Eh, a loss always stinks but I’m not that beat up about it? As has been noted this is a soft rebuild year, we’re seeing the last gasps of the (very) old guard and have brought in lots of young talent who I’m excited for, plus between Smith, Coffee, and Weaver we’re missing some pretty important pieces at the moment. On the whole KK is st…
Eh, a loss always stinks but I’m not that beat up about it? As has been noted this is a soft rebuild year, we’re seeing the last gasps of the (very) old guard and have brought in lots of young talent who I’m excited for, plus between Smith, Coffee, and Weaver we’re missing some pretty important pieces at the moment. On the whole KK is striking me as a thoroughly okay GM, not a world class manager but has as many ups as downs, and Gale is too much a question mark at this point to be too mad at. I’ve followed some very bad teams, and one that’s “just” in the middle of the playoff pack is fine by me.
KK (or ownership or both) are rubbish. She isn't signing high quality players from wsl or Spain like the big dogs of the league are. Our big window was another keeper and a couple rooks. We only got smith for one more year. Why waste time on developing. Bring in instant impact players to complement the MVP.
I understand this logic, but there’s no rationale for hiring a coach who routinely makes a not-great situation worse. Today’s starting lineup in a key game was a joke, and they were completely directionless and uninspired.
Even with Coffey that midfield has not performed to the level it should. It’s just not working. They shouldn’t look so messy and confused about where they should be. And it’s not youth the players in the midfield are experienced enough they should be more cohesive. So either it’s the players or coaching maybe a bit of both. However it’s basically the same midfield from last year( minus Dunn) but they look significantly worse.
I’m willing to chalk a lot of that up to Fleming and Sugita having to cover a ton of extra ground to make up for a lack of speed or positioning from Sinc and Izzy, definitely some sloppy passes but hard to be tidy when running wind sprints all match. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of room to improve, I’m just not in panic mode yet, like you said we’ve seen them do well before so I’ve got faith they’ll be able to settle in a bit once the pieces around them are a little more solid.
So, I've thought a lot about that dynamic, but the reality is that Fleming has lots of experience covering a ton of extra ground playing behind Sinc. It's one of the things that actually works for Canada -- Fleming roams the entire pitch, including covering for Sinc while Sinc was still on the national team. But here, it just doesn't work. And, of greater concern to me, we have a midfield that is far less than the sum of its parts. On paper, a midfield that includes Coffey, Fleming, Sugita, and Moultrie ought to be pretty damn incredible. In reality, it ain't.
I'm 100% on board with the midfield comment. That is a solid 4, with each player bringing some strength to the game. For them to struggle to make an impact simply doesn't make sense, and that is on the coaching staff.
The hardest thing for me to understand about the game was thinking that we were a player slow transitioning to offense, and then a player slow transitioning to defense. That simply should never happen.
Eh, a loss always stinks but I’m not that beat up about it? As has been noted this is a soft rebuild year, we’re seeing the last gasps of the (very) old guard and have brought in lots of young talent who I’m excited for, plus between Smith, Coffee, and Weaver we’re missing some pretty important pieces at the moment. On the whole KK is striking me as a thoroughly okay GM, not a world class manager but has as many ups as downs, and Gale is too much a question mark at this point to be too mad at. I’ve followed some very bad teams, and one that’s “just” in the middle of the playoff pack is fine by me.
KK (or ownership or both) are rubbish. She isn't signing high quality players from wsl or Spain like the big dogs of the league are. Our big window was another keeper and a couple rooks. We only got smith for one more year. Why waste time on developing. Bring in instant impact players to complement the MVP.
I understand this logic, but there’s no rationale for hiring a coach who routinely makes a not-great situation worse. Today’s starting lineup in a key game was a joke, and they were completely directionless and uninspired.
Even with Coffey that midfield has not performed to the level it should. It’s just not working. They shouldn’t look so messy and confused about where they should be. And it’s not youth the players in the midfield are experienced enough they should be more cohesive. So either it’s the players or coaching maybe a bit of both. However it’s basically the same midfield from last year( minus Dunn) but they look significantly worse.
I’m willing to chalk a lot of that up to Fleming and Sugita having to cover a ton of extra ground to make up for a lack of speed or positioning from Sinc and Izzy, definitely some sloppy passes but hard to be tidy when running wind sprints all match. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of room to improve, I’m just not in panic mode yet, like you said we’ve seen them do well before so I’ve got faith they’ll be able to settle in a bit once the pieces around them are a little more solid.
So, I've thought a lot about that dynamic, but the reality is that Fleming has lots of experience covering a ton of extra ground playing behind Sinc. It's one of the things that actually works for Canada -- Fleming roams the entire pitch, including covering for Sinc while Sinc was still on the national team. But here, it just doesn't work. And, of greater concern to me, we have a midfield that is far less than the sum of its parts. On paper, a midfield that includes Coffey, Fleming, Sugita, and Moultrie ought to be pretty damn incredible. In reality, it ain't.
I'm 100% on board with the midfield comment. That is a solid 4, with each player bringing some strength to the game. For them to struggle to make an impact simply doesn't make sense, and that is on the coaching staff.
The hardest thing for me to understand about the game was thinking that we were a player slow transitioning to offense, and then a player slow transitioning to defense. That simply should never happen.
Spot on.