I am not saying I do not see flaws but tell me who should play Center Back.
She is doing the best she can and It is still a team game.
I will support whoever the coach plays whether good or bad in your opinion.
No. 3 Rutgers Women's Soccer vs. Buffalo / Sunday
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
She is doing the best she can and It is still a team game.
I will support whoever the coach plays whether good or bad in your opinion.
Rudad I don’t want to go to war with you on this and essentially you are correct but
how did she get into that position to start with. Mason is 50 yards up field. Lynch is 30 up and 30 left . Who was back with her?
Romano is not a career defender and they were paired against two extremely dangerous strikers who will beat pretty much every one they face one on one
when you attack 8 and defend 2 will get beat, occasionally, on counters. If she did this in a conventional four across or had an experienced defender with her.
yes she has made mistakes but you don’t correct her you make the responsibilities
Comparable to her skill level
Isolate her with 120 square yards to cover with a fast, slick, ball carrier with ridiculous shooting skills and she and everyone else will get burned
mike understands the inherent risk of attacking two backs and lives with it
He has better players, not sure why he doesn’t play them. Misal is hurt but likely back soon but that still leaves Banks there unless he uses Kurlya but not sure he believes she’s better than Banks. He has depth on the bench, just zero vision
No reason to have Romano playing outside back when you have an actual veteran defenders. Makes no sense that he doesn’t switch any players and leaves girls on the field limping, tired and fouling.
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We are 3-0. Ranked 3rd in country and nothing seems good enough...
I will continue to support whoever the coach plays....flaws and all.
Nobody was perfect today but they pulled it out. Congrats.
I will continue to support whoever the coach plays....flaws and all.
Nobody was perfect today but they pulled it out. Congrats.
Check the roster. He has defenders. Why not play them? Can’t be worse. Instead he gambles it all with one player week after week while we hold our breath.
actually its the quality of defenders. none can run as fast, or have the footskills Banks has.
you want to play Kurdyla or others you simply cannot attack eight. you are relegated to what you saw vrs New Mexico and Providence.
again while Banks is listed as a center defender she isnt when we attack the way we want. Until
Emma returns we dont have any one you can trust with half the field. Gianna was back there to also carry out o you end. the other five defenders on the roster cannot do that
then if Mike thought one was good enough would he be playing a career forward at that position.
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I wouldn't have to say anything if you weren't shitting on our own players. Classic.
Also if you've been attending games for that long you should know how Mike coaches. See the post from @ho26rus above for a great explanation.
As someone who went to the Monmouth scrimmage where Coach Mike gave all defenders run (at the time Romano played midfield because Emma was available), I've never felt less comfortable with our defense than when the other defenders were in. I remember audibly exhaling in relief when Emma went back in at LB for one of the other defenders. And if that was my reaction vs Monmouth in a scrimmage, I'd rather we didn't start playing them in games that count against harder opponents. There's a long history of converting forwards or midfielders into RB or LB if absolutely necessary and Romano's doing a well enough job to stave us over until Misal gets back.
As far as Kassidy, I think everyone needs to lay off for a second and realize she's a 19 year old. Frankly, there are no defenders at that age doing the right thing 100% of the time. And even with the constant complaints about Kassidy last year, she was still the third best CB in the power 5 in the freshman class according to Chris Henderson and was a top 10 freshman in the nation according to TopDrawerSoccer. The way Rutgers plays, the defenders get up very high in a 3-4-3 when attacking and have almost always been susceptible to counters from players more athletic/faster than them (see here where Gabby is incredibly high up and gets beaten for one of TCU's best chances and Emma has to track back in a full sprint to even attempt to get a foot on it. Gabby got bailed out by Meg making a great stop that gave her enough time to fix the mistake). The problem wasn't that Kassidy was up, it was that Gianna was also up very high and therefore left Kassidy to cover center and left in her absence. And even with that, Kassidy was still able to get in front of a streaking attacker before a slight misstep. And the "almost penalty" everyone keeps ranting about, you can clearly tell her first touch is the ball on the replay....which means it's not a penalty. I shudder to think how you guys would react to actually bad CBs in the NCAA.
The biggest problem with Mason/Banks wasn't that they were getting up, it was that they need to decide who the sweeper is. The best USWNT CB pairings (Johnston-Ertz/Sauerbrunn come to mind) will have one CB sort of "attack" and are the ones to challenge the most for tackles and the like while the other will hang back to keep position. See here where Sauerbrunn comes up to challenge the position while Johnston-Ertz hangs back to cover. Ultimately Klingenberg was there to clean up the pass inside but my point is that it is not at all unusual for a CB to step up to challenge. Take past CBs for Rutgers, Brianne Reed and Erica Skroski. One would come up (usually Reed) and the other would clean up any "mess" like here or here where Reed is a little higher up. But they also played together for 3 years and knew when the other was going to challenge.
The problem stems more from both Mason and Banks acting as the CB to step up next to Provenzano's sweeper last year and now it seems neither knows which one is supposed to hang back. And both of them are attacking defenders as it is so Mason tends to overcompensate if Banks doesn't get that first attacking defensive position. They're less than 10 games into their CB pairing though so this is something that can be remedied fairly easily with a little communication.
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I've been plenty complimentary of our girls for years including this year. See multiple posts. And I'll continue to point out what I think are their shortcomings. And I'll continue to point to Banks shortcomings until she improves & corrects them.
And while strategies & formations & tactics can contribute to her struggles they can't mask her real weaknesses which she has exhibited since her first game last year.
I know I've made my point, ad nauseum to some, & that some strongly disagree. I'd prefer to leave it there.
Whatever...you may not see what the coach sees in practice.
Put in your application. See if you can build a better team.
Many here were calling for Mike O'Neill to be replacec not so long ago.
People need to relax.
IMHO: If he had better defenders he would play them.
People need to relax.
IMHO: If he had better defenders he would play them.
Big long time Mike supporter, doesn't mean I have to agree with him on this one.
It's perfectly okay to have a critical opinion on a coach and/or their decisions. That doesn't mean someone isn't a supporter nor does it mean they want to see the coach fired...I'm not sure why people always jump to such extremes. Coaches aren't perfect; they do make mistakes and have blind spots for certain players from time to time, it's simply human nature.
With that being said, it's still early in the season and the team is still gelling with all of the new faces so there are definitely going to be some rocky moments at times. There is a ton of talent on the roster and I have no doubts that they will figure it all out in due time.
With that being said, it's still early in the season and the team is still gelling with all of the new faces so there are definitely going to be some rocky moments at times. There is a ton of talent on the roster and I have no doubts that they will figure it all out in due time.
I disagree. He has defenders with better foot skills who can run. He’s just locked into certain players and has never looked into his depth on the bench. I agree that Emma needs to return soon, but that won’t help fill the gap
Everyone doesn't need to agree but I really appreciate the reports for games I don't see.
Curious who exactly those girls are?
there is one Naila but she is a freshman in her third game.
As I am also a big Coach O'Neill supporter but as dad says you don't have to agree with him on everything and one thing that did tick me off about the Buffalo game was we came out a different team in the second half(now one thing that I haven't seen mentioned is the first half we were against the wind and it was a huge factor) and we dominated and scored the two goals with in 15 minutes and then what does O'Neill do he has the girls become more defensive;(calls off the dogs so to speak); If we kept that same pressure up we would have had 4 goals easily if not more Buffalo could barely get the ball over midfield
I believe Allison Lynch was out the entire second half.
Before you ask I do t know
So you played a career center defender on the right side and Gianna romano( yes I know she is playing well ) on the left.
So conventional wisdom was to protect them and step back from the 8 girl attack.
there is, sometimes, a method to the madness
I thought I was going crazy for a minute because I could’ve sworn Lynch played the whole game. You’re right in that she is only listed as playing 45 minutes, all in the first half, and is listed as getting subbed out by Naya V. But if you look at the videos of the goals, you can very clearly see that Lynch is on the field for both. Probably someone up top reading the 9 as a 4 when taking down the box score. So kinda negates that point. I kinda agree with Rich, I didn’t love the turtling up at the end either since it tends to cause more stress than should be necessary at the end of a game.
Ok then thank you . I see her on Tiernan goal but not on Lowery. But I will take you word and apologize to both of you
O'Neill had the same substitution pattern as every game.
Funny that no one gives the opponent any credit.
Funny that no one gives the opponent any credit.
Not a fan of turtling up either. As Jules said causes more stress. And in a 1 goal game you can't afford a mistake. Mike hasn't taken that tact for quite some time.
If you read his comments after the game he said that the team was tired after opening with 3 games on the road[two of them across the country]. Have a feeling that that reality may have prompted the tactic.
Such bullshit. Go out and absolutely blow Temple back to the Stone Age on Thursday night as a result now.
Mason is probably just getting back into R’s style of play. She was with the national team for a month.
Going to take a minute.
Going to take a minute.
No concern....Just keep winning. This will just light a fire and reduce the target on our back.
Remember we do not have a capable center back according to a few on here. LOL!! Perhaps the pollsters were reading our thread.
Go RU.....Destroy Temple....
Remember we do not have a capable center back according to a few on here. LOL!! Perhaps the pollsters were reading our thread.
Go RU.....Destroy Temple....
Just who said that we didn't have a capable center back?
The pollsters indicated they used RUdad's posts to support dropping us 6 spots. 🙂
Empty barrels make the most noise seems appropriate in your case 78.
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