Tag: Carl Robinson

The Whitecaps season so far (the attack)

I’m willing to wager that if any of us were asked to conjure up a single image to define the Whitecaps forward line in 2015 it would be that of Octavio Rivero surrounded by opposition defenders as he plaintively stared in the direction of either an unimpressed referee or an uncooperative ball which had just bounced haplessly off his shin.

Clearly this wasn’t a recipe for long term success and so Carl Robinson used the off season to bring in both Masato Kudo and Blas Pérez; two players specifically designed to offer either support or alternatives to the Rivero isolationism.

The coach was never going to make instant changes to how he set his team up but defeats in the first two games of the season maybe pushed him to be a little more adventurous a little earlier than planned and a road trip to Seattle saw Pérez start alongside Rivero in a 4-4-2 formation.

And the 2-1 victory which followed probably did as much to convince Robinson of the virtues of tactical flexibility as all the articles podcasts and blog posts combined (although it’s not that hard to achieve better than 0% influence to be fair).

After that day we saw Kudo play alone upfront, Manneh and Hurtado as an attacking pair, Hurtado on his own, Rivero with Mezquida just behind him and Pérez and Kudo as a forward duo.

Not all of them worked, but enough of them did to offer the Whitecaps greater tactical options while simultaneously keeping opposing coaches on their toes far more than they were last season.

So, after all the to-ings and the fro-ings where do we stand on the best attacking lineup for Vancouver?

Still in a frustrating state of flux I’m afriad because the best individual pieces don’t necessarily fit in with the puzzle overall.

Pérez has been the best striker in terms of consistent quality but he doesn’t combine as well with Mezquida as Rivero does, Manneh showed in Toronto that his pace and his better decision making when playing centrally rather than out wide helps his game (or maybe it’s just that there are less decisions to be made when playing as the forward most striker?) and before his horrendous injury Kudo displayed the kind of quick and clever movement the other strikers are lacking.

So here are the (less than definitive) conclusions about all concerned.

The team always seem to be better when Nicolas Mezquida is on the pitch or, at least, the other forwards always seem to be better when he is on the pitch largely because his constant energy makes the life of a defender so much harder.

His goal against Ottawa doesn’t completely allay any qualms about his goal scoring record in general but it does at least dampen them.

Octavio Rivero has scored in three of his last four starts meaning that he probably gets the nod when he is either fully fit or not suspended but he seems to need Mezquida in the team more than any of the other forwards.

I’m not saying “don’t play Rivero if Mezquida isn’t available” but I’m definitely thinking it.

If Pérez could guarantee he could play a full ninety minutes every week he would be the default setting for this team (and there may be the worry that Robinson “does an Earnshaw” and underutilizes a quality striker based solely on his age).

Manneh must be a frustrating player to both coach and select; capable of winning games on his own in one performance while grinding the gears of any attack to a standstill in the next.

His sheer pace on the ball alone makes him an outlier but the biggest problem he now poses is that his best position is central striker alongside a more robust partner and that means playing a 4-4-2 system that is a nice option but not the best use of the rest of the attacking or creative talent.

Erik Hurtado was a forgotten man last season and his not particularly impressive loan spell in Norway hardly inspired thoughts of a triumphant return to MLS, but he has at least shown his worth this year.

As an attacking substitute he’s been useful and he worked well with Manneh in Toronto but….he was poor as the lone striker in Portland and his brief appearance as a more defensively minded wide player against Ottawa was a timely reminder of how limited a player he actually is (knocking an over hit and needless pass for an exhausted Pedro Morales to chase after being a particular highlight).

And we have to hold back on any decision on Kudo until we see just how he returns from his lengthy layoff.

So Rivero works best with Mezquida, Pérez works best with Bolaños and Manneh has had his best game alongside Hurtado and somehow Carl Robinson has to make one or all of these disparate pairings click with the rest of the team.

Do UEFA do a badge in relationship counselling?

 

Whitecaps all sound and no fury in Ottawa

Playing a cup game against a team you are “expected” to beat is a thankless task. Win the game and everybody shrugs in disinterest, lose it and the knives are immediately out for both the players and the coach.

There is losing a game however and there is “losing” a game and the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-0 defeat to the Ottawa Fury in the first leg of their Canadian Championship clash can be placed firmly into the latter category as the supposedly better MLS team were toothless against their NASL hosts.

No doubt that was partly due to the number of changes Carl Robinson made to his starting lineup, but it’s become something of a trend for the coach to throw in young players in batches rather than allow them the opportunity to slot into a team that is already functioning and the upshot of this policy is those youngsters tend to perform poorly and so drop out of contention for more starts.

That was particularly true for Kianz Froese and Marco Bustos who both began in wide positions when each is better suited to a more central role and, inevitably, they failed to impress in Ottawa and so must feel their progress has taken one step further back.

Maybe they would have been better had the Whitecaps gone into the game with a more positive approach but a 4-3-2-1 formation invited the Fury on to them without ever looking incisive going forward and it was no surprise to see the home team lead by two goals at the interval with strikes from former Whitecaps Johnny Steele and Paulo Junior.

It was even less of a surprise to discover that Carl Robinson had chosen not to make a change at half time as he opted to once again follow his “if it’s not working don’t fix it policy” and a further ten minutes of ineptitude passed before Rivero and Manneh were introduced.

Even that did little to change the mindset of the team and the introduction of fifteen year old Alphonso Davies in the final fifteen minutes was surely a great moment for the kid but not the move of a coach who was desperate to change the momentum on the pitch.

How Robinson approaches the return leg at BC Place will be interesting to say the least because although winning this trophy for the first time last season was clearly important his approach to the subsequent Champions League games was less than enthusiastic.

So does he throw in the likes of Morales, Laba, Harvey, Manneh and Rivero from the start?

The best guess is that maybe one or two from that list make the first eleven with the hope that the bare minimum is required to overturn the two goal deficit but, whatever happens next week, this week was a woeful performance and the third game in succession where Vancouver have played the first half in a tepid and unenthusiastic manner.

That’s probably coincidence rather than an emerging culture but it’s a fairly awful habit for any team to be getting into.

Time then for the Soccer Shorts player rating (Yikes!).

Tornaghi-6, Aird-5, Adekugbe-5, Parker-5, Seiler-5, Teibert-4, McKendry-4, Froese-4, Bustos-4, Mezquida-6*, Hurtado-4 (Manneh-5, Rivero-5)

 

 

Whitecaps enter the MLS break with a whimper

Only time will tell if the Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 draw with the Houston Dynamo at BC Place on Saturday afternoon will turn out to be a point gained or two points dropped, but a home tie against the worst team in the Conference can at least be described as “less than optimal”.

True the Whitecaps were without a number of key starters but that doesn’t excuse the lethargy with which they began the game and it came as no surprise when the Dynamo took the lead in the twentieth minute thanks to some nice build up play and some sloppy defending from the home team.

Vancouver didn’t really wake up until the fortieth minute when referee Drew Fischer decided to eject both Alex and Pedro Morales for an altercation that should have been a yellow card for each at most.

There’s nothing more tiresome than constantly harping on about refereeing standards in MLS but too many officials resemble those teachers we all had in our school days who couldn’t control the kids through gaining their respect but instead always went for the nuclear option of meaningless shouting or undeserved detention or the stick (depending on your age and your geography).

This of course simply lessened their authority in the same way that instantly reaching for the red card does to a referee.

But at least the Whitecaps came out with fire in their bellies for the second half and Octavio Rivero hit a fine shot into the top corner just seven minutes in and suddenly it felt as though Vancouver would surge to victory.

But then nothing.

They allowed the Dynamo to settle back into the game and seemed bafflingly content with picking up a point and maybe sneaking something on one of their forays forward without ever really committing to those forays with either belief or man power.

Maybe Carl Robinson was so unsure about his patched up back four that he felt the need to keep two defensive midfielders on the pitch for virtually the entire game, but having six defensive minded players against a team who hadn’t picked up a single point on the road was unnecessarily cautious.

It also meant that a huge gap opened between the Whitecaps forwards and the rest of the team with nobody capable of making use of the space that existed between those channels.

The Whitecaps did have such a player but he stayed on the bench until the ninetieth minute of the game.

It’s hard to know what Nicolas Mezquida needs to do to get more meaningful minutes but Saturday’s game was crying out for exactly his type of player; full of energy, can play centrally and just behind the forwards and so drag opposing defenders out of position.

And even in his three minute cameo he helped to inject more urgency into the attack than had been evident up to that point but all to no avail.

One further thought before we consign this game to the history books.

For the second consecutive game the Whitecaps played the first half at half throttle and then came out in the second all guns blazing and Robinson himself admitted this was an issue that needed to be addressed.

Maybe that issue is exacerbated by his policy of always giving the starting eleven a chance to redeem themselves in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the second half?

If players know they won’t be withdrawn at half time (or sooner) then they are always playing in the comfort zone (subconsciously at least) and the performance against Houston was a perfect chance for the coach to take them out of that comfort zone by making a change as early as the first thirty minutes.

If it’s not working then fix it as quickly as possible and let the players know that they will be held accountable for it not working.

Here then are your Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Ousted-6, Smith-6, Parker-6, Jacobson-6, Harvey-6, Teibert-6, Laba-7*, Morales-6, Techera-5, Manneh-5, Rivero-6 (Hurtado-5)

You can follow me on Twitter: Twitter.com/squadplayer

 

 

 

MLS: No time to think

Of the twenty coaches currently working in Major league Soccer a full seventeen of them got their first top level job in the league itself.

Maybe we can put that down to insularity, maybe we can put that down to penny pinching by the clubs or maybe we can put it down the relative lack of success of coaches who arrive in MLS from elsewhere (Hello Ruud Gullit, pleased to meet you Carlos de los Cobos) but whatever the reason if a young coach wants to cut his teeth in the professional game then MLS is a pretty good place to start.

Or is it? (Ooh! See what I did there?).

MLS may be a league unto itself in terms of the complexity and quirks of roster rules and player acquisition mechanisms but at times it also feels like a league unto itself in terms of how little emphasis is placed upon tactics on the field.

Earlier this week the Colorado Rapids head coach Pablo Mastroeni said

“In this league the parity is such that anyone can beat anyone on any given day. The edge that you get in this league is more psychological than it is anything tactical, and when you believe that you’re a good team, and you start to play to that standard, other teams perceive you as that team.”

Mastroeni has taken the Rapids to the top of the standings this season so on one level it’s hard to argue with the thrust of his argument but on another level it’s hard to imagine such an assertion being accepted without comment in many other leagues around the world.

There’s certainly no harm in saying that a team has to believe in what they are doing and, even more specifically, believe in what the coach is asking them to do but when the foundation for that belief is belief itself then we’re wandering dangerously into the area of magical thinking.

What will Pablo do when his side suffer through a couple of bad results? Try to make them believe more?

Fair enough I’m taking him at his most literal word here because I’m sure he and his coaching staff do have some kind of plan going into games, it’s just that he doesn’t seem to think that plan is as important as the confirmation bias he hopes will make the opposition think the Rapids are better than they actually are.

And there was a similar air around the Whitecaps last season as Carl Robinson stubbornly refused to move away from the 4-2-3-1 formation which worked so well for two thirds of the year but ultimately failed the team at the business end of the season.

And while stubbornness may be one of the most crucial attributes every football coach needs it’s only valuable when mixed with the right amount of objectivity with regard to reacting to actual results on the field.

So roll on to the 2016 season and the big question wasn’t really how the Whitecaps new acquisitions would adapt to Major League Soccer, it was more along the lines of how Carl Robinson would adapt to the new acquisitions.

And, after a hesitant start, the signs are looking pretty good.

Even when playing 4-2-3-1 Robinson has mostly played Pedro Morales as one of the ‘2’ alongside Laba and thus turning an inherently defensive formation into a far more attacking lineup, but Saturday’s 4-3 win over Toronto kind of felt like a sea change in the development of both the coach and the team.

Social Media and predicting starting elevens is pretty much the old “an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards will eventually create the collected works of Shakespeare” given life but even the great and the good of Twitter et al probably struggled to foresee a 4-4-2 lineup that featured Kekuta Manneh and Erik Hurtado as the two forwards designed to burn a hole through the Toronto central defence, with Pedro Morales in a wide left role which simultaneously moved him away from  the heart of the action while also freeing him from the attentions of both Will Johnson and Michael Bradley.

It didn’t work perfectly (three goals conceded is never perfect) but it still felt like a victory earned for a team based on tactical tweaks rather than TFC’s “give the ball to Giovinco and see what happens” approach.

Whether this flexibility will be a template for the season remains to be seen, but at least the likes of Bolaños, Pérez, Kudo and even a reinvigorated Hurtado offer the potential for Robinson to spring the occasional surprise on the opposition manager.

So what does any of this tell us about the value of being a young coach in Major League Soccer?

Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, MLS coaches are not exactly sought after by other countries and no doubt there’s an element of shortsightedness to that disinterest but there must also be the sense that the skills required to coach an MLS team aren’t directly transferable to the rest of the world.

“So Mr. Vanney you’re interested in the Aston Villa job? What are your plans?”

“I’d just buy one brilliant player and let him win all the games for us”

“Next!”

“Hi Mr. Mastroeni. Your plans for Villa?”

“I think once we start playing well we will carry on playing well and other teams will then think we are really good.”

“Welcome to Aston Villa Mr. Moyes.”

I guess the point of all this is to say that while soccer in North America may be taking steps to improve the development of young players, MLS itself is almost inherently designed to stunt the growth of young coaches.

Maybe Carl Robinson has recognized that fact and has decided that a) there are genuine on the field advantages to be gained through tactical flexibility and b) he will learn nothing about himself as a coach by simply accepting that what’s good enough to get into the playoffs is good enough and that’s the end of the story.

It could be that the most fascinating part of this whole season will turn out to be witnessing how the coach continues to grow into the role and how that shapes the Whitecaps as a whole.

(Or it could just be that having a fit and in form Pedro Morales is all that really matters?).