MLS - March 25 - Houston (Away)

[KevinJRogers]

View attachment 12625
That penalty call was sponsored by Charmin.

We were dogshit in attack.

I hope to have fun next weekend in Boston, because I expect to get drilled in Foxboro.

I think I'm glad I missed this one, which is something I never thought I'd hear myself say (ran into some technical problems and I was super late on some work). But I just checked the stats and it sure looked pretty ugly.

I take it we were toothless again.

 

[Gene]

April is going to be a bitch. . . . . @ New England, Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, @ Toronto.

May ain't gonna be any better.

 

[Kjbert]

Wait, we can’t score because we haven’t replaced our Striker?

I’m SHOCKED.

 

[moogoo]

yea magno was mostly ineffective tonight, but i don't think that was our biggest problem.

maybe it was going from 45F down to whatever houston is right now, but we looked sluggish. definitely made houston look like one of the most organized defensive teams in the world. we couldn't break their press with any consistency. martins, sands, and gray had the most touches on the night. got to the point where i was just waiting to watch gray make a bad pass to martins forcing him to run or reach for the ball cause it wasn't right to him.

olsen get the better of nick on tactics? maybe. no one looked good tonight except for martins and sands. Definitely out best tonight but that's not saying much. our midfield lost to their midfield. our wingers couldn't do anything. cufre and gray barely got forward. it was a master class from houston or we just sucked executing whatever game plan we had.

parks kept giving the ball away and then fouling someone and then throwing his hands in the air in disbelief that the whistle was called.
pellegrini couldn't stay on his feet to save his life.

very soft pen and a shitty way to lose.

gray giving us our first shot on target in the 89th minute pretty much says everything.

 

[mgarbowski]

That was terrible. M moogoo covered the reasons why.
I do think Houston deserves some credit for discipline. I don't think they did anything amazing, but they held their shape and never screwed up. When we had the ball in our end they pressed us, which we had some difficulty handling. When we (occasionally) moved it forward they went compact, and they never got caught in transition. But we never really made it hard for them either. Sloppy, dull and lifeless is no way to go through life. 4 shots?
Penalty call was softish, but not objectively wrong.

 

[BxLio91]

Damn good thing I missed the game then. I went out with my girlfriend and watched John Wick 4 instead and had a swell old time. I would have been pissed sitting through the game from what I'm hearing.

 

[canchon]

That was two hours that I wish I’d had back. Credit Houston for their organization defensively, but NYCFC made the game really easy for them as well by playing slow and never playing vertical or creating turnovers via high pressing.

If Sands is so key to the 6 then we need to have a third CB instead of playing Sands back at CB. Keaton also had an awful game including turning the ball over in his own 18 leading to the penalty sequence.

Also, through 5 games:
-zero goals via set pieces
-zero goals via penalties (yes you don’t control this 100% but can influence through attacking play)

Those two items are really hurting the team from getting results on a night like this when you just don’t have the passes connecting for the beautiful goal from the run of play.

 

[moogoo]

definitely have to give credit to houston. they controlled our wings and gave them little space. gabby barely got on the ball and when he did, he was mostly limited to going back to gray and you know it wasn't doing much then.

i thought morales had poor movement. he wasn't really breaking up plays and he wasn't really giving us much going forward. santi and parks did not combine much. everyone seemed to want to dribble the ball out and do fancy turns or cuts, which probably lead to a turnover half the time.

plenty of times where there was an opportunity to play direct to someone attempting to run in behind, but instead we go back or lateral. what happened to our progressive passing Sands? i can't remember a single progressive pass from him last night that was more than 10 yards to the wing or to parks.

also - did anybody think they did something to the grass and/or ball? some of our best dribblers (talles, santi, gabby) could not control the ball to save their life. there was one play where the ball was going out of bounds and talles was running to keep it in. he was essentially by himself. He saves the ball from going out and then proceeds to kick it out of bounds himself while seemingly stumbling a bit? If it was easier to scrub the apple TV replay, i would try to find it. but our twinkle toed talles and gabby were definitely tripping over the ball a lot last night.

ledezma looked pretty decent in his cameo appearance. so did jasson for that matter. it was probably due to it being the last 15 mins of the game, which changed houston's defensive shape, but jasson was able to dribble and beat his man several times to win a corner or put in a ball.

didn't watch the full press conf but based on the article, seems nick isn't happy either. ah well. onto the next.

also canchon we have a third CB in alfaro. i think the thinking was to get morales on the field. don't think it was a smart choice considering his lack of movement and sharpness on the ball.

 

[Davo15]

It’s funny how pretty much every poster on here and every journalist that covers mls knew that we needed to sign a striker .

 

[adam]

As I've been spluging all over the net

Interesting turn of phrase. Want to share with us what websites you’ve been spluging to?

 

[Gene]

Oh my. Did I say that? Heh, I meant saying. That's right, "saying". Heh. Yeah, saying.

 

[moogoo]

i think i've figured it out. if anyone other than Parks smiles in the team photo, we don't play well. This needs to get talked about in training.

 

[FootyLovin]

.2 xG.

.2!!!

That isn't a striker issue. At least not only a striker issue. I have a bit more patience. But at some point you are your record. If we are this, then either our talent is much worse than we think. Or our coaching is failing. Badly.

 

[Kjbert]

.2 xG.

.2!!!

That isn't a striker issue. At least not only a striker issue. I have a bit more patience. But at some point you are your record. If we are this, then either our talent is much worse than we think. Or our coaching is failing. Badly.

Is there a position on the field right now where we are better than we were 5 months ago?

 

[FootyLovin]

Is there a position on the field right now where we are better than we were 5 months ago?

Arguments to be made for LB, RB, Dmid.

 

[VernonJohn]

.2 xG.

.2!!!

That isn't a striker issue. At least not only a striker issue. I have a bit more patience. But at some point you are your record. If we are this, then either our talent is much worse than we think. Or our coaching is failing. Badly.

If we have the talent, then coaching has to be questioned.

Maybe at half Cushing should have asked himself, “ What would Rooney do”?

 

[moogoo]

Is there a position on the field right now where we are better than we were 5 months ago?

sands is a better dmid than morales. though morales has more progressive passing ability.

ilenic, so far, is an upgrade on gray. just wasn't available for houston

cufre , so far, i'd say is on par with what otoole gave us.

i read a bit of the press conf article. seems cushing is blaming the poor performance on poor decision making. how does that happen for nearly every player and for an entire 90 mins? i think that's a coaching problem.

talles may be getting more comfortable playing a 9/false 9, but he's still not a good one. we need someone dangerous who can and will run in behind AND we have to be willing to play that ball. I think the only person who played that ball vs houston was barraza. Lost count how many times I saw santi dash in behind only to frustratingly watch the ball get passed back or square.

 

[Kjbert]

Arguments to be made for LB, RB, Dmid.

Haven’t seen enough from Cufre yet. Ilinic not better than Tinnerholm.

My vote was also Sands replacing Morales.

 

[SoupInNYC]

I would somewhat argue RW because you'd imagine Pereira would improve YOY but so far this year he's been incredibly meh so it's also kinda hard to argue that.

 

[moogoo]

I would somewhat argue RW because you'd imagine Pereira would improve YOY but so far this year he's been incredibly meh so it's also kinda hard to argue that.

question is whether his form is because of (1) his own drop in form (2) gray being even less supportive as a rwb (3) less space created w/o taty and maxi controlling spaces and drawing defenders (4) teams taking more notice and planning against him (5) some combination of the above.

i think the talent is there and he will improve. but as a whole, the team kinda feels like they're slumping after a slight boost from getting sands and santi back.