to get Acosta out of the LB spot and back into midfield, to give us some bite.  Bring back Kelly from Phoenix if you have to but we can't afford to put Acosta on the back line any more.
• After that, we probably have to strongly consider pushing Namli back to the wing.  He's too much a defensive liability at the 10 spot without a true enforcer behind him.  Let Bassett take the 10 role and move Barrios to the left.
• I'd also start Shinyashiki over Rubio at this point.  Rubio has done nothing so far this season but fall down and cry to the ref.  Partially that's because or weak midfield is forcing everyone to drop deeper to get the ball, but Rubio has not shown anything to claim a starting spot.
• Shinyashiki also had one of the most honest comments in postgame:

"It seems to be a theme with us. We talked about it since last year – when we give up one goal the floodgates open and we give up two or three and it happens consistently with us. It’s something that we have to change. It’s the mentality of not conceding the first one, but if we end up conceding the first one, it’s [about] pick[ing] up our heads, just [doing] better so we don’t give up the second or the third. It happened way too often last year and in 2019, too, so just something we have to get better at.”

• He's right, it is a pattern.  The Rapids give up goals in bunches far too often.  Its a flaw that should have been fixed by now and its mental, not technical.  Fraser needs to earn his salary and figure it out.
• Next up a trip to Sandy to play a Vancouver side that has looked good beating Portland and drawing TFC.  This is a team that we expect to finish ahead of, we can't drop more points. 

Man of the Match: Auston Trusty.  I know that sounds weird after the defensive lapses we had this match, but he didn't have any of them and played well.  His distribution in particular was good.  I say let him start next to Abubakar when Lalas gets healthy.