Right, so have we all recovered from the painful weekend by now? I mean, it wasn’t entirely painful at the match, but it was a bitter blow and I’m still a bit aching from it. Time, then, to face the facts and prepare for our match tomorrow at Chicago.
I’ve not yet heard anything about whether we have any fresh injuries, but we did have two players come off with knocks in Fabian Espindola and Chris Wingert. They might have been rested for this match anyhow, but we’ll see if they’re actually injured and if they’ll be able to recover quickly. Let's hope that's a "No" and a "What are you talking about? They're not bloody injured!" in response.
But we should have two players on their way back in El Salvador’s Arturo Alvarez and Costa Rica’s Alvaro Saborio after their nations both dropped out of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. I’d have liked to see either win a trophy with their nation, but I’d much rather see them help this team recover their early-season form. We’ve also Will Johnson returning from international duty, and I’d like to see him slot into midfield.
As I discussed yesterday, our performance will depend on our midfielders and their ability to connect with each other. The middle of the park has been a problem spot for us for nearly two months — a perfect storm of sorts with injury and international duty pushing continuity to the side set us up perfectly for our last seven matches, from which we’ve gained a meager seven points.
The Deseret News’ James Edward thinks, like I do and have written, that Collen Warner hasn’t adapted to the midfield. He plumps for minutes for Luis Gil, but I think Kreis has found a lineup he likes more: Beckerman, Grabovoy, Johnson, Williams. He’ll obviously have to rotate in the coming weeks as the matches come thick and fast, so I expect Gil, Warner and Gonzalez will share the minutes. Though don’t be surprised if Kreis throws caution to the wind a bit and makes a surprising change — he’s a brave manager, and if he gets more desperate for wins, I can see him making some big changes to the setup. Clearly, though, he wants to stick with this diamond formation, and his deploying Andy Williams at the tip of the diamond shows he is actively considering how he can make that properly tick over without Javi.
In other news, if you’ve not seen Charlie Davies’ latest comments, I’m sure they’ll be of some interest. D.C. United’s resident penalty-making manboy makes himself out to be a bit of a child, all told, when he titters with delight at his getting one over on the referee, and his teammate Josh Wolff chimes in, calling it a “beautiful call.” They know full well what they did, and like a naughty child, they’re thriving on the attention. Obviously we had our own problems in the match, so a point really was the result we deserved.
So, let’s quit with the diving talk for now: Bigger things will come along, and we have to be 100 percent prepared for those. Everybody’s aware the league has refereeing problems (for a brilliant but depressing example, play “Spot the red card offense” in this Thierry Henry sending off.)
We’ll find out who our US Open Cup opponent will be after the match between Wilmington Hammerheads and Charlotte Eagles tonight. Follow Under the Crossbar on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/TheCrossbarRSL) or read tomorrow for more on this. Hopefully we can make this our first of three trophies this season.
Come on you Claret and Cobalt!
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