Home - Nycfc V Philadelphia - 04/16

[Sabo]

Not enough talk about the positive impact poku had on the game last night. Very dynamic in attack and defense. Makes some rookie type mistakes but i loved the way he attacked their defense. KWS had another disappointing game. He comes in and our defense weakens every time. We were the better team both games and walked away with 1 pojnt instead of 4 or 6. Disappointing.

 

[doctorhoosier]

If I had to guess I would say it was as close to a diamond 442 that we have played all year when we started, but the second half was really weird. Second half looked like this to me:
----------------S--------
--------W----KWS--W---C
-------------Jacobson-----
Ballouchy--Poku-----Shelton
----------Grabavoy------
-----------Nemec---------

Grabavoy was way, way up the pitch most of the game. I like Grabavoy, but unfortunately, with Mix out, he's the most technically gifted midfielder we have.

The problem is that he can't play direct due to his size, but we need him up the pitch to play that final ball. But we can't get the final ball to him because our fullbacks don't contribute at all to the attack, and our deep midfielders are technically weak (with the exception of Mix).

This is a personnel problem that I don't know will be fixed before the season is over. When we're at full strength, Mix, Ned, Fatty, and Jacobsen can work (even if Jacobsen is more of a destroyer and less of a distributor than you need in the diamond). The problem is that we aren't even playing at full strength *now,* and we're only six games into the season.

 

[FootyLovin]

From whoscored.com

Top rated: Saunders (Calle top outfielder)
Lowest rated: Villa

Most Key Passes: Ballouchy 4
Shelton with 4 unsuccessful touches

Jacobson 6 tackles, 7 clearances
Williams and Wingert both had 8 clearances

Calle had 11 crosses, no one on the team had more than 3

Windert led team with 91% passing and 7 accurate long passes

Wow. If Villa is our lowest rated and Ball Ouchy is our best passer then I know very little about footy.

Also, did anyone else see Shelton miss a golden opportunity to draw a red card against the Philly keeper in the first half? With a little more experience I think he would have cut his run a bit closer to the keeper who left his feet. Shelton could have dragged a foot, gotten tripped in the box and given NYCFC a pk and a man up for 60 minutes.

Not faulting him for it. But I think with more experience that's a play he would make.

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

Wow. If Villa is our lowest rated and Ball Ouchy is our best passer then I know very little about footy.

Also, did anyone else see Shelton miss a golden opportunity to draw a red card against the Philly keeper in the first half? With a little more experience I think he would have cut his run a bit closer to the keeper who left his feet. Shelton could have dragged a foot, gotten tripped in the box and given NYCFC a pk and a man up for 60 minutes.

Not faulting him for it. But I think with more experience that's a play he would make.

Ballouchy had at least two chip shots that sprung Shelton that I can remember.

 

[whill4]

Hopefully the 4-3-3 is here to stay. Even with probably the worst midfield of the season the pace was much quicker, and this foreign concept of wide play was finally realized.

Villa-Mullins-Shelton
Mix-Jacobson-Poku
Calle-Wingert-Hernandez-Williams​

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

So, based on Kreis comments about being nastier out there, who do you think listened the most?

For me, it was jacobson and wingert

 

[Vito]

What was the formation we played with last night?

First Half:

Second Half:

 

[PeteDahhSneak]

If I had to guess I would say it was as close to a diamond 442 that we have played all year when we started, but the second half was really weird. Second half looked like this to me:
----------------S--------
--------W----KWS--W---C
-------------Jacobson-----
Ballouchy--Poku-----Shelton
----------Grabavoy------
-----------Nemec---------

Did Jacobson look better because of the formation change?

 

[mgarbowski]

Blaming CFG for Villa's injuries is like blaming Villa for Sapong's goal.

Given the number of games missed due to injury/international duty, the fact that this is an expansion team that has yet to play 10 games together, the fact that FFL is coming, the possibility that we pick up a 3rd DP over the summer and my belief the Kreis will not settle for this team stinking, I find it hard to believe that we will be anything less than mediocre by season's end.

Yes and no. I won't hound them specifically for Villa's injuries because star DPs tend to be older and so nagging injuries are an inherent risk. But they're fully on the hook for him being the only DP. They chose to defer Lampard in the most ungainly way possible, and they've also chosen not to sign a third DP to date. Which means that they chose to put the team in a position such that we've played without any DP's a substantial amount.
I'll also grant that on the third DP absence it's hard to judge whether that is a good idea. We don't know why.

• Do they ave a plan to get someone when the European seasons end?
• Have they tried to sign someone and failed?
• Are they just conserving cash?
• Is there someone awesome potentially coming next season and they want to keep the spot open?

We don't know, end even if they bring someone else in midseason we won't know that that was the plan all along. And that's reasonable; I don't expect them to make all their plans public. The problem is that when it comes to things kept confidential they've given away all claims to good faith benefit of the doubt given how they lied about signing Lampard last summer and never, ever owned up to it. So all I have to judge them on is what happens on the field, and that leaves "We've played 6 games, and of those 1.5, or 25% have been without a single DP."

Finally, FWIW, I always had lower expectations for this team the first year than what I would consider the online consensus. I'm not surprised at the results so far, although being -5 points based on late game goals is a disappointment, and hopefully more of a random cluster and not a symptom of worse.

 

[PeteDahhSneak]

Not enough talk about the positive impact poku had on the game last night. Very dynamic in attack and defense. Makes some rookie type mistakes but i loved the way he attacked their defense. KWS had another disappointing game. He comes in and our defense weakens every time. We were the better team both games and walked away with 1 pojnt instead of 4 or 6. Disappointing.

I think the only reason why people aren't mentioning Poku more is because -- well, we already knew he was capable of that and should be getting more minutes!

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

Did Jacobson look better because of the formation change?

It didnt look positional to me, he just looked like a force tackling all over the place

 

[Sabo]

I see Poku taking Jacobsons spot not Grabavoys. Jk should have more confidence in that move with Mix on the field for defensive cover

 

[FootyLovin]

I'll also grant that on the third DP absence it's hard to judge whether that is a good idea. We don't know why.

• Do they ave a plan to get someone when the European seasons end?
• Have they tried to sign someone and failed?
• Are they just conserving cash?
• Is there someone awesome potentially coming next season and they want to keep the spot open?

We don't know, end even if they bring someone else in midseason we won't know that that was the plan all along.

I don't think it even matters if they have a "plan" or specific players targeted. If they didn't see a player they wanted to commit to last summer for the 3rd DP slot, good for them for showing patience. If the right player is available this summer great. If not, let's wait.

I'd rather have them be patient than saddle the team with DPs who won't really help the team fly.

Lampard, of course, is totally on them. Nuf sed.

 

[Mack]

My grades:
Saunders: 6
Not asked to do much all game, one incredible save. May have been able to do better on goal. Couldn't see his angle.

Williams:5
Not doing much on offense, send a step slow on defense. May not be right since health issue.

Hernandez: 6
His usual steady shift. Obviously missed when he had to come off.

Wingert 5
Not comfortable at CB. Fiery leader on the pitch.

Calle 7
What a revelation to see a FB who can defend and help get forward on attack. Great defending.

Jacobson: 8
Best game from him by far. Looked like the beckerman type we need. Aggressive defending good distribution.

Ballouchy 5
Overall bad game, save for one nice lob to Shelton and the absolutely brilliant goal. How do you miss that sitter?

Grabavoy 5
Involved when he doesn't have to run, but is so slow. Actually played well for a stretch in the first half, then really tailed off. Is knocked off the ball too easily.

Shelton 7
Finally gets the start and shows why he deserved it. Great runs into the box, great assist pass to ballouchy. Faded with the rest of the team at the end.

Villa 6
Not his best game. Maybe trying to do too much by himself? Shame he had to come off at the half.

Nemec 5
Poor with the ball at his feet. But that is not his game. He excels at receiving the long balls and dropping it off to the rest of the team. Looked poised for a goal since we finally started getting some crosses in.

Subs:
Watson siriboe 4
Not a good game for the big guy. Out of position often. Cynical fouling. And missed the header leading to the goal.

Poku 7
Great to see him out there. Held possession and can dribble with anyone. Had a nice shot on goal.

Brovsky 5
Had a nice new haircut. Was that his man left unmarked on the goal? I don't know.

I think this pretty much spot on except I think a 7 is too high for Poku. Love what he brings to the attack but he lost the ball too many times to be rated that highly. Make no mistake though, that kid needs to get more meaningful minutes going forward.

I for one would much rather see Poku get the start. Calle has not shown me enough is his previous appearances to warrant another start. His overall work ethic is subpar at best and he shows zero ability or desire to defend. I recognize that he has talent but maybe he just needs a little more time to get acclimated to the MLS. I like what little I have seen of Poku and I think a month into the season that its time to at least see what he can offer us. No one ahead of him has put their stamp on the holding CM position in any sort of convincing fashion. Lets see what the kid can do. I'm also in favor of giving Tommy Mac a run off the bench. He created two legit chances in ten or so minutes he played against Sporting KC, which is two more chances than some of our midfielders have created all season.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Ha! That's a total of about, what, 400 words? Thats the back of a cereal box.

And you're comment on my content being garbage is fair, after all, I thought the same of what you wrote.

Especially the post below.

Yep. Looks like hyperbole to me. But you're the one with the dictionary.

 

[Mack]

Grabavoy was way, way up the pitch most of the game. I like Grabavoy, but unfortunately, with Mix out, he's the most technically gifted midfielder we have.

The problem is that he can't play direct due to his size, but we need him up the pitch to play that final ball. But we can't get the final ball to him because our fullbacks don't contribute at all to the attack, and our deep midfielders are technically weak (with the exception of Mix).

This is a personnel problem that I don't know will be fixed before the season is over. When we're at full strength, Mix, Ned, Fatty, and Jacobsen can work (even if Jacobsen is more of a destroyer and less of a distributor than you need in the diamond). The problem is that we aren't even playing at full strength *now,* and we're only six games into the season.

We had a very technically gifted midfielder named Tommy McNamara sitting on the bench last night. Anyone who watched him last season at Chivas knows he can play in this league. In light of the underwhelming performances of the other midfielders so far, I cannot understand why Kries hasn't given this kid more of an opportunity. I thought he showed enough in preseason and in his limited minutes against Sporting KC to get some more minutes. Only thing I can think of is that maybe he's still working on getting fully fit after the long injury layoff.

 

[PeteDahhSneak]

It didnt look positional to me, he just looked like a force tackling all over the place

Well we were discussing how I thought that was what he was excelling while you disagreed. Also, how we agreed his passing has been turrible. Can you speak more on that?

I haven't been able to watch any of our games outside of the NE/SKC matches I was able to go to because of work. I'm dying inside not being able to watch our players and Kreis both develop. Thankfully I'll be heading up for the match on Sunday.

 

[PeteDahhSneak]

Hopefully the 4-3-3 is here to stay. Even with probably the worst midfield of the season the pace was much quicker, and this foreign concept of wide play was finally realized.

Villa-Mullins-Shelton
Mix-Jacobson-Poku
Calle-Wingert-Hernandez-Williams​

I hope the 433 is here to stay too! I've been saying that it's my dream for us to play in that formation with that exact MF for a couple of weeks now.

 

[The Toe]

I actually thought Nemec had a good game last night. He's not going to do anything flashy, but he's one of the big reasons our possession was through the roof. He just somehow finds a way to make great passes with great touch -- regardless of ball placement. I can see his value. Also, it was neat seeing Villa play a bit farther back. He's so gifted, it's a better spot for him to get the ball. Hope he's healthy soon, but I'd doubt we'll see him on Sunday night. I bet Saunders wins save of the week this week, too.

 

[Mack]

I know it's been commented on a lot already but I have to give Calle his due on a very well played game. He really did a great job at left back last night. One on one defending was very solid and when he got forward he swung some good balls into the box. In my opinion he staked his claim to be the first choice left back going forward.

I also think Poku did enough to earn some more minutes in the coming weeks. I know he needs to work on his passing but I thought that he did more positives than negatives last night.