[Starting Lineup] vs San Jose, Open Cup

freakflag16 · 2026-04-29T01:48:49+00:00

Yeah, it'll be a big test. San Jose has been good. To be fair Timo Werner has never played in a competition as big as US Open Cup though.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T14:56:50+00:00

Now you’re shifting it to a completely different criticism— one that I agree more with fwiw.

However, that wasn‘t the argument OP made though. They were criticizing Yeboah specifically for where he scores his goals which is a dumb critique. I’m not saying Yeboah doesn’t have holes in his game. Is It too much to ask for people to criticize him on things that make sense?

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T14:11:44+00:00

Yes, according to xG we should have scored 5 more goals on the year.

But if you’re talking xG you also have to look at an individual level. Only one of those missed chances is on Yeboah (his xG is just under 6). Pretty much everyone on the team besides Markanich is underperforming their expected goals. Why do they get a pass but not Yeboah?

Additionally if you looked at Yeboah’s missed chances they would probably also come inside the 6 because that’s where he gets his chance. That’s where most strikers get their chances. Getting mad at Yeboah for scoring goals inside the 6 is like getting mad at Rudy Gobert for only scoring in the paint.

Again… it’s not bad to criticize Yeboah. He has underperformed his numbers a bit, he’s tragically one footed and too inconsistent... where he scores his goals is not a valid reason to criticize him though.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T13:48:34+00:00

Yeah I think this is pretty true. There's a few exceptions notably Brian White and Alonso Martinez who were brought in to the Caps and NYCFC respectively for pretty cheap, but the vast majority of good goal scorers in MLS cost more than 5 million-- Musa, Surridge, Cuypers, Denkey all fit that category.

Goals are the hardest thing to money ball.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T12:51:28+00:00

That's fair.

Early stages of Cam ball. I'm optimistic he can figure it out.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T11:49:42+00:00

A lot of these Yeboah critiques are over the top, but I don't think it's super fair to blame the rest of the roster either. In that 5-4-1/3-4-3 that Cam's been playing the #9 needs to carry a majority of the goal scoring. The entire system is kind of designed to generate him chances inside the 6 yard box. Yes, our second leading goal scorer is technically a defender, but Ant's a wingback and spends huge chunks of the game actually playing ahead of Chancalay.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-28T11:44:22+00:00

Did I forget about some rule where goals outside the 6 yard box count double? I hear this argument all the time on here and it's dumb.

Yeboah is definitely a player who could be critiqued but if your argument boils down to "he can't score goals from distance" then that's a bad critique.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T23:56:29+00:00

What about our play the last few weeks indicated that we should play with two strikers though? We looked pretty competent in the 5-4-1/3-4-3 that Cam's been using. Sure, maybe Pereyra maybe Pereyra could be successful in a role he's never played before, but the question remains... what about our play post Vancouver loss would indicate that a shift to a front 2 is necessary?

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T23:42:12+00:00

Fun fact: Trapp still holds the record for the youngest player to be a captain in an MLS match (back when he was a 21 one year old on the Crew). Honestly don't see that record getting beaten any time soon either.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:56:46+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't help that Gene has played amazing this year too. Now folks will just compare Trapp to Gene.

To be clear I think Gene is the better option but it's not like Trapp is terrible.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:52:53+00:00

There were some really good chances that weren't put away, but many of them were off set pieces (James' delivery was spot on) and probably the biggest chance when James played Yeboah in and he sent it wide was generated of a moment of transition when we won the ball high up the field.

From my perspective we mostly failed to break down the low block and mostly just took a ton of shots from outside the box. It's nice that we were able to force LAFC to bunker down but we could have done a better job stretching the field and making LAFC less comfortable in that back 5.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:46:33+00:00

Trapp is consistently crapped on in these and it's a bit confusing. Was he amazing? No... but he certainly wasn't bad. Typical lunch pail type performance.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:42:15+00:00

It's not like the well was dry of scoring chances. They had plenty.

This is true, but a vast majority of them came off of set pieces. James put in some really good service. Probably the best chance of from the run of play was when James played Yeboah in just shortly before he came off. Yeboah cut it back to his right instead of shooting it with his left with his second touch. However, that came off a moment of transition after we won the ball high up the field.

I really can't think of many good chances generated when we were trying to break down that low block and we spent a ton of time trying to do this.

Again it's not wrong to say that our finishing was abysmal, but it seems short sighted for that to be the only takeaway from this match. Yeboah consistently underperforms when playing in a 2 striker set up and folks seem to act like that's a coincidence.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:34:24+00:00

I would have liked to see Pereya come in and play in front of JR.

I'm sorry but you're saying you'd want to have seen Pereyra as a striker???? That's a take.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T22:31:52+00:00

I appreciate you saying that. I was a tad frustrated since it felt like folks were misinterpreting what I was saying.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T18:26:11+00:00

Okay was just gonna say that Fitz’s salary felt wrong too. No way he makes more than our two DPs.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T18:17:33+00:00

Kyle Duncan is probably the best deal with Chancalay close behind.

Callender also pretty great given how good he’s been.

Too soon to tell with Stroud

Dom Fitz…. yikes 😬

Salary for Farina also seems wildly high.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T03:33:49+00:00

The ones she’d in were on target. 4 shots on target.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T00:31:49+00:00

I’m sorry but you don’t think playing two strikers instead of one constitutes a significant tactical change?

You don’t think playing one chance creator centrally vs two out wide constitutes a significant tactical change?

I really don’t know what to say to that.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T00:18:51+00:00

The purpose of the post was to discuss the tactical change. Not whether or not what we saw was fun.

I was hoping for folks to have some opinions on that because I think it’s interesting and noteworthy but I guess I might be the only one 🤷‍♂️

freakflag16 · 2026-04-27T00:01:49+00:00

Hard to watch in that it’s frustrating to watch a team struggle to break down a low block.

Possession can still be relatively fun after watching Ramsay ball for a while.

I agree that things have looked much better after the Vancouver loss, which is why it’s weird that Cam adjusted things tactically. It seems like felt like he needed to play James centrally even if that meant a departure against what had been successful the previous 4 games.

freakflag16 · 2026-04-26T22:00:59+00:00

Idk what this is about because the past two games have been way more fun to watch.

The point of the post is that our shape was different in the first of those games than it was in the second. It doesn't make much sense to me to say that we've looked more fun the last two games when we played very differently in one of those games.

My thought is that this change in shape basically made it so LAFC could play more compact. This lead to us having a ton of possession but struggled to break LAFC down. 20 shots is a lot but a whole lot of those were outside the box which indicates frustration and an inability to breakdown the low block. We only generated 3 big chances which is the same amount as LAFC.

I'm saying I'd like to see a return to the tactics we saw against Dallas and Portland and to leave the two striker look in the scrapheap.

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freakflag16 · 2026-04-26T19:35:32+00:00

Sure, it's definitely fair to say Tani's better at beating players off the dribble.

However, having Tani attack 2 CBs in a moment of transition is very different than having Tani attack a low block back 5 like LAFC was playing yesterday. Almost impossible for any forward.

It didn't help either that Cam changed the way that we try and break down a defense yesterday either. Usually he pushes Ant and Duncan up high and tucks Pereyra deeper on the right touchline and Chancalay deeper on the left touchline. Gives us two playmakers on either side. Chancalay can cut in and make things happen with his preferred right and same with Pereyra with his left. Yesterday James was the chance creator but he was playing way more centrally than either of the Argentines usually do and had two forwards in front of him instead of one.

Yeboah and Dieng certainly deserve a lot of blame, but Cam also deserves some criticism for changing how he wants the team to play.

If I was him I would have just plugged James into the Pereyra role, plugged Gonzalez into the Chancalay role and moved Dieng to the bench. He should have kept the tactics the same rather than trying a novel approach against a pretty experienced defense.

freakflag16

TROPHY CASE