Category Archives: defensive woes

Our Needs in Defense

Posted on April 12, 2013 | 14 Comments

I am hesistant to make the following points. What I am going to say here in some respects amounts to a prediction. The world is exceedingly complex, and attempts to predict the courses in which it will run are generally vain. At least mine are. I’ve only made one or two veritably correct predictions in the whole of my public expressions, although I will say that I correctly predicted German re-unification about three months before it happened. A fat lot of good it did me. At all events, I am reminded of the old adage about the blind pig and the acorn. But even worse, I’ve come to suspect that there is some sort of quantum entanglement between my predictions and events in the real world. Translation: it’s all my fault.

Having offered this caveat, I will say that I’m not convinced either that we need to go out and acquire more cover at center half, or that we could get value for money by doing so at this point. sunshine has pointed out the historical fragility of Mikael Sylvestre, and his point is not without merit, especially given that the surface on which he will be playing at least 50 percent of his matches is going to be artificial. He’s also not getting any younger. After him, the cupboard is pretty bare in terms of experienced defenders. AJB is young. Tucker-Gangnes is younger. Futty is more experienced, but there is some question about whether, or how well, he can work into our preferred system.

These are all problems that can’t be ignored. The question that remains is: how do we solve them? sunshine’s preferred answer, and I suspect that many of you share this feeling, is that we should try to bring in someone else. Who would you suggest? This is not the time of the season when the marketplace is rich with experienced central defenders, much less those whose foot skills make them appropriate to the demands of Porterball. That is a rare breed indeed, and I simply don’t see a lot of prospects on the horizon. Which is not to say that the team oughtn’t to look. In fact, if I were going to feel around for such a player, the first thing I would do would be to announce to the media that I was not looking for such a player, if for no other reason than to prevent the prices from inflating immediately. In any case, I am dubious that a player that fits the bill and can be had on appropriate terms is available. I would love to be proven wrong on this score.

So, where does that leave us? For the moment, we have a viable pairing in Silvestre and AJB. If it were up to me, I would be tempted to put Tucker-Gangnes third on the depth chart, simply because his foot skills and instincts are, as far as I can tell, superior to those with which Futty is equipped. In a pinch, there are other players who can be shifted back there, in the way that Alex Song was occasionally forced to do for Arsenal. I could see Jewsbury, or even Zemanski, chipping in in a pinch. You may scoff at this, but in my view they are viable choices, for two reasons. Both are mobile and physical enough to handle the position, at least for short periods of time. Moreover, and this is for me the most crucial factor, both can handle the ball in a way that would make them fit into the systemic needs of the team in terms of our propensity to play out of the back. Would they be ideal? I have no illusions that they would. But, on the other hand, they have been playing with the team and working with the rest of the squad for months and probably have a base level of understanding with their fellows that someone brought in from the outside would have to take time to develop.

The other side of the coin is that we need to be playing in such a way as to limit the exposure of our defense. The match with Houston was a perfect example of this. By holding possession for long stretches of the match, and with our fullbacks playing effectively, we were able to keep one of the better teams in the league from mounting significant pressure. Not coincidentally, this was the first match of the regular season during which we actually executed the things that we are meant to do in midfield and attack. If we can play our system effectively (and consistently) it will have the effect of deflecting pressure from our (admittedly weakened) central defense.

One thing that I would hope is precluded by our current circumstances is a return to the defensive posture that we have adopted on the road so far this season. At this point, I just don’t think that we have the personnel to do it, even if it was a good idea, which I also doubt. We are just entering one of the most challenging stretches of the season, with back to back fixtures with San Jose followed by a trip to visit Sporting KC. One bit of good news that has surfaced lately is that Diego Valeri should be available for selection for our home game against the Quakes on Sunday.

If you put a gun to my head, I suppose that I would say that we should be looking to bring in a center half. But it needs to be the right one, and we oughtn’t to piss away a bunch of money on someone who is not an improvement on what we can field currently. I regard the match with Houston as a model for the way forward. Shorn of one of our best defenders and the guy who was meant to be our playmaker, we went out and played a team game and made ourselves extremely hard to handle. The question needing to be answered in terms of our next match is: can we show a similar commitment to playing our game, to avoiding the tendency to worry about what other teams are going to do to us and to focus on what we are going to do to them? Our first win of the season illustrated that this is within the realm of possibility. It remains for us to make it real.

Magadh

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The Calm before the Storm

Posted on March 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

The argument about attendance figures at the bottom of yesterday’s post made me laugh. sunshine and I know Anfield 89 from the old neighborhood (his handle gives you some clue about what the connection is). Anfield has always sort of liked to mess with sunshine, and of course it continues here. Anyway, the whole thing is pretty much irrelevant. I mean, the population of the Seattle metro area is about half again as great as that of Portland, so it does make a certain amount of sense that they would have more people around because the draw from a larger pool and play in an NFL stadium. They’ve also had more success recently than we have. I will be interested to see what their attendance figures looked like after they have a couple of down years, but in any case this is for me akin to arguing about who has cooler uniforms. Yawn.

Tomorrow night we get some comparative data that actually mean something. Seattle played their first decent match of the year at midweek, so this is going to be a big test for us. One hopes that Porter and Co. have taken the time this week to sort out the defensive problems that have (once again) blighted the early part of our season. Our performance so far has been, if possible, even more worrisome than it was last term, as it has comprised both mental errors and systemic problems. This is something that needs to get sorted out quickly. We are not the kind of team that is going to be able to dig itself a big hole and then climb out. We haven’t shown so far that we know how to win matches, and since we really didn’t show that during the entirety of last season, there is not as much difference (that is to say progress) from where we were five months ago.

Given the magnitude of the upcoming match, it’s been strangely quiet in terms of news in the last couple of days. I must admit to feeling a bit of relief that there hasn’t been a lot of player talk about the match in the media. They need to focus on preparation. We all know it’s a big game. I don’t think that there is much in terms of talk that could pump things up any further, and the fact of the matter is that everyone knows the score. They are a team with a lot of resources and a large and unpleasant fan base. We are a team that conceded three stupid goals to the Energy Drinks and then followed it up with a disturbingly mediocre performance against Montreal. From the perspective of the players, talk is cheap and actions have to speak now.

One thing that I do look forward to is seeing how this team plays on a more spacious pitch than they have so far this season. The field down in Tucson was miniscule. Even though the surface at the JW has been expanded, it is still relatively small by league standards. The small dimensions permitted (or perhaps more properly facilitated) Montreal’s strategy of packing back and playing swarm defense. Which is not to say that this was the only reason behind their victory. The spaces were clearly big enough for them to make effective runs into our box from midfield and they certainly didn’t help us clear our defensive area effectively. The CLink is ten yards longer and four yards wider. It is far and away the biggest pitch that we’ve played on since Porter took over. It seems to me that there are a couple of ways that this could go. From the glass half empty perspective, it’s not like we’ve done an outstanding job of covering the field defensively so far this season. More space it going to really test our defenders’ ability to play together and to maintain their shape. On the other hand, it’s going to be harder for our opponents to shut down our passing game than it might be in a more confined space. With a bit more room to operate, I could see Valeri being a lot more effective than he was the other night.

From an offensive perspective, a lot of this will come down to whether or not we actually play our system from the opening whistle. It looked very much as if we did not when we played Montreal. Their tactic of packing back and swarming in defense seemed to befuddle us. If you watch the tape you can hear Will Johnson urging the other guys in midfield to make the right pass and to stay in system. When confronted with the swarms of defenders that Montreal threw at us, it took our guys an unfortunately long time to figure out how to change the equation. It really wasn’t until the latter stages of the second half that we (and by “we” here I mean our players) recognized that we needed to be quicker about shifting the ball from side to side to create space for our passing game. Once we did, we looked a lot more dangerous.

The thing that makes one a bit nervous going into this match is that we have taken so long to get ourselves sorted out in the two matches so far. Each game presented different tactical challenges, and of course we are still in the early days of implementing a new system. Still, we need to figure out how to get it right sooner. We’ve had to try to play the comeback game in both of our matches so far, and the results have not been that great. Not as bad as they might have been, mind you, but one point from six is not the sort of return that we are looking for. One point from nine would really be getting things off on the wrong foot.

This is our first road game of the year, and as such I’m going to be importuning those of you who watch your Farcebook pages with news, music, and other blab starting about 90 minute before game time. Be seeing you then.

Magadh

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Goodbye to All That

Posted on January 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

It is probably all for the best that the world at large does not have access to the text exchanges between sunshine and myself. I have trouble maintaining the respect of serious people as it stands, and too many iterations of things like the following would not help matters at all.

Magadh: The Guardian says that Kris Boyd is on the way out. Do you know more about this?

sunshine: I sent you an email about this yesterday. Didn’t you read it?

[Ok, in point of fact sunshine doesn’t capitalize in texts anymore than he does in blog posts. I just cleaned it up for him a little.]

And in fact I had read the email that he’d sent. Just not the first line, in which the relevant information about Boyd was contained. I think I’m starting to get senile.

Well, Boyd is out. I sent sunshine a note basically saying that, whatever else one might say about Boyd, at least his departure would provide us with fodder for the next few days. sunshine had a nice little “thank you” type blurb that he put up as a supplementary post yesterday. I thought I might sign off on the Boyd era a little more extensively.

Boyd arrived with a lot of promise, but with a lot of questions as well. He had long since proven that he knew where the goal was. His record in the SPL was stellar and while that league is rightly not numbered among the very top leagues in Europe, it’s not the East Neuk Thursday Night Pub League either. What can be said about the SPL is that there is a certain sort of style that tends to be successful there. Some critics of the league say that it’s mostly about just humping the long ball up the pitch and trying nick goals by winning the ball on the forecheck. The importation of the hockey terminology is intentional here. Although the tendency to lob long balls over the top in that league is much overstated by critics, it is true that one will seldom some more aggressive battles for ball in the corners than in the SPL. It is true that SPL games tend to feature less of the complex build up play than one sees in the EPL. Moreover, if you watch SPL matches I think you will agree that they do tend to feature a lot of poached goals. Kris Boyd was the king of the poachers. He was (as I have said before) kind of like a poor man’s Gary Linaeker. He was extremely opportunistic and made the very most out of a minimum number of touches.

All of that was to the good. But it was clear when Boyd showed up in town that his halcyon days in the SPL were well behind him. Since that time he had suffered injuries and a general run of poor form. It was hoped that a change of scenery and the SPL-inspired stylings of John Spencer would inspire him to recapture some of the old magic.

It didn’t happen. Boyd scored some good goals. But he also missed some sitters. It was rumored that he was the most clinical of finishers on the training ground, but that and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee. There are a lot of ways that you could diagnose Boyd’s problems. They have been discussed to death on this blog, so I will simply say that the fault was his, but not only his. It’s not like he was being presented with chance after chance, but when chances are at a premium you’ve got to make them pay.

So Boyd is gone now. One thing I will say about the guy (and there are people who will disagree) is that I never thought he lacked for effort. Personally, I don’t think he’s got a whole lot left in the tank. I saw him on many occasions tracking back in a desperate attempt to get some time on the ball. He was certainly discouraged from doing this by the coaching staff, and if fact it wasn’t a very good move given his skill set. He’s just not one of those guys who is going to dribble about four opponents and lace one from distance. But he tried. It was emblematic of the way that the team was playing at the time (i.e. poorly). Ultimately, he had to go. There was just no way that he was ever going to fit into a Caleb Porter run team, so it’s best for all concerned that he gets a chance to play his trade elsewhere.

milerIn other, more positive news, it seems that the move for Ryan Miller is on. At least Ives Galarcep thinks enough of the rumor to tweet about it. I think you’d have to say that this was a good thing. Although Miller didn’t really cut it in his last stint in the league, he’s spent time with some decent teams in Sweden (Halmstads BK and Ljungskile SK) and the league itself is comparable to the MLS in a number of important ways. Miller is 28, so he’s had some time to learn the trade. The key thing now is to get this thing done and dusted so that he can get over here and start working with our current playing staff.

I have to say, the prospect of Miller’s addition to the team is the sort of thing that gives me confidence. Unlike Kosuke Kimura, Miller is more of a defense oriented defender, but he can also keep up his end of things in terms of getting up the pitch. Kimura’s problem with defense was pretty simple: he just wasn’t that good at it. His role had really been one of supplementary midfielder rather than that of a guy who was going to lock down an opponent in the corner. I am rather more confident that Miller will fill the needed role.

Things seem to be moving along for us. Last season it really seemed like the team was lacking direction coming into things. There was this general idea that we should improve from the previous season’s performance and that Boyd would be the way forward, but even from the outset there were (or should have been) questions about how Boyd was going to fit into the personnel that we had. If I’m honest I must admit that I should have asked those questions. While the approach now is more critical, I think it’s also fair to say that there are objective signs of improvement and direction in the team. But it’s just a start.

Magadh

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Some Thoughts on the Moves

Posted on December 5, 2012 | 5 Comments

This post is going to be a bit abbreviated today. I’m sneaking on to a computer in place where I probably shouldn’t be and it’s hard to maintain one’s train of thought when one is constantly having to reduce what one is writing off the screen so as to appear to be paying attention.

I feel like we ought to maybe take a breather from the player evals for a couple of days. Given the number of moves that have been made in the last 48 hours we’ve had (and continue to have) a lot to talk about in terms of the squad. In any case, it’s not totally clear who is going to remain from last year’s squad from day to day, so perhaps it’s for the best if we give things a couple of days to shake themselves out.

We’ve had a lot of good discussion with fans lately, both on the blog itself and on our Facebook page. You all should (and many of you do) feel free to agree, disagree, vent, etc. on either of these two forums. If you’re thinking it, chances are hundreds of other Timbers fans are feeling the same way. And, of course, we’re interested in what you have to say purely as a matter of learning something about the feelings of the fanbase outside the (sometimes) friendly confines of our own little circles.

One thing that’s been made crystal clear by the moves in the last couple of days is the determination of the team to improve at the back. This is not an illogical approach for a team that gave up 58 goals last years (second only to TFC’s 60 for worst in the league) and posting a -22 goal differential (third worst in the league after Toronto and Chivas). However, there are two sides to that last statistic. We only scored 34 goals, an average of one per match, which just wouldn’t have gotten it done even if our defense wasn’t so porous. Only the haplessness of Chivas kept us out of the basement in that tally, and it thus was not surprising that they also kept us out of the divisional cellar. I suppose you could look at those numbers and say that that was pretty much rock bottom, and given that this league doesn’t have relegation you’d be right.

Anyway, my point here is that although our defense does need to improve, we also need to be a lot better going forward. The anemic quality of our attack meant that teams were much freer to get up in our collective grill and put pressure on us in midfield and further up the park. It’s not quite true that the best defense is a good offense, but being able to create a plausible threat going forward means that opposing defenders have to be a bit more cautious about getting forward.

On that note, I want to take a minute to address a reader comment that popped up in the last couple of days. There was some discussion going on in the blog comment section about Steven Smith and the general level of surprise surrounding his departure. One of our readers posted a comment the substance of which was: it’s good that he’s going, he was responsible for more goals conceded than assists, and it would be better to get a defender in there who really sticks to the task of defending.

There is a certain amount of validity to these comments. Smith was responsible for a few really grim moments in defense. Too, it wasn’t like he was lighting up the pitch going forward. Still, I disagree with the part of the comment that calls for a defending defender to be brought in in his stead. This is not to say that effective defense is not a major part of a fullback’s brief. It most certainly is. However, it is also true that the game is different than it was thirty years ago. Back in the 80s it was much more common to see fullbacks spend nearly the all of their time on their own side of the halfway line. Since then the game has changed. It’s much more integrated now and (outside of Italy) it’s simply not the case that fullbacks can be successful without contributing to the forward thrust of the attack. If that were the case then Jack Jewsbury’s tenure at right back would have been satisfactory. But it wasn’t. Teams knew that he was strongly disinclined to come forward. In fact, this was probably a wise decision on Jewsbury’s part. He was never the fastest guy in the league even in his salad days. Those days are now long gone and I credit the guy with having a realistic understanding of how far he could get forward while still having any chance of maintaining the proper defensive shape. That said, teams recognized this quickly and backed off, daring him to come forward. This intensified the already extent tendency for the right side of our attack to dissolve into a quagmire. If that was acceptable then they never would have brought in Kimura. While he turned out to be a bust as a player, it was because his technique was wrong, not is theoretical approach.

Anyway, I’m sorry to see Smith go. He had some dreadful moments, but he always played like he cared. I could have seen him being part of an improvement, but I can also see why people might not share my feelings about his departure. I will, however, be very interested to see who they are going to bring in to replace him. We’ll be bringing you the rumors about this as they emerge.

Ok, gotta go now. The people from the Ministry of Truth are looking at me funny and I need to look as if I’m really into the Two Minutes Hate.

Magadh

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the continued neediness is draining…

Posted on November 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

i know the logical continuation of the post-season review of the midfield would be to look at darlington nagbe, franck songoo, sal zizzo, or kalif alhasan, but yesterday mags stirred within me an idea. as dreadful as that may seem to you folks, it is what it is and unless i discuss that idea it might fester to explosive proportions. and if there is one thing we do not want it would be the pustules of my brain spewed too heavily within the four corners of this blog. so, forgive me the license of some blag and humor my peccadilloes of authorship.

in the last few days, we have discussed the defensive mids, their respective abilities, and how they compliment the side, good or bad. but something has gnawed at me through the last two seasons and was articulated by my good friend–the timbers have a distinct inability to move the ball forward through the midfield. typically, the timbers stick to one of two scenarios when carrying the ball forward from a defensive position to an attacking position. they either lob the ball forward, expecting some player, whoever it may be, to utilize skills most of the squad are uncomfortable using. the target must play with his back to the goal, either win a 50/50 ball in the air, or chest a ball down, turn, and find an outlet. the other option is to put the ball at the feet of a winger and let that winger run the ball forward. sure, there are other options and the timbers have employed them, but not to the degree of effectiveness they have the two primary options.

one obvious reason for the reluctance to move the ball on the ground through the midfield is the ability of the central midfielders to control the ball at their feet. take jewsbury for instance. when in possession of the ball, jack often looked as comfortable as piggy was with the conch. sure, at times he would perform the rare cruyff turn, surprising the entire fanbase with his agility, but more often than not he would look to the wings or his central defense for an outlet pass. frankly, he has never seen a sidepass or a backpass that did not look tasty enough to complete. sure, vicente del bosque said the same thing about claude makalele when the little dynamo left real madrid, but jack is no claude makalele. and while jack’s insistence for the easy pass may have assisted with the overall possession stats, it sure did not assist with pushing forward and all too often placed the backfour in peril.

my concern is that much of the constipation within the midfield is attributable to the absent link up player. jack and diego chara are both defensive mids, lacking the overall prowess in their game to play a box to box role. but as is the penchant of the club, it is much easier fitting square pegs in round holes than finding the player needed in any particular position. consequently, the timbers have assured jack that he has a permanent starting position and have taken chara and placed him in the role of a box to box type. while size was never an issue with makalele at the defensive midfield position, the same can be said of chara. but chara, however, is required to push forward, attempt the link up, as well as cover for jewsbury. he does not have the luxury of midfield counterparts who are better equipped at the role he is required to play. while he is able to perform one or the other somewhat effectively, he cannot perform all functions of the box to box player–he simply is not strong enough.

as much as we like diego charra for his grit and his overall nastiness, his play would be ever more effective if he was not required to play ahead of jewsbury. i would suggest the number of fouls he commits are directly attributable to how far extended his game has become. the fact that he fouls is not of issue to me, but the number of the fouls committed has increased with the increased responsibility in the midfield. to return to the makalele comparison, claude averaged about 45 fouls per season in a 38 game season, due in no small part to his stationary role, as well as having players in front of him who can carry the ball forward. similarly, if chara were to patrol in front of the backfour, rather than in front of jack, i see a reduction in the fouls and a greater ability of the timbers to push forward through the midfield rather than the wing. of course, all of that would be contingent on jack sitting and not playing.

more importantly, the introduction of a player who can make the links between the defense and the attack would take pressure off diego and, of course, darlington nagbe. i recognize that we have not quite arrived at the timbers posterboy, so we will leave it at that. but all too often this last season supporters begged for a creative midfielder, the necessity of which i cannot agree with more than i already do. like chara, like jewsbury, like every other player on the pitch, nagbe has been forced to sit in a role he has a perfected sense of discomfort. whether the timbers seek a deep-lying playmaker, or look to a playmaker who sits in the hole behind the strike force, they need to obtain that player quickly. the absence of that player has been felt for the last two years and is keenly affecting the ethic of the side. which, obviously, should change with the new head coach. right?

enough blag for today. mags will be back tomorrow with some more player evaluations.

sunshine.

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Midfield

Posted on November 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

(Probably) to sunshine’s great annoyance, I have been out of position for the last few days. I’ve been crisscrossing the frozen badlands on my Harley, looking for the man who framed me for killing my…well, I’ve said too much. In any case, my delinquency has left old sunshine to cover the blog during the Thanksgiving holiday. I get the distinct impression that he’s been able to spend most of it within a small radius of his own compound. Lucky him. I just abhor travelling, even when there is the prospect of massive meal that someone else is going to cook on the other end. Stupid human obligations.

Ok, grumping aside, I think it’s now time to return to the project of taking stock of the team while we have a couple of months before things get going again. Having flogged the dead horse of our defense into absolute nothingness (it should tell you something that we have a readymade subject tag on the blog’s dashboard for “defensive woes”) it’s now time to turn our collective weather eye a bit further up the pitch. I’m not 100% sure of sunshine’s view on this topic, but pace my extensive carping about the problems with the back five, my view is really that midfield constituted one of the most important problem areas in the season just past. Sure, you could look at the poor play at right back, the inconsistent play elsewhere, or the tendency to make catastrophic errors that would compromise a match’s worth of solid effort, but there is a bigger problem.

Or rather, there are two bigger problems. One is the lack of covering help from midfield. This was especially true (or especially evident) on the right side, but it happened across the board. You will notice if you watch better teams than ours (and at this point there are a lot of possible choices) that one important role of the outside midfielders is to get back and play defense over the top of the fullback on the their respective sides. Ideally, when confronted with an attacker driving down the flank, the fullback will shepherd him into the corner, using the touchlines to limit the available space and options. From a technical standpoint, this involves paying a bit less attention to the possibility that the attacker will reverse direction and head back up field. The fullback’s first responsibility (at least as I was taught the game) is to play the attacker to the corner. The thinking is that causing the attacker to head back toward the center line is a win, both because as they retreat there is less onside area in the box, and because moving in that direction takes them to where the defender’s help is (or should be).

One of my favorite moments in watching defensive sequences is that which happens when an attacker spins back and the outside midfielder on that side comes down on him like the blade of a guillotine. When the fullback and the midfielder work together it becomes very difficult to organize effective attacking play from the flanks. Sometimes the Timbers were able to create this situation, but all too often what happened was that a Timbers fullback was left to guard someone one on one with the consequence of getting beat being the sending of an easy cross from space into the box. Clearly, sometimes it is the fullback’s lot to have to play defense alone. But the failure of people like Alhassan and Songo’o (and whoever else was playing in the wide areas) to get back and help with defensive cover meant that, all too often, we were a botch waiting to happen.

The second major problem with Portland’s midfield was, as I have mentioned in nauseous detail, that they simply did not to a very good job of advancing the ball out of the defensive zone. In part this had to do with the lack of consistency in the lineup. Songo’o took a while to work himself in form. Alhassan was injured a lot and in indifferent form for much of the time that he was healthy. Nagbe has great skills but took time to learn his role, and this was not helped by those times when he was asked to play on the outside (during which he usually disappeared completely from view). Chará is a defensive specialist. So is Jewsbury, but he’s not as good. Richards did well in stretches, but is clearly still learning the trade.

We’ll get back to more extensive discussions of these players individually. Suffice for the moment to say that a major element of the problem was not merely a question of personnel but of strategy. For a lot of the season, the team’s attacking theory involved getting the ball up to Kris Boyd in places where he could be effective. Our efforts to advance the ball up the flanks, with an eye to providing Boyd with the kind of lateral service that would make him most effective, were generally stifled by teams that flooded midfield and prevented us from moving the ball effectively. Of course, it didn’t help that the right side of the pitch was a dead zone due to the lack of a proper fullback on that side. In any case, then that didn’t work, plan b seemed to be just to lump the ball up the park and hope against hope that Boyd would hold it up for one of his mates. I can’t remember that ever working.

There were stretches later in the season when Nagbe and Chará started to forge an effective partnership and we seemed to play with a bit more dynamism. This coincided with Boyd’s relegation to the bench, and it’s clear (to me at least) that there was a connection between the two things. However, the problem was not Boyd alone. Too often, players in midfield failed to move in ways that would allow the defensive players advancing the ball to make positive passes. When they didn’t, the ball got clotted up in our defensive zone and this had the collateral effective increasing the pressure on our defense to levels which it could not tolerate.

We’ll have more in the coming days as we look at the individual midfielders. For now, I leave you to the remains of your turkeys and your families.

Magadh

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Hanyer Mosquera

Posted on November 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

The other night, sunshine and I exchanged a series of texts in planning for the next few days. Several beers into the evening, and listening to music at brain boggling volumes, I of course became confused (well more so) and got our assignments completely backwards. So it was fortunate that I decided to have a look at yesterday’s post, since I was reminded that in fact I was not meant to be sweeping up the remains (i.e. talking about our bit part players in central defense), but reviewing Mosquera’s performance.

Well, you can probably understand my confusion. It would have made a bit more sense to talk about the last major figure before tying up the loose ends, but it is what it is. sunshine commands and I merely obey. Mostly. When I remember to.

Anyway, talking about Mosquera is a bit of a better gig anyway. For a side with a catastrophic goal differential such as ours, you’d sort of think that there wouldn’t be too much in the way of positive things to say in terms evaluation. And you’d be right. This was a season that was blighted by some absolutely criminal defending and there is a temptation to make the whole review section something in the nature of an inquisition.

There has certainly been some of that in the columns of the last week or so. But I (and perhaps we) think that it is important to keep the broader picture in view. Defending has to be undertaken as a team concept. The defensive failures that we witness this season were, to a great extent, systemic, not merely the result of individual frailties or poor personnel decisions (although those were also factors in the dismal equation). It’s very hard to play high quality defense when part of the system is not working. If there are failures to cover wide, or if midfielders are not tracking back with sufficient alacrity it’s next to impossible for the central defenders to maintain a solid position.

And, of course, those who read this blog will have noticed the I had plenty of nice things to say about David Horst the other day. Was his play over the course of the season flawless? We all know it was not. But it was hard to look at him without thinking of a little Dutch by using all his fingers to try to plug a leaky dike.

Very much the same thing could be said about Mosquera. He was brought in during January, having decided against signing for Millionarios, the biggest club in his native Columbia. Instead, Mosquera opted to move to a higher quality league. It took him a little while to get established in the side. He didn’t play in the opening day win against Los Bimbos, but gave a pretty good account of himself in the draw with Dallas that followed. Then he got nutted against the Revs and missed some time. It was for that reason that he was not present for the gutting loss to FSL that followed. For me, that match was a seminal moment. Ahead after 88 minutes at home on two well taken goals by Darlington Nagbe, we were undone by two late goals Johnny Steele and the vomit inducing Kyle Beckerman respectively. That match was an absolute kick in the guts. It wasn’t like the team went into a tailspin immediately (although we did follow it up by losing to Chivas and the Gals in succession), but it seemed to create the feeling among both players and fans that things were dangerously unstable at the back.

Mosquera missed that match with (if memory serves) a concussion, and his missed the Chivas match as well. He came back for the loss to the Gals, and then really seemed to have found his feet in the victory over KC the next week.

Overall, Mosquera played very well during the balance of the season. He’s a few inches shorter than Horst and is build is rather lighter. In this respect he provides a useful contrast to his partner in central defense. He’s a strong guy and can be physical when he needs to be, but he’s also faster than Horst by a country mile. By and large, although not universally, he is a good positional player. It is rare to see him get sucked out of position, and when confusion happened on the right side it was usually because if some ill-conceived and/or ill-executed action on the part of the fullback on that side (whether it was Kimura or one of the other bit part players who spent time out there).

For some reason I got it into my head that Mosquera was younger than he is. Maybe in my early season stupor I got him confused in my head with Jean-Baptiste. In fact, he’s 25. He has some rough edges that continued time in the league will probably smooth out. I have in places attributed this to the rawness of youth when, in fact, the reason was more likely that he had moved into a level of football that was new to him and need time to adapt to the speed and the size of the league. To my mind he played better as the season went on, and I think he even showed improvement during the toxic dead zone in the season on either side of John Spencer’s departure. Having looked back at a lot of those matches, it really looks to me as if a lot of the problem was that the Timbers just couldn’t get the ball advanced through midfield. It wasn’t like they were under the kosh 100% percent of the time, but the failure of the ball to spend significant amounts of time on the other side of the center line meant that the defense was under pressure even during times when the Timbers were actually in possession of the ball.

Overall, my feeling about Mosquera is that he is part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. With better play out to his right and more facility in midfield, I think that he and Horst can be an effective defensive pairing.

I think our next move is going to be a foray into the vexing question of Portland’s midfield. Maybe I’ll just fire a text off to the Situation Room at Axe Central and see if I can get a sit rep.

Magadh

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the other guys…

Posted on November 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

it really does not take a genius to recognize that over the course of a season a team will use several players in a position–any position. and with the timbers, central defense was not immune to that type of shuffle. whether due to tactical preferences, injury, or  awarding a servant of the club an opportunity to face a bitter rival in a heated clash, the management rotated between 5 centerbacks and god knows how many pairing combinations. ultimately, the primary partnership of david horst and hanyer mosquera won out. but in developing that pairing we saw eric brunner, futty danso, and andrew jean-baptiste stand in and at times hold their own against formidable sides and players who are lengths ahead of the talent currently on the timbers side.

at the outset of the season eric brunner appeared to be the logical and automatic choice to start at centerhalf, with his partner falling in as talent and necessity dictated. he had a good start to his career with the timbers after being claimed from columbus crew and was the man who directed the movement of the back four. while the -8 goal differential was nothing worthy of a christmas card, brunner’s leadership did work given the players around him. so it was a right concern when he went down with a concussion in may. ever more telling of the affect his loss had on the side is the fact that without him the timbers had a -20 goal differential. obviously numerous other factors likely contributed to the goal differential, but you cannot deny that -3 differential during the three months he did start was a shadow of the 5 months that followed.

it goes without saying that it is a cruel set of circumstances when an injury to one player opens an opportunity for another, but that was the case for david horst. before eric brunner took a knock on the dome he was the leader of the back line, the voice, and the steadying force. but he was not only a vocal player, he lead by example. likely too much so, but that is his style of play–he left everything on the pitch.

for me, the pivotal match in the season long decline of the mls incarnation of the timbers was the april 2012 match against chivas usa. the one team supposedly worse than the timbers put on a clinic against the timbers right side of defense. but rather than lifting the side with his notable commitment, brunner looked abject and jaded. certainly it is true that carrying a 19-year-old rookie and jamaican prima donna is a burden not even the hulk could perform without some fatigue, but he looked flat even in his typical efforts at throwing himself into every challenge. this match saw the shake up of the timbers defensive line begin.

scoring against the philadelphia union in his first match for the timbers, baptiste had the type of debut often imagined and rarely realized. however, with that start developed some unrealistic expectations of a 19-year-old with limited experience. as often as fate provides moments of glory it also tames and humbles those bold enough to think they can reach beyond their abilities. and quickly the timbers lost the next three matches. while mags and i attributed those losses to the poor play of the flanking defenders, when it came to addressing the issues baptiste lost out to the more established players. the last match jean-baptiste played for the timbers until the final match against san jose was the embarrassing loss to chivas usa, where lovel palmer was continuously torched and tutored on the finer points of playing football by ryan smith. [side note: i remember the scolding baptiste took at the hands of thoroughly embarrassed lovel palmer, who had just been torched by ryan smith for the umpteenth time. it was that moment i grew to want lovel palmer as far away from the timbers as godly possible. though face palmer had 60 games under his belt by the time he threw the tantrum, the timber's first round draft pick had played only two seasons of ncaa soccer at the university of connecticut--i think facepalmer went overboard on eschewing the blame.] baptiste was subsequently dropped for hanyer mosquera against the galaxy and would eventually make a trip to the la blues for some further seasoning and game time.

his time with the blues seemed to work out well for him. his return was the final game against san jose, with a significant expectation to prevent chris wondolowski from breaking roy lasssiter’s 16-year-old scoring record. maybe he is that fella who shows at big games, but whatever he was immense on that night. i recall writing this about his pairing with horst:

now, i would hate to inflate the possibilities any more than they are due, but if horst and ajb see consistent minutes together we might see a formidable pairing develop in the coming years.

a few weeks later, with further time to reflect on that match and enough time to remove any emotion i may have invested in that assessment, i still think the continued partnership merits an argument for consideration.

for a better part of this season the odd man out was futty danso. the most experienced central defender in the side, but also the most likely to commit a disastrous mistake. he started 9 matches this season, with the most notable matches of course being the 2-1 win against the filth from up north and the 5-0 hiding received from fc dallas, which effectively saw his playing time cease. and that should have been the case–that was as abject a display of football as i have seen in many years of watching football. coincidentally, the next time he was given a start a similar but more painful result occurred at the hands of the filth up north. as grateful as i am for his service to the side, i am not convinced he will be with the timbers for much longer. the gulf in talent between he and horst or mosquera, even jean-baptiste, is apparent. factor in that he turns 30 in april, the timbers are holding on to a player who will not improve any further than the efforts we saw this last season.

all right, i’m off to re-watch the beauty that was the north london derby. mags will be back tomorrow with some thoughts on our colombian centerhalf.

enjoy the day.

sunshine

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the center of the matter…

Posted on November 15, 2012 | 4 Comments

yesterday, mags provided a great spot on steven smith and alluded that a conclusion of the fullback discussion had been reached. frankly, that made my night because i absolutely dreaded writing another post on the two areas great frustration we have beaten to death throughout the season. sure, we could discuss the limited talents of rodney wallace or the complete douchebaggery of mike chaballa, but what would be the point–neither really contributed to much of anything noteworthy other than a few losses and a horrible excuse for rolling over in seattle. still, they played their parts in the side, just not well. as much as chaballa emulated the part of a footballer with his god awful ridiculous hair, he failed miserably at the fundamentals of the game–tracking back, crossing, marking, passing, shooting…with that in mind, the fact people begged for chewy to step back into the starting role at left back was a grave assessment of rodney wallace’s abilities at the position. i could go on further about the rodwall, but will refrain until we begin our review of the midfield.

so, today we embark on the general discussion of central defense. this was an area of great consternation for myself and many others (but let’s face it, the entire defense was frustrating and bewildering). last season the timbers bounced between the occasional futty danso, kevin goldwaithe, and david horst cameo to pair with the stalwart eric brunner. while it was unnecessary for the off-season pursuits to indicate the need, after acquiring the talents of hanyer mosquera and using a super draft pick on andrew jean-baptiste, one would argue the management recognized the need for an athletic and dominating central defender. it was actually one of the first, and dare i say only times, the management actually identified a weakness within the side and addressed it.

once the season began, whether by reasons of injury or limited tactical nous, the management experimented with several pairings until the primary partnership of david horst and hanyer mosquera developed. at first blush, the pairing would embody the attributes of a classic centerback pairing–one centerhalf is endowed with speed and ability to play the ball, while the other is far more powerful and passionate. however, in order for such a  pairing to work consistently the positioning of the partnership must be flawless. that was not necessarily the case with these two. when playing a disciplined game they were immense, but they were often found over-committed and out of whack.

one of the idiosyncratic issues of the side is the absolute lack of positional awareness suffered by most players within the defensive schematics–that is to say, if defensive schematics exist at all. but whether  we look at jack jewsbury when he is found inconveniently on the other side of the pitch as play moves down the right flank, or diego charra when he is forced to commit another foul due to improper marking, we should also look at the center halfs. personally i would be hard pressed to identify a centerback pairing in the mls, or any other league, so easily pulled out of position than david horst and hanyer mosquera. too often last season we watched them display their severe inability to read play and prevent attackers from getting goal side of them. in particular, hanyer mosquera. i am certain many of mosco’s mishaps on the outer areas of the 18 yard box had much to do with his flanking rightback, which can be forgiven as a willingness to cover and assist a teammate. however, concerning to me is the regularity with which the opposition got goal side of him. that is not to say horst was any better in the prevention of the centerback no-no, he too had his flaws.

these issues certainly could be addressed by a defensive coach who knew his game. and given the obvious talent evident within the games of both centerhalfs, it is clear the issues could be rectified with some consistent training that addresses the prevention of those embarrassments. unfortunately, i am unaware exactly how that will happen so long as cameron knowles remains in charge of training the defense. above a few player acquisitions that are absolutely necessary, an improvement within the coaching staff could complete the transition for horst and mosquera, jean-baptiste and whoever else remains at the club, from passable with promise, to domineering in their box.

returning to personnel for a moment, a question running through the minds of many people is how would the timbers have fared had eric brunner not been nutted in early may. fair question, but what if’s are an impotent thought process–we will never know. what we do know is that through much of the 5 months following his concussion there was a distinct lack of leadership amongst the backfour that could very well be attributable to the loss of eric brunner. is he a great centerback? unlikley. but is he a character player that others gravitate towards and instinctively elevate their play when playing around him? very possible. i would suggest lack of leadership was a distinct and overriding issue for the backfour, not experience–after all, futty danso substituted for some time. the experience a player may have does not always translate into leadership. fortunately, towards the end of the season, horst developed into the commanding presence the backline will require to impel them forward in the seasons ahead.

finally, when looking at the composition of the backfour, i cannot wonder if communication contributed to their lack of composure. i remember towards the beginning of the season talking to a fella who is rather connected in most things american football and had just met mosquera. he told me that mosquera knew next to no english and asked my man to introduce him to some lovely ladies at a party. communication throughout the pitch is key, but nowhere is it as essential as it is within the backfour. and typically it is the centerback pairing dictating the positioning and structure of the final line. perhaps with another year and some english lessons mosquera will be better equipped to play the role, but at the moment i do think ill-communication affected the ailments of the defense.

so those are some of, but certainly not all, the issues surrounding the central defense. mags will be back tomorrow with some blag on one of the big fellas in middle.

sunshine.

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Kosuke Kimura

Posted on November 13, 2012 | 1 Comment

There are a lot of easy targets in defense for Portland, you’d have to say. I’m going to start with right back, mostly because that’s the one where most of the obvious trouble arose. The most persistent of the first few weeks of the season was repeated attacks toward the right side of our defense. For me, the goal that really sticks in memory is the one scored by Saer Sene in the first minute of our match away to the Revs on day three of the season. Although that was the only goal scored by either side that day, it emboldened the Revs to try the same thing time after time and, if memory serves, they managed to put in a fair amount of service from that side of the pitch.

In those days, the problem was pretty simply: Lovel Palmer. He is probably a good human being, but his outings at right back raised troubling questions about whether he has what it takes (questions that were not put to bed during the balance of the season). Palmer has two serious and interconnected problems as a right fullback. The first is that he is not very fast or, more precisely, that he isn’t quick. When confronted by attacking players who are, he flails. The second, intimately connected with the first, is that he is strongly disinclined to close people down. The combination is death for a fullback

There is a sense in which you don’t want to blame the guy. If he gets left for dead out on the flank then the other defenders are put under pressure to come across and cover, thus pulling the formation out of shape. Unfortunately, at this level of football it simply will not work to allow an attacker five or ten yards of space. The grim sight of opposing wings putting in training ground crosses time after time was one of the least appetizing features of Palmer’s tenure at right back. Things finally got so bad that they had to put Jewsbury there instead. This had roughly the same effect on our offensive efforts as green kryptonite does on Clark Kent. Jewsbury could at least do 50% of the things that he was supposed to do (i.e. he could defend) but he was never really going to get forward very much and it didn’t take long for opposing teams to figure it out.

This brings me to the real subject of this column: Kosuke Kimura. Kimura was brought in from Colorado in early July in an attempt to upgrade the position. It didn’t work. Well, not really anyway. Kimura is quicker by a mile than either Palmer or Jewsbury. He has lots of experience, most prominently having played the full 90 when the Rapids won the MLS Cup in 2010. He’s a guy who likes to get forward, and it’s pretty easy to see in the abstract why it was that the people running the show thought he would make a good addition. For a team that desperately needed speed and aggression on the flanks, Kimura should have been a tonic. He turned out to be snake oil.

Kimura liked to get forward as advertized, but his decision making when he did so was not the greatest. Moreover, although his previous stint with Colorado suggested that he was a decent crosser of the ball, this quality did not prove out in Portland. He also did not seem to interact particularly effectively with any of the midfield players on that side of the pitch, and this contributed to the Timbers’ frequent (and frequently harped on) inability to play the ball up the pitch.

These things were probably of the sort that could be lived with if it had not been for his defensive play, which barely merited the name. Unlike Palmer, he was willing to get close to opponents. But he too often and too easily got sucked inside, leaving him with far too much ground to cover to be in position to look to his responsibilities. This very often resulted in his barging into someone or getting beat due to his momentum carrying him into a play too fast. Even when he did stay in the proper zone, it was still all too often the case that he would bring down an opponent needlessly. Giving up free kicks in that particular part of the pitch put unnecessary pressure on our defense and really vitiated any positive effects that might have resulted from his offensive skills.

Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Kimura on the basis of his work for the team so far is that at least his presence allowed Jewsbury and Palmer to move to more natural positions (defensive central midfield and the bench respectively). People who read this column with frequency will probably know that I have an optimistic streak rivaling Candide’s, as my carrying of the torch for Boyd for months will certainly confirm. I fain to hope that, with a full training camp with the squad and a more consistent lineup across the back, Kimura can still make a positive contribution to this team. I would not, however, be averse to the idea of bringing in someone who could seriously compete with him for the job. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if they experimented with playing him in right midfield, both to give Alhassan some competition for playing time and because Kimura might be a better option in terms of adding some defensive stiffness when needed. In any case, this would be a matter of retrieving value otherwise lost. Ultimately, his play last season was not (or should not be) good enough to guarantee him a spot in the squad for the upcoming season. It remains to be seen whether the Timbers brains trust will have the nous to get this.

Ok, so much for that. I’ll be back tomorrow (much earlier in the day) with a piece on the Timbers’ own version of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde: the enigma that is Steven Smith.

Magadh

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