The caveat is that it was against a mediocre (being generous) DC side totally reliant on Benteke for goals, and he went off early in the first half. So I'm not getting too excited by our admittedly good--but not winning--performance.
MLS - May 14 - D.C. (Away)
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
Even with the disappointing result, I came away feeling encouraged by the improvement as well. Our finishing was poor, but at least we were getting shots off and creating chances. That’s a big step up from our usual "zero shots on goal" performances, especially considering we did it without Parks. Pascal can’t magically make wingers finish, but I thought he made some smart tactical choices that led to productive offense. Generating chances without Parks is something we were never able to do under Cushing, so this felt like real progress.
Swap out Fernandez for any decent caliber MLS winger, and I think we win that game by at least 2 goals.
ZYanksRule
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We were good in possession and build-up, but terrible finishing. Unfortunately, I can't call the team good when they waste so many opportunities. It's been the story of the last 3 seasons. If our striker can't score, we don't score.
"Good" to me means we were better than our opponent -- and we were -- but when our opponent is as terrible as D.C. United, I'm not celebrating being better than one of the worst teams in the East. They are atrocious, it's no wonder they had friends and family only in attendance.
The system was genuinely interesting. Defensively, it was a solid back four of Gray, Martins, Haak, and Risa. But in possession, things shifted: Haak stepped into the midfield, Risa tucked inside to cover as a center back, and Tayvon didn’t overlap in the traditional sense, instead, he pushed up and operated more like a deep, inverted winger. This created situations where Haak and Tayvon acted as pivots, allowing Shore and Perea to push higher into the box and help overload the final third.
In defensive transition, it looked like Wolf had clear instructions to track back aggressively and cover the left back spot until Haak could recover and Risa could slide back out wide.
It was a dynamic, flexible setup, far more creative and nuanced than anything we saw under Cushing. It’ll be interesting to see whether this becomes a consistent system, especially if Risa keeps starting at left back, or if it was more of a one-off tactical adaptation. The setup seemed to demand strong coordination between Haak and Gray: when Gray pushed up on the overlap, Haak had to stay disciplined and sit deeper. We did get caught out a few times when both Gray and Hakk went far up the field, and a more capable attack than DC could punish us for that quickly.
People are quick to criticize Wolf for his limited offensive output, but his work rate was crucial. He covered a ton of ground to make the system function, especially during defensive transitions. Without that effort, none of it would have worked.
Good analysis. Was this an adaptation to compensate for no Keaton parks? Or if not, how does Parks fit into this tactical system?
Well, that depends on the portion of all shots that were shots on target. Shots off target (including those hitting the post) all have a positive xG and a psxG of zero. So, if too many of your shots are off target, all those zeros can drag your psxG below your xG.
It also appears that FOTMOB have revised their xG numbers. See below for our shots and the latest xG from the site.
It did position both Haak and Gray in spots where they could provide Parks like progressive passing. Gray had at least 2 very impressive line splitting passes. But my guess would be that it was less about Parks and more about Pascal wanting a setup with a LB who can actually defend and something that allowed the CMs to push further up the field.
I think this works with Parks and O'Neill in place of Shore and Perea. It lets them push forward to support the attack more, which each is very capable of.
The question for me is if a team like Columbus can counter quickly with dynamic passing and just slice it apart as we are trying to shuffle everyone back into their defensive spots.
I also noticed in the second half when Risa had the ball deep in the LB spot, they started trapping him because they knew he couldn't dribble past them, because he has the ball skills of a CB.
Maybe I don't understand the statistic. Agreed that any shot off target has a PSxG of 0. But a shot could be from a great position with only the keeper to beat with an xG of .5 let's say. If that shot is dribbled slowly straight to the keeper the PSxG could be pretty close to zero and much less than the xG while still not being the zero it would be if it was off target.
I also thought this was less about having no Parks and more about wanting more defensive skill than we have with either Cavallo or KOT. I also thought it was interesting that we started a backline of 4 CBs against a team that wants to cross the ball into Benteke.
I wonder if Risa and Gray come out for Ilenic and Cavallo if Benteke were still in the match.
We have seen the inverse already with Keaton in the 4231 dropping in between the two CBs in the defensive third.
