2016 Red Team Playoff Clinching Watch (aka Toronto FC 2016 MLS season thread)

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

A bigger controversy might be if Cheyrou gets benched when Bradley comes back. Arguably he's been the team MVP the last couple of months. The solution might be to re-deploy Bradley or play them both in the middle in a changed formation.

I see a re-worked formation where they are both included.  With everyone healthy, you could still see something where Cheyrou remains at the deep position with Bradley and Johnson doing the two way leg work.

[gator]

I think both Bradley and Altidore have now been proven to be expensive players with not enough return for the money, both would be a better draw on American teams! I completely agree with GL about Cheyrou,, he is doing a great job in the position which Bradley  vacated for a lot less money and although Altidore is decent when he's available that isn't frequent enough for my liking!

[Gian-Luca]

34 minutes ago, BearcatSA said:

I see a re-worked formation where they are both included.  With everyone healthy, you could still see something where Cheyrou remains at the deep position with Bradley and Johnson doing the two way leg work.

Do you mean on either side of a diamond, or as part of a 4-5-1 or something else?

It may not come to be a problem as the way TFC players are dropping like flies these days, you can easily see the current incumbents getting injured from over-playing in a busy schedule by the time the cavalry comes back

 

[Bison44]

They have been using a 3-5-2 the last few games.  

 

[BearcatSA]

3 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

Do you mean on either side of a diamond, or as part of a 4-5-1 or something else?

It may not come to be a problem as the way TFC players are dropping like flies these days, you can easily see the current incumbents getting injured from over-playing in a busy schedule by the time the cavalry comes back

 

4-3-3.  That would be a tough trio of mids for any MLS team to face. 

[Kurt-MTL]

6 hours ago, gator said:

I think both Bradley and Altidore have now been proven to be expensive players with not enough return for the money, both would be a better draw on American teams! I completely agree with GL about Cheyrou,, he is doing a great job in the position which Bradley  vacated for a lot less money and although Altidore is decent when he's available that isn't frequent enough for my liking!

Agree with you there. Unfortunately as long as Bezbatchenko and Vanney are in charge, this is Bradley's team. Not saying he's a bad player but for what he contributes, you could probably get much the same for much less. Ideally, they could find a younger version of Cheyrou somewhere, sign him (preferably to a non-DP contract) and then off-load Bradley. Same goes for Altidore. My heart says that if that were to happen they could probably just roll with Hamilton/Babouli to partner Giovinco and then maybe bring in some journeyman-type striker to provide cover... but my head says they'd probably splurge on another DP striker. 

[AvroArrow]

So, how 'bout that San Jose game?

1.  Thought the first red was a yellow.

2.  Thought the second red was either a hard yellow or a soft red.

3.  I don't know what happened on San Jose's second goal.  When it went in I thought it must have been deflected, but after watching a number of replays and seeing no deflection and only a minor amount of movement, Bono must not have been paying attention.  That is a bad keeper error even in a beer league.  Does Q now get the next start?

4.  TFC's reliance on crosses once they were up two men was lacking in imagination at best and incredibly stupid at worst.  They created their best chances when they cut it back on the ground.

5.  Vanney's decision to take off Hamilton for Hagglund when down a goal makes very little sense.  I get that if you are going to play cross after ineffective cross into the box that having another tall player in the box may be beneficial, but take off one of your centre backs instead of your striker.  You are up 2 men, so having two CB's on the field isn't necessary unless TFC's big plan to score a goal was to convert all of their CB's into strikers. The problem is that CB's generally have no subtle touch, as we saw when Moor failed to control the one cross.

6.  Regardless, how can a professional team in a league based on parity lose a game to a 9 men opponent when the game was tied when the opponent went down to 9 men?

[BearcatSA]

15 hours ago, AvroArrow said:

4.  TFC's reliance on crosses once they were up two men was lacking in imagination at best and incredibly stupid at worst.  They created their best chances when they cut it back on the ground.

On first viewing it seemed to me that there was little collective incisive off the ball movement to create confusion for the SJ eight man barricade in front of (the poised and confident)  Bingham.  Too often it looked like Hamilton was well marked inside the SJ bus while Giovinco, the mids, and the fullbacks were standing around it outside the penalty area.

[Gian-Luca]

The 2nd half read  like a giant advertisement for TFC not to bother to go through with the draft. Vanney was reluctant to put blame on Bono for the winning goal but it was a floater to the centre of the goal that wasn't deflected  so it's difficult to see how the keeper can't be blamed. I get that you don't want to throw a kid under the bus but anything less here would be dishonest. As for Endoh, after getting beat on the first goal he must have made a record number of consecutive unsuccessful crosses in the 2nd half. The guy to play on the wing in that situation would have been Babouli who has proven to be able to whip in more dangerous crosses and corners and would have driven the ball with power across the face of the goal instead of these floating crosses that did no good with no target strikers to aim at (I didn't mind putting on Hagglund but who he took off is another matter. The fact that TFC had 4 at the back until they conceded the 2nd speaks to a regular flaw with Vanney - he is too slow to make subs

[Ivan]

San Jose seemed content to leave Endoh open on the wing to receive passes from the others in the second half.  They knew he wasn't going to hurt them.

[Gian-Luca]

5 hours ago, Ivan said:

San Jose seemed content to leave Endoh open on the wing to receive passes from the others in the second half.  They knew he wasn't going to hurt them.

Perhaps although at some point they didn't have much choice in that they were two players down and wouldn't have sent a guy that far out side their box of 8 to mark a player playing that wide.

They were probably relieved though to see TFC not switch it up. At one point Babouli, Cheyrou & Giovinco (who must have been tired as he wasn't taking players on at the end like you would have expected) were all outside the perimeter and the TFC players closest to their own goal while the likes of Moor and Hagglund were in the box. A bit topsy turvey, to say the least.

 

[Gian-Luca]

Offical team news release on Ricketts, complete with photo:

http://www.torontofc.ca/post/2016/07/20/toronto-fc-sign-tosaint-ricketts

After Endoh's performance at the right flank late in the SJ game this weekend, or for that matter putting Hagglund up as a centre forward, I'll gladly take him and give him a chance. Who knows, maybe they'll even use him at right back (so maybe Floro can consider that in Doneil's absence in the next two games). Just hope he doesn't take time away from Babouli and Hamilton (especially the latter).

[Gian-Luca]

Also the team traded an international spot to Montreal for a 2nd round draft pick. Hopefully that means that Montreal is hoping to play one less American in favour of a foreigner rather than one less Canadian.

[baulderdash77]

Ricketts is a good add for TFC.  He's a true pacy RW that they've been missing.  As much as I want to see Endoh and Babouli succeed; Ricketts is a class above them in terms of pace and work rate.  It's a good move for everyone.

[Gian-Luca]

http://www.tsn.ca/toronto-fc-sign-f-ricketts-to-deal-1.529717

This Neil Davidson article sheds some light on what's been happening with Chris Mannella

[Gian-Luca]

7 minutes ago, baulderdash77 said:

Ricketts is a good add for TFC.  He's a true pacy RW that they've been missing.  As much as I want to see Endoh and Babouli succeed; Ricketts is a class above them in terms of pace and work rate.  It's a good move for everyone.

Not sure about the work rate in the case of Babouli, who definitely shows a lot of hustle when he plays - and there are certain  other things that Mo (and Endoh for that matter) are a class above Ricketts at. But Ricketts can certainly add a speed/wide play dimension that the club has been lacking since they traded Oduro

[baulderdash77]

Ricketts has very good defensive work rate on the wings.  Much better than any of the players we have right now.  He would team up with Beitashour to form a right side that will give most MLS teams fits.  He may not get lots of love for his finishing, but he competes very hard all game.  This is a pretty good upgrade for TFC.

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

On July 20, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Gian-Luca said:

Offical team news release on Ricketts, complete with photo:

http://www.torontofc.ca/post/2016/07/20/toronto-fc-sign-tosaint-ricketts

After Endoh's performance at the right flank late in the SJ game this weekend, or for that matter putting Hagglund up as a centre forward, I'll gladly take him and give him a chance. Who knows, maybe they'll even use him at right back (so maybe Floro can consider that in Doneil's absence in the next two games). Just hope he doesn't take time away from Babouli and Hamilton (especially the latter).

I like Ricketts as an outside back too (meaning I am assuming you do too). 

[Gian-Luca]

11 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I like Ricketts as an outside back too (meaning I am assuming you do too). 

Based on the media scrum yesterday it appears that Vanney views him as an out and out striker so we are unlikely to see that option, it seems 

[Ruffian]

In preparation for Jim Brennan day on Saturday TFC posted this:

"Jimmy Brennan from distance. The first goal scored by a Canadian for TFC"

 

[Yohan]

3 minutes ago, Ruffian said:

In preparation for Jim Brennan day on Saturday TFC posted this:

"Jimmy Brennan from distance. The first goal scored by a Canadian for TFC"

 

Heyyyyyy Jimmy Brennan!

Oh, ah!

I wanna knoooooooow

How you scored that goal!

[Ruffian]

This is good news:

I will be interested to see how his play works in MLS.

[jonovision]

^ I don't know exactly how he'll fit in with TFC, but there are plenty of players of similar style and ability in MLS that have carved out decent careers for themselves. If Vanney can figure out how to use him there's no way he can't be a successful player in this league.

[BearcatSA]

2 hours ago, jonovision said:

^ I don't know exactly how he'll fit in with TFC, but there are plenty of players of similar style and ability in MLS that have carved out decent careers for themselves. If Vanney can figure out how to use him there's no way he can't be a successful player in this league.

Like Oduro.  He's been in this league for 10 years and looks to have had more clubs than Jack Nicklaus.

[Free kick]

On July 20, 2016 at 6:16 PM, Gian-Luca said:

Also the team traded an international spot to Montreal for a 2nd round draft pick. Hopefully that means that Montreal is hoping to play one less American in favour of a foreigner rather than one less Canadian.

The media reports that i heard stated that they wanted to bring back Hernan Bernardello from Argentina, who they previously had. This move will allow them to do that.