Overall, I am pretty pleased with the result. Going into this game I felt like this was a game we could win. Unfortunately, the monsoon like weather made this game pretty ugly and I am going to somewhat write off this game. Getting the late goal and sealing up a point on the road is pretty good. Also, I think the Union are going to be a team that is generally going to be pretty hard for most teams to beat. They currently are tied with New York for the lowest goals against average.
Now onto the individual players ratings.
First, let me give a few guidelines for how I kept track of these passing statistics. In general, I only counted situations where the player actually had a reasonable chance to control the ball and distribute. For example, a player maki
ng a slide tackle, or sticking his leg out to defend a cross and end up deflecting the ball to one of his team mates would not count as a completed pass. However, in a situation where the sounder player was able to step in front of their man and steal the ball while looking down the field at the rest of their team, I would count their pass as either completed or incomplete. This is because in these situations, they had a reasonable ability to control the ball, and distribute.
O’Brian White- 5.5
This was just a tough game overall for White. He didn’t see much of the ball, partially due to the Union Defense and partially due to poor service. Overall, he completed 5 out of 9 passes. Out of all the Sounders players on the field, he definitely saw the least amount of the ball. He did an ok job of holding up play when he was able to get the ball, and won some balls out of the air, but he just wasn’t able to get all that involved. Not entirely sure that I would peg this on him, as our midfield wasn't all that great from an offensive standpoint most of the game. Some may call for him to move to the bench in place of Jaqua, which isn't that far fetched, but I still want to see more from White.
Mauro Rosales- 6.5
Rosales had a pretty good game overall. He was a bit of our lone creative attacker for the first 65 minutes of the game. Once we brought on Montero, you could tell that our offense started to click a bit more. In the first half especially, we had a difficult time moving the ball down the field. From a passing perspective, Rosales completed 11 of 18 passes with most of his completed passes coming in the second half. Rosales is not going to be a player who will single handedly win games for us, but he is definitely a player who will improve the overall quality of our team.
Steve Zakuani- 6
Zakuani is a bit of an interesting case. Statistically, he has a pretty good game. he completed 23 of 26 passes. However, it seemed he lost the ball quite a lot off the dribble. Many times he was in a position where his options were either drop the ball back to Gonzalez, or beat his defender off the dribble. While he gave the ball away a good deal in this game,This was a game where I was OK with it, to some extent. In most circumstances he was in a position where if he beat his man, we would be springing a decent attack. Due to the Union defense and the wonderful weather conditions, this did not happen all that much. He received a "MLS" assist with his pass to Montero, which then went to the head of Fernandez. Ultimately, Zak probably didn't have the greatest game, but it was passable.
Brad Evans- 5
Just going to put this out there front and center. I am definitely having a love/hate relationship with Evans this season. In year one, I thought he did a great job. Year two he was injured, and so far this year I keep going back and forth from "he has been pretty good" to "Oh my gosh why are you playing?!?!" For example, to start off the game, I think his first 3 or 4 passes were all to the Union, and he was dispossessed numerous times. However, he then shows up late in the box, and has opportunities to score, but just can't seem to be able to put it in. Historically, he has scored most of his goals by being that guy arriving a second or two after the forwards and wingers and putting home the cross. A few times over the course of this game, he appeared there, just never really did anything with it. In all fairness, it was really only 1 or 2 half chances at best this game. On the positive side he played better in the second half, and completed a good number of passes, 12 of 15 to be exact. He was only 11 of 18 in the first half. However, when we look at Osvaldo Alonso next, we will see a different story.
Osvaldo Alonso- 7
By keeping track of number of passes completed and attempted really helped solidify some thoughts I had about Alonso. He's a stud, plain and simple. Easily the most under rated holding midfielder in the league, although I think that is starting to finally change this year. I have heard one or two national broadcasters name him as a top 3 holding midfielder in MLS, which he most certainly is. Let's just look at his passing stats, and then dissect them. First off, he had the most touches on the ball than any other Sounder on the field. He completed 25 of 31 passes in the first half, and 16 of 24 in the second half so he was right around 75% overall. A couple of things worth noting. In th first half especially, Alonso did a masterful job of winning the job and distributing at the same time. Many times he would win a tackle, but also gain the ball from it. Many players are able to win the ball, but are they in a position where they can redistribute from the tackle? Alonso is constantly winning the ball and immediately able to move the ball on to another player. He had one bad tackle that set up the goal. Kind of a stupid tackle, but its better than just letting the guy shoot. Had he not scissored the guy with his trailing leg, it would have been an amazing tackle.
Erik Friberg- 5
He completed a decent number of passes, but his crossing was rather inconsistent. He hustles and runs a lot, but in the end he didn't really do a whole lot this game. He does a great job helping us maintain possession with good 1 and 2 touch passing. However, something I noticed in this game that is worth watching in the future is his ability to move off the ball. In particular, he played a few balls into Rosales where he would then play the ball into space, and Friberg would still be in the same general area from where he played the initial ball. Not sure how much of this is miscommunication between players. I have seen him make great runs, but if memory serves me correctly, its been when he has played in middle. Just something worth keeping an eye. In a similar light as Zakuani, this was just a bit of a game to just write off for now, because playing on the wing in these conditions is just incredibly difficult as everything slows down and you can't play as fast as you like. Neither team really had any kind of success on the wing throughout this game.
James Riley, Jeff Parke, John Kennedy Hurtado- 6.5
I decided to do all three of these guys as a group because as I was writing this, I realized that I was pretty much saying the same thing about all three. Overall, they all completed a high perceantage of passes. Almost all their passes that were incomplete were long balls that have a lower percentage of being completed in the first place. Defensively, they didn't really have anything all that dangerous to deal with all night. There was one instance early in the second half where Parke and Hurtado let Le Toux get in behind them, but luckily the shot left a lot to be desired.
Leo Gonzalez- 6
Played pretty well. Like the rest of the defense, never really had anything all that major to deal with. Perhaps he is deserving of a 6.5 as the rest of the defense, but because he was the defender taken off when they went to a 3-man back line, as well as not distributing the ball that well at times. A lot of times when he won the ball, he would just launch it up field rather than see if he could find another player to pass to.
Kasey Keller-6.5
Only thing that you can really say this game is that maybe he could have done better on the goal. He got caught stepping to his left, and wasn't really able to dive back to the right. The ball did take a small deflection, but Kasey just wasn't really able to get back across the goal. This is really nitpicking his play though. Overall, he played fine. Probably should have a higher rating, but all his other saves were nothing to write home about. Never had to make that save that kept us in the game, partially due to decent defense, and lack of any really offesnive firepower from the Union.
Substitutes
Fredy Montero- 7
When Montero came on the field, our ability to attack and be dangerous sky rocketed. Montero slid into the forward slot where Rosales was playing, with Rosales dropping behind him to be the attacking midfielder. Unlike Rosales, Montero had someone who could now supply service to him. There were several balls that Montero received from Rosales that either gave him a decent look at goal, or put him a position to play a dangerous ball in to someone else. He had the assist to Fernandez, which was a pretty nice ball. Had a few other opportunities to score himself, but wasn't quite able to get the final ball in there.
Nate Jaqua- 6
Jaqua did a better job winning the ball in the air than White did. This was a game in all honesty where Jaqua may have been a better fit than White to deal with the Union's physicality. While they are both target forwards, White is more suited to a game where he can pull the center backs out wide where he picks up the ball before passing back to the midfield. Last weeks game against the Fire was a pretty good example of this style of play from a target forward. Jaqua did a good job of just being physical and getting his head on the ball. Unlike white, I feel like Jaqua isn't as much of a scoring threat with his head as White is. It will be interesting to see if Jaqua will start on Friday.
Alvaro Fernandez- 7
You could tell when Fernandez came on to the field he was desperate to show Sigi that he should be in the starting 11, while also fighting hard for his team mates. He had an immediate impact and was running all over the right side of the field. He combined well with Rosales on a number of occasions. Ultimately, he stole the point by getting up well and putting the ball in the back of the net. By playing well and getting the goal, I think he is really going to give Sigi a major headache over who starts, now that he should be able to start again.
Looking back at this game, a draw is a pretty good result. I would like to have the three points, and Philadelphia is a team that I think were should be capable of beating. However, once you take the weather into account, and the style of play they utilize, getting the draw ends up not being that much of an issue to me. This Friday they have one of their harder road games, playing the reigning MLS Cup champions. All in all, by getting a draw at Philadelphia puts them in a position where picking up around 7 points from this 5 game stretch is plausible.
No comments:
Post a Comment