Our injury, suspension, international duty list is absurd.
RB Postmatch
- Thread starter NYCFC_Dan
- Start date
Here's the post match reactions we got from the locker room (Sweat, Lopez & Lewis).
Defensively, we did an amazing job but really struggled with our passing accuracy not just after recovering possession but in making it stick in their half. Several times, Harrison, Wallace or Villa were in and we failed to find them, which meant we spent a lot of time pinned.
I think this is part mental and part tactical. PV said at half time that we needed to be braver on the ball, and I wouldn't be surprised if we were just a bit shook and hesitant. Tactically, RB had a massive overload in the center all night. Their two "wingers" are very narrow on D, so basically Littlefinger, Muyl and Davis are spreading Ring and Lopez while Filthy Felipe is minding Maxi and their wingbacks cover Rodney and Jack. Every time we turned the ball over, Littlefinger would waltz into space, pick up the ball and turn. That's when their wingers become wingers again, or run at our wide backs so that their wingbacks can overload us wide. It happened time and time again, and I think we only survived due to a combination of grit and luck.
Lopez is getting a lot of stick on here, but I think he did fine. He doesn't read the game all that well and he lacks a bit of quality, but the coaching staff have done a massive overhaul on his game. I thought RJ was decent too. As much as White has improved, there's no way he drives the ball up the field to make that play to Villa so that he can lay it off to Maxi for the goal. RJ is often the wrong side of the line between physical play and a foul, but I thought his push on BWP was just on the right side, and he was really unlucky on the penalty. I think Kljestan thought he was getting booked for a dive.
Apart from the key calls, the refs were also blatantly wrong on so many throwins, goalkicks and free kicks that I think it low key changed the complexion of the game. Probably worth 5% of possession.
Overall, a massively gutsy performance, a fair result based on balance of play and a dropped 2 points on a shitty call even though we were lucky to be up. Kind of a weird one. I'm still concerned about how we fare against 3 ATB teams, because I'm not sure how much longer we can rely upon epic performances to make up for (IMO) being tactically outmatched. Also I was absolutely paggered so I'm curious how other people feel about my "analysis".
ETA: Massive props to the traveling support. More or less constant energy, lots of variety. The instant response after RB equalized was clutch. It was a great day out
I think this is part mental and part tactical. PV said at half time that we needed to be braver on the ball, and I wouldn't be surprised if we were just a bit shook and hesitant. Tactically, RB had a massive overload in the center all night. Their two "wingers" are very narrow on D, so basically Littlefinger, Muyl and Davis are spreading Ring and Lopez while Filthy Felipe is minding Maxi and their wingbacks cover Rodney and Jack. Every time we turned the ball over, Littlefinger would waltz into space, pick up the ball and turn. That's when their wingers become wingers again, or run at our wide backs so that their wingbacks can overload us wide. It happened time and time again, and I think we only survived due to a combination of grit and luck.
Lopez is getting a lot of stick on here, but I think he did fine. He doesn't read the game all that well and he lacks a bit of quality, but the coaching staff have done a massive overhaul on his game. I thought RJ was decent too. As much as White has improved, there's no way he drives the ball up the field to make that play to Villa so that he can lay it off to Maxi for the goal. RJ is often the wrong side of the line between physical play and a foul, but I thought his push on BWP was just on the right side, and he was really unlucky on the penalty. I think Kljestan thought he was getting booked for a dive.
Apart from the key calls, the refs were also blatantly wrong on so many throwins, goalkicks and free kicks that I think it low key changed the complexion of the game. Probably worth 5% of possession.
Overall, a massively gutsy performance, a fair result based on balance of play and a dropped 2 points on a shitty call even though we were lucky to be up. Kind of a weird one. I'm still concerned about how we fare against 3 ATB teams, because I'm not sure how much longer we can rely upon epic performances to make up for (IMO) being tactically outmatched. Also I was absolutely paggered so I'm curious how other people feel about my "analysis".
ETA: Massive props to the traveling support. More or less constant energy, lots of variety. The instant response after RB equalized was clutch. It was a great day out
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Yeah! We would have done so much better with the human traffic cone in the middle trying to break up the counters when RB forced a turn over. But that's PVs fault too he should be warping the whole team around Pirlo so he can stand around and pull strings at the back while being completely protected on defense. Why stop with PV adapting the formation, the league needs to mandate that the high press is no longer allowed, teams must play like Serie A, back off and give Pirlo all the time he needs on ball.
I know you're being sarcastic, but I think there's a decent amount of truth here.
a) I don't think that the problem is the press,
b) with as many injuries and suspensions as we have, it's astonishing that somebody of Pirlo's quality is riding pine.
I don't get to see how he fares in training, but it's difficult to believe that we would have had such a hard time getting the ball through midfield if he was there to break the lines in a way that frankly Maxi, Mikey and Ring just can't. Would he be much worse than Mikey in D? Probably a little worse. Where Mikey has recovery speed on his side, Pirlo reads the game so much more astutely. You might argue that the game wasn't very readable last night, but that's at least partially because of how poor we were with the ball, which may not have been an issue with Pirlo in there.
I agree the Lopez sucks argument is lazy. Yeah, when compared to Ring or Herrera he's woefully less skilled but that's why he's a backup. Lopez needs to be evaluated against the role PV has defined for him to get the most out of his skill set. Watching him you can tell he's been instructed to focus on 2 things:
1. Get in front of the ball on the counter, contain it and slow it down. Don't try to win the ball, stay in front, slow things down and let the team recover into their defensive formation.
2. When you have the ball on offense make the safe pass to an open teammate, if you can't find them go back to the defenders.
That last two games he's executed both tasks very well. Does it hurt us to have a CDM that can't help with link up on offense, of course. Does it hurt us that our CDM doesn't have the skills to be a ball winner and needs to be instructed to be a ball container instead, of course. Did we have a better option to slow RB when they win the ball with their press, I don't see one.
I agree Pirlo reads the game as well or better than anyone on the team. In the normal run of play Pirlo's positional awareness makes him considerably better defensively, even with his limited mobility, than most are willing to give him credit for. But none of that helps when RB wins the ball with the press and starts the counter. Despite my sarcasm, stoked by the unending insistence that all the poor Pirlo performances we've seen are because PV is too stupid to know how to use him, I think Pirlo should still be seeing time for us. But I don't want to see him against the 6 man (7 if you you count BWP with how far he drops) RB press on the giant field at RB arena. The loudest Pirlo advocates are very clear on the conditions he needs to excel:
1. Time on ball to operate
2. High work rate ball winners on each of his flanks to protect him
3. Highly skilled offensive players up top that can consistently punish opponents by getting on the end of his passes into space should the defense decide to gamble and press him.
RB will never allow #1, Ring can be one of the #2 but Maxi cannot and we need more than Villa as a solution to #3 to make it work. Play him at YS against SKC on a the small pitch with a team that doesn't run the highest octane press in the league. Against RB with the options we had I'll take Mikey slowing the press over Pirlo wonder passes every time.
We are second in the Shield standings have played ZERO games with our Best XI. Even our vaunted midfield trio, who I think many would consider one of the best in the league, has played all of 5 games together. Not saying we are the deepest team in the league, because we are obviously not, but we do have depth. Its just currently running thin with how crazy our luck has been with suspensions and injuries.
Great post. I think we're seeing the situation more or less the same. I think Pirlo is fine under pressure – it's a cliché, but the best players always look like they have a ton of time on the ball. My concerns are mostly with his lack of recovery speed when we turn the ball over.
So who would have you played instead of Lopez? Also what are you referencing when you complain PV won't change the formation to get our best players on the field? I admit that I assumed your multiple posts complaining about Lopez playing, PV's tactics and the ridiculous swipe at Villa for being invisible are all driven by your opinion that Pirlo should be starting, if that's not what you were suggesting I apologize for assuming.
My suggestion was to move Harrison back into the midfield and play Lewis up top.
Although, yes I do believe Pirlo would have been a better option than Lopez that wasn't even my go to and nowhere in the pre and post match did I even mention Pirlo once
It was the correct choice to start Lopez. We can cry about roster makeup, but this is the team we have and nothing is changing that until the offseason. Players like Mikey, RJ, and White will be on our roster until the academy kids are ready for minutes. If we had even a replacement-DP level central midfielder instead of Pirlo and T-Mac hadn't regressed the way that he regressed this year, our depth issues in the midfield would be a different story. But its not and we don't have the allocation dollars or the cap space this year because we spent it on Ring, Wallace, Chanot, and Lewis.
We tied a playoff team and biggest rival on the road without our best centerback, without our best fullback, without our best box to box midfielder and only let up 1 goal on a very soft penalty. Come on.
We tied a playoff team and biggest rival on the road without our best centerback, without our best fullback, without our best box to box midfielder and only let up 1 goal on a very soft penalty. Come on.
Maxi is my hero. Start at 3:50, watch his reaction at 4:19
Also at 11:45, you see the missed handball call. It's 100% a handball. We're continually being fucked by the referees with these bullshit yellow cards and garbage like this. It's a systemic problem.
Also at 11:45, you see the missed handball call. It's 100% a handball. We're continually being fucked by the referees with these bullshit yellow cards and garbage like this. It's a systemic problem.
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I'll add to
derek_villa that White's injury probably screwed up the planned tactics and subs. I wouldn't have been shocked if we went with Shelton and Okoli after Lewis if we didn't burn one on RJ.
Edit: I'm and idiot- Shelton wasn't on the bench.
derek_villa that White's injury probably screwed up the planned tactics and subs. I wouldn't have been shocked if we went with Shelton and Okoli after Lewis if we didn't burn one on RJ.Edit: I'm and idiot- Shelton wasn't on the bench.
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Shelton didn't make the 18 but yeah. Okoli, and Lewis had been warming up since halftime.I'll add to
It's not the result I'm upset with. Overall a draw wasn't a bad result. It's how we looked out there. Especially when I believe we had the tools for the capacity to achieve more.
If you think Mikey Lopez can be a hybrid player for you why not Jack Harrison who is bounds a leaps a more skilled player. All while Lewis has proven himself more than capable up top.
If you think Mikey Lopez can be a hybrid player for you why not Jack Harrison who is bounds a leaps a more skilled player. All while Lewis has proven himself more than capable up top.
Has Harrison ever really been effective for us in the middle? I know we have tried it in a couple of games this season, and I thought he was invisible in those games. I know it's a position he has played in the past, just don't think he has been great there for NYC.
Also, he hasn't been great at this best position for the past few games, how good is he going to be moving into a less practiced position.
Would he have been better then Lopez? Maybe, but I think that is up for debate
I don't remember what game it was but he played CAM for us and he was amazing
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