The problem with Ofori is that he doesn't like to tackle or disrupt. His passing was better as an 8 than a 6, but he doesn't crash into people and imposes his physicality like Herrera does, so we lose some bite with him at 8.
This was my main takeaway from the match - Ofori's style of defense is to try to make a tackle or nip the ball away. He never takes the player whereas Herrera generally tries to use his frame to get his shoulder in front of the attacker, shield the ball and move it along. I feel like this is crucial for us when it comes to recycling possession after failed attempts to penetrate the 18. Against Portland, they would recover the ball and work it through our midfield far too quickly, so it was really difficult to sustain pressure and find gaps in their low block. We missed Herrera's physicality but maybe Ofori's better passing (small sample, but 91.7% pass completion vs Herrera's 84.4%) would have been more beneficial with more cunning forward play, or if Ofori was able to be more direct with the ball. Is it still a rust / confidence thing? He's a guy with an interesting skillset, but it's getting harder to see where he fits into our team, and clearer that if one of Ring or Herrera go down, we don't have another physical option to play in there.
I'd love to see Portland's defensive shape from a wider angle, but it felt to me like they were actively pushing us wide, a pretty common 4-4-2 defensive shape. Atletico Madrid do this really well. At that point, our best shot would be to switch the ball quickly, but we were letting ourselves down hard with individual skill issues.
Since Portland were overloading us in wide areas, we needed our central midfielders to pull closer to the lines and help move the ball out of those overloaded areas. This didn't happen, even though we had a spare man in the center. Also, playing through the middle didn't work because Berget and Wallace aren't really clever in and around the box. We needed someone like Medina in the middle to combine with Villa and our midfielders. As I think others have said, having two hard working, high pressing forwards doesn't make sense when your opponent isn't interested in keeping the ball.
Turf isn't an excuse, but we just can't seem to get to grips with the surface at all, and when you combine turf plus congestion, you end up with a game plan that seems horribly effective against us right now.
