MLS - May 28 - Houston (YS)

[KevinJRogers]

Julian's horrible off-ball movement is killing the offense. The sequence that starts at 12:57 is a perfect example.

1. Gray wins the header, and Maxi settles it
2. Julian stops running and shows for the ball along the right sideline at midfield, even though Maxi has a multitude of better options, and Julian should be moving forward in the attack.
3. Maxi turns and hits Oniell, charging forward through the channel
4. The LB tucks in to help on Oniell, leaving a swath of wide-open space in front of Julian, but he's already behind the play.
5. Instead of trying to recover and sprinting into the open space the LB just vacated, Julain jogs behind the play, leaving Oniell no options on the right
6. Oniell then goes left to Wolf, who is forward in an attacking position
7. Wolf Passes to Shore, who beats his guy and is now driving along the endline, looking for the cross
8. Does Julian cut aggressively to the back post? Of course not, he walks to the penalty spot and stands there ball watching.

In the entire sequence, Jilian never moved faster than a jog and never put himself in a position to receive the ball in a dangerous position or act as a decoy that a defender needed to care about. It's like we're playing with one less attacker.

Juli just seems to lack instincts. I'm not sure any measure of coaching can overcome that.

 

[BxLio91]

Juli just seems to lack instincts. I'm not sure any measure of coaching can overcome that.

Warming the bench works.

 

[mgarbowski]

Warming the bench works.

I can only imagine how poorly Pascal rates Ojeda that he keeps giving minutes to Fernandez instead. Yes they play different sides but there is more than that going on.

 

[FootyLovin]

It was cool seeing Shore attempt some actual aggressive offense

Yes! The sequence gbservis described was a fantastic example. There's no way some punk teenager should be getting to the endline there. But he tap danced his way to within a few feet of goal. Really fun to watch that.

Also, it seemed that Pascal made a couple interesting switches this match. He often had Shore playing above Hannes. I'm not sure if they truly switched positions or if there was something more complex going on. But that was interesting.

And the configuration of Haak moving forward with Risa covering CB duties seemed to revert back to a more traditional setup after the OG. Was that a sense that it wasn't working? That Haak seemed tired? That the team was deflated and needed a different look? Hard to know.

 

[moogoo]

props to jansen for calling it like it is in the press conference and not trying to sugar coat anything. flat out said "we did not play well. we created nothing".

it is nice to have a coach that isn't trying to gaslight the fans constantly.

... if only Lee would do the same...

 

[Kenny]

props to jansen for calling it like it is in the press conference and not trying to sugar coat anything. flat out said "we did not play well. we created nothing".

it is nice to have a coach that isn't trying to gaslight the fans constantly.

... if only Lee would do the same...

Yeah and he said it wasn’t lack of effort, it was lack of quality.