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And on we march, into April.
I went 1/3 on Pick 'Em last week and am now 16/33 (48.4%) on the season. Once again this week, I'm going to pick all the home teams to win, though we're starting to approach the point when I'll drop that schtick. Not quite yet, though.
Onto the games …
Tonight, Tonight
The New England Revolution have, historically, owned the New York Red Bulls in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It kind of gets lost in the wash of history, given the network of rivalries stretching up and down I-95 (which several /r/MLS denizens have dubbed "The Gauntlet" and are tracking in a sort of Cascadia Cup-ish kind of way), but these teams have played a number of memorable games over the years, and the folks from Massachusetts have generally come out on top. As such, there is real, honest-to-goodness animosity between the two fanbases.
We'll see some of that on Friday night when RBNY head up to Gillette Stadium to face the Revs (7pm ET; UniMás) for the first time this season. They'll go with neither of their starting central defenders, nor DP attacker Gonzalo Veron. It's probably fair to call this an injury crisis on the back line, since New York will be reduced to the guy who's No. 4 on the CB depth chart (Karl Ouimette) and, most likely, rookie second-round pick Zach Carroll.
Carroll is a natural back-foot defender who is more comfortable giving space than compressing it, so it may be an awkward fit with a Red Bulls team that's still defined by their high pressure. RBNY II are, as well, and it was Carroll's center back partner -- converted midfielder Aaron Long -- who looked like a natural stepping into the play last weekend in the team's USL season opener:
That's an excellent read from Long -- Perrinelle-esque, in fact. He's not rostered for the full MLS team, so he won't be available in this one, but that kind of play is illustrative of the the "all teams, one philosophy" mandate happening in Harrison.
It should give RBNY fans at least a little bit of hope that their ad hoc back line won't be totally out of sync. It's been a tough year for the Supporters' Shield champs thus far, but the plan is still in place. Now it's up to the kids to execute it.
I'll also be watching: The forward situation. New England don't love to play Juan Agudelo as the No. 9 when Lee Nguyen is around (which he is after missing last week's game on international duty) because he tends to drop into space rather than extending the field. That means less space for Nguyen to go to work in.
Agudelo, however, had a very good game last weekend against NYCFC, and against a back line that's probably going to be working out some kinks, it's probably not a bad idea to give him some more time with Nguyen.
- Update: Agudelo started up top, then moved to the wing, and another RBNY defender went down injured as the Revs picked up a controversial win.
Disarm
Robbie Keanejust underwent surgery, and is expected to be out for 4-to-6 weeks. Steven Gerrardis still nursing a calf injury picked up two weeks ago, and is unavailable. Gio Dos Santos has a "left leg injury" and almost certainly isn't going to play.
Three DPs, three big holes in the lineup. That situation is exacerbated by two other injury absences, as a pair of Homegrown Players -- Jose Villarreal and Raul Mendiola -- are also on the mend for the LA Galaxy. Either one of those guys would have been a very nice fit on the wing for a team that just hasn't generated much in the way of danger this year.
So where will the chances come from for this almost entirely disarmed Galaxy team when they travel to Vancouver on Saturday night (10 pm ET; TSN2 in Canada | MLS LIVE in the US)? To be honest, that's a question without an answer, even when all the DPs are healthy. LA have taken advantage of a weak D.C. United team and a 10-man San Jose Earthquakes team at home, but in their one road performance (at Colorado) and both legs of the CCL, they've been stagnant.
The simplest solution, to me, is to get Gyasi Zardes back up top as a true forward, thus occupying the opposing central defenders. That, in turn, would clear out space for the cadre of floating attackers LA like to deploy between the lines. It would also allow Sebastian Lletget to play out on the wing full-time, which I still maintain is a good thing:
That clip is from last year, but you can see how putting Lletget on the flank and having him pinch opens up the entire wing for an overlap by Robbie Rogers. There hasn't been much of that from LA this year because Zardes simply isn't that kind of player. He sees the game from a purely north-south perspective, which is much easier to play for and neutralize in the run of play.
I'll also be watching:Kekuta Manneh, hello? The season's started, buddy …
Drown
The Portland Timbers, our defending MLS Cup champs, are not off to a scorching start in the standings. They ground out an opening-day win over Columbus, then fell in a pair of 2-0 holes at San Jose and home against RSL. That necessitated a ton of digging, and for their efforts they were able to snare a single point. That puts them on four points from three games, which is fine.
All that digging leaves them in the middle of the pack in the standings, but they are dominating all comers in terms of underlying chance creation:
Bear in mind that the second-place team in the chart above, NYCFC, have played four games, while the Timbers are on three. The gap at the top is larger than it appears.
As implied above, game states have had a huge influence on the sheer volume of chances Portland are creating. After all, if you're trailing by multiple goals, you're probably going to throw the kitchen sink at the opposition, right? So it goes.
But natural proclivities play into this as well. Sometime around May of last year, the Timbers went all-in on volume chance creation, as their plan of attack became "We're never going to let you come up for a breath of air."
With the late-season switch to a 4-3-3, the gambit finally paid off in earnest. There is something to be said for creating as many half-chances as possible, since doing so lands you goals like this:
Orlando City will have to conjure a way to deal with that on Sunday evening (8 pm ET; FS1).
EDIT: I'm adding two things. First of all, the folks at AnalystisEvolved did a nice job of pointing out Portland's chance-creation proclivities last week:
You should give them a follow on Twitter.
Second, in what's clearly a bit of synchronicity, Dan Altman of NorthYardAnalytics (another must-follow) released THIS story on the quantity vs. quality debate using Leicester City of the EPL as the grounds of the argument. For context, the Timbers would be in the exact opposite quadrant of the Foxes.
I'll also be watching: Let's see how OCSC's 19-year-old central defender Tommy Redding holds up against Fanendo Adi, who's pretty clearly one of the two or three best No. 9s in the league.
One more thing:
View post on imgur.com
Happy weekending, everybody.
