Friday, September 11, 2015

Rapids Regress Ridiculously


This was going to be bad once you saw that Pablo had started 4 defenders and 4 defensive midfielders, leaving just Ramirez on the wing and Torres up front to attack.  Shockingly that didn't work.  Doyle came in after the break and came closest to scoring but it wasn't that dangerous.  Meanwhile on defense playing the likes of Marc Burch and James Riley showed us how much we gained from signing Figueroa and moving Moor to RB.

General Impressions:
  • How Riley is starting over Hairston is beyond me.  His ball watching in the first minute almost got him red carded and his decision to keep the ball in play by heading it back towards the crowd was asinine.
  • Not that Marc Burch did much better on the other side.  While not making as many dumb moves he could have had 3 yellow cards easily instead of the 1 he did have.
  • Neither Ramirez or Torres played well, but its hard to fault them.  Vancouver figured out very early on that if they double-teamed those two the Rapids had no chance to score.
  • Powers and Sanchez on the bench to start, really?  I know Sanchez doesn't like turf but the team was short-handed.
  • Hard to hear Tim Hinchey and Paul Bravo talking about attacking, exciting soccer and then see a starting XI with 9 defensive players.
  • After a great game against KC and some glimmer that we've turned some corner the old Pablo defensive mentality was back.
  • Bodmer Line is now between 1.86 and 2.14 pts./game
Man of the Match: Kevin Doyle.  I'm not sure anyone deserves the honor but credit to Doyle for getting the dangerous chance and particularly for getting from Dublin to Vancouver and ready to play after Monday's nights Ireland game.  A lot of players would have just gone to Denver to be ready for Saturday.

No comments: