ADVANTAGE: New England
Coach Hans Backe said it this week; if you want to win this weeks match, you have to stop Shalrie Joseph and Clyde Simms. Joseph has long been one of the very best defensive midfielders in the league. Never afraid to get stuck in, the Grenada international has a multifaceted game which also makes him a distributive and goal scoring threat. Clyde Simms, a former DC product, has also become part of the physical middle of the Revolution. Flanked by Lee Nguyen and Kelvyn Rowe, New England will possess a style similar to New York’s wing centered midfield attack.
And after two weeks off for the team, who knows; maybe Benny Feilhaber will make a surprise appearance as well.
After a second calamitous appearance by Victor Palsson in the midfield, New York will likely go with a steady, if not softer Dax McCarty/Mehdi Ballouchy tandem in the middle, flanked by Dane Richards on the right, and Joel Lindpere on the left. Though injuries are part of the problem, Lindpere’s play has been an issue as well. In a recent conversation on SBI, he sounded off on his recent benching and Coach Backe’s assertion that he need only attack more to be made a steady part of the rotation again. Clearly, the Estonian international did not take kindly to the assertion.
Once again, New York’s midfield will be a toss up.
This one is going to be tough to watch. Dax is a hard worker but he’s going to struggle defending the midfield.
BlooCheez is incredibly consistant at making useless untimely backpasses. I am waiting to see what Backe sees in him, though he did manage to create a brilliant goal using his backpass technique recently. He’ll need to find himself inside the 18 to do it again.
In defense we can look forward to seeing Holgersson who is shaky and uncoordinated at the best of times and lucky at the best of times. He who inspires little confidence will be in charge of a backline of rookies. Rookies who, like Lade, I hope will be surprisingly steady.
I hope Lindpere makes attacking runs off the ball. That may not be his game but we need those runs into the box. They disrupt the D and create openings and opportunities for shots on goal.
I see a Henry playing the CM – CF role he played earlier this year during our losses. I see him playing pissed off
and scoring 1 late goal just to prove to himself that he can in spite of the whole team crumbling around him.
NE 3 – NY 1
the real punch in the face will come when a NE player who has never scored before drops a hat trick on us.
apologies for the pessimism but its not like i haven’t seen it before.
correction:
shaky and uncoordinated at the worst of times and lucky at the best of times
happy to be wrong