Red Bulls (U.S. Open Cup) - Postmatch

[Jock]

It was painfully obvious that players were choosing not to pass to him - I don’t think they trust him at this point.

There was a play last night that really summed it up - can’t remember who made the pass, but it was he and TMac vs one RB along the left sideline, and the player led TMac perfectly and TMac never moved, didn’t anticipate the pass, and if he had there was an acre of space to run down with nobody able to stop him since the one RB player was evenly spaced between them & in no-man’s land with his back to where the ball went. TMac just stood there and watched it run over the sideline. That summed up his night right there.

This is daft.

If it "summed up his night" how do you account for the good runs, passes and tackles that he put in throughout the night. He was gassed by about 65 mins, but he has barely played. Tommy put in a decent shift for most of the game. Our best spells of play were when everyone was moving the ball around with two touches and he was involved in a lot of that. One touch to control with the left and another to play the pass with the right. He won headers, won tackles, made clearances, got in decent attacking positions.

Sure, he wasn't amazing, but no one was. Chanot had some good clearances but fell over on a couple of plays. Lewis had some flashes of brilliance but was mostly anonymous in the second half. Awuah had some blocks, but shocking passing. Medina has skill, but kept losing the ball. Even Stuver intercepted a few crosses but was missing at the goals.

If this picture was reversed and it was Tommy who hadn't squared for Villa, he'd be getting torn apart. Instead, because he was in a good position (shock horror) and didn't get the ball, it's somehow still his fault.

I know it's easy to rip on a fat guy with a mullet, but it's getting a little silly. We're all watching the same game and it shouldn't need others to point out what's in front of you.

(also, I feel as though, at one point when he had the ball in the first half and lost it, the NJRB fans all started to yell at him and chant fatty or something, it looked like he went inside his shell for a couple of minutes. I'll knock him for that. Gotta learn to deal with the shouts, big man)

 

[roxfontaine]

it's getting a little silly

It has been all the way ridiculous for quite some time now.

 

[Ulrich]

This is daft.

If it "summed up his night" how do you account for the good runs, passes and tackles that he put in throughout the night. He was gassed by about 65 mins, but he has barely played. Tommy put in a decent shift for most of the game. Our best spells of play were when everyone was moving the ball around with two touches and he was involved in a lot of that. One touch to control with the left and another to play the pass with the right. He won headers, won tackles, made clearances, got in decent attacking positions.

Sure, he wasn't amazing, but no one was. Chanot had some good clearances but fell over on a couple of plays. Lewis had some flashes of brilliance but was mostly anonymous in the second half. Awuah had some blocks, but shocking passing. Medina has skill, but kept losing the ball. Even Stuver intercepted a few crosses but was missing at the goals.

If this picture was reversed and it was Tommy who hadn't squared for Villa, he'd be getting torn apart. Instead, because he was in a good position (shock horror) and didn't get the ball, it's somehow still his fault.

I know it's easy to rip on a fat guy with a mullet, but it's getting a little silly. We're all watching the same game and it shouldn't need others to point out what's in front of you.

(also, I feel as though, at one point when he had the ball in the first half and lost it, the NJRB fans all started to yell at him and chant fatty or something, it looked like he went inside his shell for a couple of minutes. I'll knock him for that. Gotta learn to deal with the shouts, big man)

Sorry, but I stand by what I wrote. I don’t know if you were at the stadium or watching on TV, but I made a point of watching two players last night - Lewis and TMac.

Lewis was amazing every time he touched the ball and his lack of involvement in the second half was only due to players not switching the field to him - his role was a wide sided player that could be isolated 1v1 with space to attack.

TMac on the other hand was not very good. I don’t count 2touch lateral and back passing as effective touches to grade somebody, and when he went forward, he was indecisive and slow to react. Even when he was in a position to high press, he ran at half effort while pointing to where others should go, effectively giving the ball handler more time to react. When he was the captain at the end, and RB had a free kick at the top of the box, he was still walking back, not running or even jogging, with his back to the ball and the kick was sent to a RB player on their right side who had a free look and flubbed it. That display of walking during a FK was pathetic - he had the armband, he needs to lead by example and not hustling there is indicative of his typical play (walking and pointing).

I’m sure TMac is a great guy off the field, but when teammates appear wary to pass to him, it’s a bad sign.

 

[Jock]

That's fine, I get that. The two-touch stuff I'm talking about was not backwards. Off the top of my head, I can think of two moves he started close to our box - one that ended up in 5/6 players two touching the ball forwards for a chance and one other that went to Medina who turned, ran in to a pink cow and lost the ball.

But, you have to factor in the clearances, tackles and whatnot too. There was an incident about a minute in to the second half where NJ were passing it around our players and Tommy rammed in and took the ball, starting a move forward for us.

Yeah he was shit for about the last half hour, but our whole team collapsed.

Overall, I'd say he was a solid 5.5/6 out of 10 on a night where we had lots of 5s and some 4s (and maybe a six or two).

On two points - "Lewis was amazing every time he touched the ball" - including the time he ran towards the box and just fell over? Every time, yeah.... I'm just asking for balanced analysis of people's highs and lows during the game.

And I agree with your assessment that when people aren't passing you the ball, it's a bad sign. For me, this was happening in the Houston game. People weren't giving him the ball, and rightly so, because he was always unprepared and in the wrong position.

I just think overall he showed a little more of the old fat messi last night. Not enough to say he had a good game, but enough flashes that I think the mob mentality of "this guy's shit and always will be" is harsh.

 

[Jock]

but anyway

 

[EganSoccerWords]

Sucks we lost, but I guess I am resigned to not caring too much about the US Open Cup until we have a roster flush of academy talent and a USL team.

I said this in the chat, but needing to sport a team of players that never play vs team that institutionalizes the high press was a disaster waiting to happen. You can't expect Awuah or Lewis to step in after basically not playing for two years and be able to do anything. Awuah, Lewis, and our homegrowns need real game minutes in the worst way. Not having a USL team is hurting us once again.

Chanot played a hell of a game. SAS is ok. Sweat is sweat. T-Mac is a bench player.

Ibeagha had some nice performance in the beginning of the season, but I think the last couple of games has shown that he is a limited player. No way he should ever play the left side again.

 

[ManhattanValley]

On two points - "Lewis was amazing every time he touched the ball" - including the time he ran towards the box and just fell over? Every time, yeah.... I'm just asking for balanced analysis of people's highs and lows during the game.

Have you met NYCFC Forums?

 

[Midas Mulligan]

That's fine, I get that. The two-touch stuff I'm talking about was not backwards. Off the top of my head, I can think of two moves he started close to our box - one that ended up in 5/6 players two touching the ball forwards for a chance and one other that went to Medina who turned, ran in to a pink cow and lost the ball.

But, you have to factor in the clearances, tackles and whatnot too. There was an incident about a minute in to the second half where NJ were passing it around our players and Tommy rammed in and took the ball, starting a move forward for us.

Yeah he was shit for about the last half hour, but our whole team collapsed.

Overall, I'd say he was a solid 5.5/6 out of 10 on a night where we had lots of 5s and some 4s (and maybe a six or two).

On two points - "Lewis was amazing every time he touched the ball" - including the time he ran towards the box and just fell over? Every time, yeah.... I'm just asking for balanced analysis of people's highs and lows during the game.

And I agree with your assessment that when people aren't passing you the ball, it's a bad sign. For me, this was happening in the Houston game. People weren't giving him the ball, and rightly so, because he was always unprepared and in the wrong position.

I just think overall he showed a little more of the old fat messi last night. Not enough to say he had a good game, but enough flashes that I think the mob mentality of "this guy's shit and always will be" is harsh.

He is shit, though. Sometimes, the mob is just right.

 

[NYCFC_JD]

Now, we are 5+ years in, and here's where that approach has gotten us:...

This approach was obviously deeply flawed, and I'd argue symptomatic of the half-assed approach we've initially taken to most everything. CFG underestimated the demands of running an elite-level MLS club or at least the trajectory of the league. They thought they could walk in, flop their big hairy euroballs on the table and cash checks and collect trophies.
...
I'm so annoyed. I feel like if we don't change trajectory and timing of our plans (ie, steepen our growth curve) clubs like ATL and LAFC will blow by us within a few years. Ugggghhhhh.

AMEN. To your entire post.

My big fear: You're right, and CFG underestimated MLS and the effort they'd need to put in, and are being extremely, painfully slow to correct course.

My far bigger fear: CFG didn't underestimate anything, because they're exceptionally intelligent, well-resourced people who don't tend to screw up on accident. Instead, they just don't care all that much... It's not their flagship Man City. It's MLS. It's everything to us, but they're just here for a farm team. They want to make a splash here and there to keep the revenue coming in... but how much do they actually care? I'm not sure. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not being convinced otherwise.

 

[LionNYC]

Now, we are 5+ years in, and here's where that approach has gotten us:
1 - No homegrowns contributing
2 - No place to play our fringe/young players to allow them to develop and get live game minutes
and finally
3 - Still no stadium announcement.

If you claim to put everything second to a stadium, and you have no tangible progress on a stadium (and they don't, otherwise, we'd know. And no, I don't count having a couple of coin flips where you're in talks. Done enough smaller deals to know that a few "maybes" doesn't cumulatively equal tangible progress.), you have to re-evaluate and change course.

This approach was obviously deeply flawed, and I'd argue symptomatic of the half-assed approach we've initially taken to most everything. CFG underestimated the demands of running an elite-level MLS club or at least the trajectory of the league. They thought they could walk in, flop their big hairy euroballs on the table and cash checks and collect trophies.

Other than the utterly stupid delay on the academy front, which can't be changed, the question for me is why we aren't changing course faster. All of the money needs to be spent sometime, anyway. It's not like they have a capital issue where their cost of money is so high that they need to spread the spend. I know, I know. OPM and all. But still - just figure out a damn place to play our young/fringe guys.

I'm so annoyed. I feel like if we don't change trajectory and timing of our plans (ie, steepen our growth curve) clubs like ATL and LAFC will blow by us within a few years. Ugggghhhhh.

Nominee for Post of the Year. Truly. I do think now we see that we fucked up more in the beginning than just Kreis picking the wrong pick in the Draft of Drafts where we could have had Cyle Larin and Mix...

 

[Keith Putnam]

Atlanta has already blown by us. They did absolutely everything right.

For any of you with a subscription to The Athletic, which I would recommend getting, Will Parchman has just published an article about how seismic Atlanta's "get" of Tata was. https://theathletic.com/384439/2018/06/07/parchman-tata-martino-has-changed-mls-coaching-forever/

"“I didn’t know much about MLS,” [Almiron] continued. “I didn’t know where Atlanta was. I didn’t know anything. But Tata was manager, and that was all I needed to know.”

 

[Gotham Gator]

For any of you with a subscription to The Athletic, which I would recommend getting, Will Parchman has just published an article about how seismic Atlanta's "get" of Tata was. https://theathletic.com/384439/2018/06/07/parchman-tata-martino-has-changed-mls-coaching-forever/

It’s a good article and the Athletic has really been ramping up their soccer coverage.

 

[SoupInNYC]

Getting on here and wading through all the criticism (which I'm not disputing) as I really wasn't able to watch the game last night. Two points and a couple questions:

• Question: I've seen mention of Sands' pass, but not much more mention on how some guys looked. How did Sands and Scally look? I know they came on in the second half, but any thoughts?
• How did Chanot look? Obviously we gave up 4 goals, so that's not good, was he at fault (mostly or partially?). I'm really curious as to what's going on with him and if we should have him back in the XI over Ibeagha.

 

[SoupInNYC]

I just think overall he showed a little more of the old fat messi last night. Not enough to say he had a good game, but enough flashes that I think the mob mentality of "this guy's shit and always will be" is harsh.

As I noted in an earlier post, I wasn't able to watch the match, but I know when he has come on this year, our offense has really struggled.

And was he playing the #10? If so, I hope we can expect more than "he had a couple of nice passes and took the ball away once or twice" out of that spot.

 

[The Toe]

As I noted in an earlier post, I wasn't able to watch the match, but I know when he has come on this year, our offense has really struggled.

And was he playing the #10? If so, I hope we can expect more than "he had a couple of nice passes and took the ball away once or twice" out of that spot.

Tommy was all over the place on Wednesday, which is a very bad sign.