MLS - July 30 - Montreal (Away)
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
Stats can be a little misleading sometimes, but not tonight. It was just bad: MTLvsNYC 07-30-2022 | MLSsoccer.com
But hey, if we can escape with a point on the road in a game like that, I'll take it any time. I just hope there aren't a lot more games "like that."
But hey, if we can escape with a point on the road in a game like that, I'll take it any time. I just hope there aren't a lot more games "like that."
so far it's a weekend where teams who normally don't score that many this season racked up a ton of goals and teams who normally score a lot, couldn't. philly the exception. i think those other high scoring thrillers kinda sucked all the goals out of our game. the soccer gods made it so!
Lots of thoughts on this one. I'll start with the positive:
Justin Haak settled in nicely as the loan pivot. Lots of good to takeaway there, but I think he is still a CB long term. Martins and Callens are settling in. I thought Malte has found nice form. Gray played one of his better games last night.
Montreal now has the blueprint to beat us. Since we don't have a hold up player up top (Heber was AWFUL last night), just press us high and turn us over. We can't go over the top. Our subs were putrid. Andrade is playing the wrong sport. Acevedo has one nice ball but was poor otherwise. What does Jasson do well besides drawing fouls? He had one cross where I had to rewind a little and make sure it wasn't Gray. Montreal forced our play to the right and completely shut us down as that was the side of Gray, Acevedo and Jasson. We couldn't link up play that meant no space for Talles Magno.
If Maxi is out for any protracted length of time, that would mean we go into the tail end of the season without our 3 best midfielders from last season - Sands, Parks and Maxi - trying to defend our title.
This team needs help either up top for how we play, or in the middle for how we play. I can live with Heber for the remainder of the season, but then you need to put players underneath him that can put it on his toe in front of goal. Otherwise, we are going to struggle.
Justin Haak settled in nicely as the loan pivot. Lots of good to takeaway there, but I think he is still a CB long term. Martins and Callens are settling in. I thought Malte has found nice form. Gray played one of his better games last night.
Montreal now has the blueprint to beat us. Since we don't have a hold up player up top (Heber was AWFUL last night), just press us high and turn us over. We can't go over the top. Our subs were putrid. Andrade is playing the wrong sport. Acevedo has one nice ball but was poor otherwise. What does Jasson do well besides drawing fouls? He had one cross where I had to rewind a little and make sure it wasn't Gray. Montreal forced our play to the right and completely shut us down as that was the side of Gray, Acevedo and Jasson. We couldn't link up play that meant no space for Talles Magno.
If Maxi is out for any protracted length of time, that would mean we go into the tail end of the season without our 3 best midfielders from last season - Sands, Parks and Maxi - trying to defend our title.
This team needs help either up top for how we play, or in the middle for how we play. I can live with Heber for the remainder of the season, but then you need to put players underneath him that can put it on his toe in front of goal. Otherwise, we are going to struggle.
heber is fine. with speed and 1v1 threats on the wings in magno/GP, and thiago as an in behind threat, we are fine up to. our problem last night was the midfield. montreal had two stalwarts that controlled the midfield and we had maxi and a haak. then acevedo and haak. just not good enough to win the ball and move the ball forward to the attack with any real consistency. once talles stepped into the midfield and we played with a double 6, we had more control of the ball but since it was a rag tag midfield still, it just wasn't enough to compete with montreal's seasoned and experienced midfield.
montreal's high press gave us issues just like any aggressive press gives us issues. this is nothing new. we have yet to show we can be so clean and quick on the ball that we can pass through a high aggressive press with no problem.
Agreed. I do think Morales’ absence, in addition to Parks and essentially Maxi, exacerbated the situation - but it still wasn’t good.
I’d prefer a CAM or an 8 over any other positions. Even if Parks returns, it is the progression of the ball that is most often lacking.
I've seen us be high-pressed before. I don't know if I have seen a team completely drop-off Johnson with the ball and man-mark every player on our backline when SJ had the ball. We were lost -- if Cushing did something to try to counter that, outside of stop playing it short, I didn't see it, granted it was an exhausting couple of days.
I'm okay with Heber as the starter but I think we need a backup that is a true number 9. Thiago doesn't move off the ball at all like a striker. He doesn't make diagonal runs like Taty, he doesn't drift into pockets of space the way Heber does. Once Heber went out the Montreal backline had nothing to track at all and it allowed them to help shut down the midfield.
That was a truly tough watch. My friends and family who aren't soccer people think all nil nils must be boring and point to their existence as a reason to not embrace the game. I'd say I have seen some truly entertaining matches that are end to end but finish nil -nil because of great keeping or someone hits the post or a defender clears off the line. This match was not one of them. I'm not ready to write it off as "We've been found out without Taty" or any such nonsense. For now it was a one off crap game away to a good team in front of a lively hostile crowd. If we produce nothing next Saturday against Columbus than maybe we can start to panic.
Heber isn’t a replacement for Taty. So if he IS the replacement this season, then you need a midfield that can play his runs off the ball.
No maxi. No Parks. No goals for Heber then.
Taty is like a one man pressure relief valve. Heber didn’t even try to hold up play. He can’t.
Yeah it was. We were pretty bad. It's not too often we turn in a performance like that. On the positive side, the problems were so glaringly obvious it's not like Nick and the staff have to diagnose a mystery.
So, Joe Tolleson jinxed us!
At the start of the game he mentioned that LAFC eclipsed us in Shots, but that by the end of the Montreal game, "barring an unusual catastrophe..." ......
We got a total of 2 shots, none on target yesterday.
Thanks Joe. Love ya, but... next time mentioned something else
At the start of the game he mentioned that LAFC eclipsed us in Shots, but that by the end of the Montreal game, "barring an unusual catastrophe..." ......
We got a total of 2 shots, none on target yesterday.
Thanks Joe. Love ya, but... next time mentioned something else
I'm willing to give this match a pass. I mean, we just lost our spark plug, ya know? Remember how everyone was doom-and-gloom when Cushing took over and we were not good for a few matches? This may be the same thing. Might take a few matches to settle in without Taty. Not at all disagreeing with most of the concerns about the midfield not being able to give Heber anything useful, but at the end of the day I was OK with a point earned by our defense. Let's see where we are at the end of the month.
While I appreciate the optimism and agree with the thought process, I do worry that the situation is not like for like. Without Taty we are missing *that* finishing touch. I just don’t think Taty can easily be replaced like Delia was by another company man who’s done this before at a different club, and has been groomed for quite some time for this position.
It seemed to me the lack of Parks and Morales was a bigger issue than the lack of Taty. It's not like we lacked good shots and smart runs in the final third. We lacked the ability to even get to the final third.
Yeah.
Let's first GET into the positions that we can say "we lacked quality shots" before we can talk about that! literally only 2 shots last game. Is that Heber's fault? Maybe? I don't know, but I also don't think so.
Exactly. This game had absolutely nothing to do with finishing or even the attackers IMO. We had two total shots. We had something like 44% possession. We bunkered all game and just hung in defensively.
First of all, Heber is actually scoring at a higher rate per 90 minutes than Taty was, and second of all, we were never able to get him any service. We've scored without Taty in the past, and we'll do it again. This was just a weird game.
