Another tie.
DC has really not looked good over the last two months. And in this match, United was missing Gomez, Boswell, Eskandariain, and Gros due to yellow card accumulation. Not to mention key subs like Wilson and Mediate, along with McTavish who has been out for several months now and is only just working his way back to fitness.
Some of the young guys showed pretty well and there were some good things to take from this match including…
- Dyachenko – Nice player. Not the next incarnation of Ronaldinho, but he offers good size, speed, and has a great workrate. His vision and skill on the ball is pretty good. The problem is he ran outta gas around minute 60. He doesn’t directly displace anybody on the roster, but he can be a capable substitute.
- DeRoux – Local kid. Blazing fast, and good skill level. Really capable of running by defenders. The problem is he runs with his head down and has really poor field vision. He got tired in the second half as well.
- Nickell – Came in late, and showed a spark of energy.
Now, the bad stuff…
- Offense – There is just no urgency. Nobody tries to get behind the defense. We gain possession and sprint forward for abit, then stop and wait for help. Which takes *forever* to catch up. The defense gets a chance to get numbers behind the ball, and easily defend everybody in front of them with their backs to goal. Additionally, once we get a lead, we lose even more interest in attacking, which leads to more turnovers and more chances against our goal
- Defense – We are good for a gafe or two per game. Teams like Chicago know all the have to do is frustrate our offense and eventually they will get a chance they can capitalize on to take a lead. Real Salt Lake got a little lucky, but it was a pretty decent goal on their part.
Another issue I have is the continuing inability of Coach Nowak to sub Jaime Moreno. The man is obviously gassed. He paces himself knowing he has to last for 90mins, so he runs all game around 60-70 percent. It just isnt good enough. In this league, you have to run. Period. If you don’t you are incredily easy to take out of the game. I don’t blame Jaime for this, as he’s doing the best he can. I completely blame Nowak who doesn’t “tolerate fatigue”.
Yeah. OK. You keep on not tolerating fatigue while your best player drags his way through games. We really need him for the stretch run and the playoffs, but he will do us no good if he’s exhausted and worn out. This is the same thing that happened last year and I suspect it will happen again. I am clearly not happy about it.
Freddy played his best game in awhile as he has seemed “indifferent” over the past few weeks. I would almost suspect he was tired or sick or injured. Good to see him back.
Let’s see how they do in the upcoming game this wednesday…