South Couch Report : New York City v Toronto
I go away for one weekend, and Tony’s Tea Terrorists (or 3TFC from now on? We’ll think about it…) come in and get slaughtered by Toronto and win 3-1 (I think that’s how I read it). Yup, narriative. Sure, I went to New England (you know, ALL of it, and not just central New Hampshire) and they came here, and sure, I won the little nerd tournament playing old video arcade games amongst my friends, but I miss what?!? Toronto FC, still Toronto FC-ing!
Tonight, they play Bronxchester City FC and their old timers are suiting up. The pseudo-citizens are currently on 28 points, only 4 points from safety but clear to be headed for relegation… sorry, these rose coloured glasses and their romanticism… I meant to say, not the play-offs. New York hasn’t won in a month, earning a solitary point in that timespan.
Fun times. OK, that’s enough, on to reliving the match in point form during specific minutes!
16’ – So far the highlights have been wide shots of the net and possessions in the 18 yard box resulting in nothing.
20’ – GOAL – Well that was… a strange bit of football. Lampard takes a pass from 15 yards out and scoots a bouncer towards the far post that the caught off the line Konopka couldn’t get to
BRONXCHESTER 1, ROBINS 0
25’ – Marky Delgado takes a long ball into the corner, and cuts it back to Bradley, with a man on him, whose first touch lets him down and fires wide of the post 8 yards out.
27’ – Why do they need a deficit on the road to wake up? Altidore has a near miss.
32’ – Bradley has a go from 20 yards forcing a solid leaping stop from Saunders.
42’ – Bradley has a great opportunity as he gets a 1-2-3-1 passing down to the right of goal, rounds the goalie, cuts it across but it’s too hard for Giovinco to get it, and not hard enough to find Altidore. *sigh*
Half-Time Mood : Am I frustrated? Am I bored? Is that crowd quiet enough? I’m thoroughly whelmed.
52’ – YELLOW – Cheyrou goes into the book for a challenge on Jackson
59’ – Giovinco free kick from 25 yards nails someone in the wall, and redirects enough to force Saunders to make a lunging save, preventing the ball to go in.
63’ – This is kinda fun, it’s been all Toronto attack, but nothing coming of it.
67’ – Fun over. Lampard and Grabavoy do a give and go, and no one was there to mark Lampard. He half hits it, and Williams fumbles his way over the ball to clear it.
70’ – Bradley with two long rockets, two high quality saves from Saunders.
74’ – SUB – Osorio comes off for Moore (yay for an attacking sub I guess, but it’s Moore, so you know, meh.)
77’ – GOAL – Well, that should just about do it. Mullins gets on the end of a corner kick, and gets well over Kantari and Konopka’s challenge misses the ball completely.
BRONXCHESTER 2, ROBINS 0
79’ – SUB – Perquis comes in for Warner
84’ – SUB – Altidore off for Gomez. 6 minutes to make a meaningful contribution, ha… no.
3 minutes of extra time
90+3’ – YELLOW – Perquis makes a name for himself for something.
Full Time : New York 2, Toronto 0
Man of the Match : ummm… Bradley
Goat of the Game : ummm… Kantari
Ref Rating : 4 out of 5
I Am Not The Gaffer, But… : Alditore was given 80+ minutes? Sounds about right.
In Case You PVR’d It : you can skip this one
Well, this has been a less than stellar performance, and kind of an uneventful match. Nobody was very impressive beyond Bradley, either due to lack of chances, or lack of contribution in general. The great thing about watching it online is the ability to go look up something else to capture your attention, if only for a few minutes to snuff out the boredom. Maybe others watched a better match than I did. Maybe Vanney will talk about how disciplined the team was when they weren’t conceding goals. Maybe I can get that time back. Who knows.
Konopka did disappoint me. He made two decisions to come off his line all game and both times it backfired. He’s certainly not to blame on either goal, but in the right spot, both were preventable (the Lampard one moreso than the Mullins one). There were so many other invisible players, contributions that were difficult to measure. Osorio contributed once to an attack. Altidore did that one thing in the first half and then spent the second half out of position or marked. Kantari was Kantari-ing. Sure, optimism spikes were abundant, but after a while, I was less optimistic that Toronto was going to score, but going no further than imposing themselves in the New York City half. Bradley was easily the standout, if only for trying to take the game by the collar and beat NYCFC by himself.
Or, I could be wrong.
Player Ratings : Konopka 5.5, Delgado 6, Williams 6, Kantari 5.5, Morrow 6.5, Warner 6 (Perquis N/A), Cheyrou 6, Osorio 5.5 (Moore N/A), Bradley 6.5, Altidore 5 (Gomez N/A), Giovinco 6
September 17, 2015
yeah, disappointing game really. sure TFC had their chances and on a different day maybe some of them go in, or someone gets on the end of one of the giant rebounds saunders kept punching out, seriously he refused to try and catch any shot, it was weird. But TFC just never really seemed in sync here.
once again, a different defensive formation/lineup, I almost feel bad for perquis, comes back from injury, one bad game and he’s done? woof. and delgado as a straight forward rioght back in a 4 man d as opposed to wing back in 5 man d? that didn’t go too well, muscled off the ball a lot. altidore, after being on the left wing of an attacking 3 on saturday, is now on the right wing of a 4-2-3-1? Bradley was getting forward a lot more than he was. Sure he’s not the big centre forward type of player his physique suggest he could be, but this is getting very confusing now, presumably for him as well, can’t be helping his confidence at all really.
Best part of it all was the criticism Vanney got on twitter and how there all of a sudden seems to be a lot more people questioning if he’s the right man any more. my thoughts: don’t fire him now, for better or worse this should be his season to finish, but very serious questions need to be asked in the off season, and stumbling over the low bar that is 6th in the east, which I still think we’ll do, should in no way be enough for him to be considered untouchable at that point.
Things seem very messy in TFC land right now, surely they can’t completely implode out of the playoffs again can they? couple of weeks ago I was saying 100% no way they’d drop to 7th, but now I’m seeing the start of that happening. saturday’s game is now a lot bigger than it should be, need to get things back on track.
September 17, 2015
Meanwhile, in San Jose, Kyle bekker scored!!!!!!! as Montreal got another credible draw, 2 points form games at the galaxy and at san jose is pretty decent.
Nightmare scenario, TFC spiral, it comes down to the last game of the season, Bekker scores the goal that knocks TFC out?
September 17, 2015
Grown men playing on a kid-pitch, that is what football matches at historic Yankee Stadium amounts to.
This game was a waste for TFC supporters and i can’t blame Vanney entirely, the pitch presents a great puzzle for any visiting manager. But TFC’s worst defense in the team’s history combined with an increasingly pop-gun offense is dooming this club. To be in this situation so late in the season is something that can be dropped on Vanney’s shoulders. I agree, a management change is inevitable, it is only a question of when.
September 17, 2015
I agree, the pitch is so small and tight that it really looked like there was no room for TFC to figure out how to get some runs going. I’m not sure how they pulled off the 3-3 draw last time, because they really struggled to get Giovinco into this one (although I will admit I PVR’d the game and fast-forwarded through a lot of it – so I could have missed some chances).
Anyway, what a crap place to play. I hope NYCFC will be out of there for next season.
But things are starting to look really shaky for TFC now… I agree with Duncan that it is not the right time to change the coach, but if all Vanney can do is squeak them into the playoffs and then bow out? Then yeah, next season we need someone with more experience. I think the squad is better than their recent performances have shown.
September 17, 2015
It’s a weird place to play for sure, but one that plenty of teams have figured out.
NYC have only 4 clean sheets all season. 2 of them against tfc. only 3 at home all season, 2 of them against TFC. Only 2 since march 21st, 2 of them against TFC. which is a bit odd really as generally we’ve done well against the poor teams.