Jason Kreis this week will have been charged with a tough task: Fixing a hole where the rain gets in (or, if you will, goals, but it hardly completed the reference) and keeping the squad from wandering (mentally, or, perhaps, to other clubs, though that seems less a risk.)
Enough with the parentheticals (for now.) Oh, there, I’ve gone and done it. Seriously though, Jason does have a tough task ahead of him. All signs point to a squad bereft of confidence, lacking in belief, and ready to roll over. Two months ago, we were being quietly pipped for the MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield, but today, many are of the belief that we’ll be in a fight to make a wild card playoff spot — let alone one of the several automatic ones.
Perhaps, were we in the east conference, we’d be hanging on around the top of the regional table, which means little more than a playoff spot decider, all told. Of course, the league has promised to look at that, apparently, though they’ve not exactly revealed their hand for how they will proceed.
What does this squad need to be complete? It’s clearly a little more complex than a simple “Javi!” shout from supporters, though I’ll be one of those singing his name when he makes his competitive return. Javier Morales is an important piece of the puzzle, but will his return be a magical fix-all? I don’t think so, and I don’t think Jason Kreis thinks so, either.
Sure, we haven’t exactly solved the playmaker situation, but we’ve done well to cope in recent weeks. That hasn’t been the problem plaguing our squad in the last month — we’ve been finding chances all about, and the problem has been one of finishing those chances and not one of making them. They’ll certainly be easier to finish if they’re served on a Javi-crested plate, but something more is wrong than just that.
The problem isn’t immediately apparent to me. I see many little problems, and perhaps those have compounded into a large problem. Inevitably, if I’m looking for one root cause, there probably isn’t one. That’s how it goes, after all.
So let’s spend this week mulling over what puzzle pieces are missing — whether those pieces are players, tactical approaches, or mindsets. It’s better to stew in your defeats anyway, right?
Right, I’m off to stew. Until tomorrow.
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