FC Cincinnati 0-2 New York Red Bulls: Counting the Hands on Deck (on One Hand)

(The woman at the back senses what you're all thinking...)

I plan to start and end on the same talking point – i.e., questions personnel. First, what can a team do when its heretofore most reliable player makes a catastrophic mistake? FC Cincinnati’s shot at three points went out the door when Kaku found the ball that Mathieu Deplagne lost between his legs (dude. look down.) and slotted it past Spencer Richey. That wasn’t the only decisive moment yesterday – think what might have been had Luis Robles got a little less hand to Fanendo Adi’s header – but it came late enough in the game, and with things rolling fast enough downhill, for Cincinnati to rescue Deplagne’s error. Again, that’s one of your more reliable players…

‘Twas an ugly game, one that ultimately ended in a 2-0 loss for FC Cincinnati. The New York Red Bulls scored a second goal (1 + 1 = 2!), but that was just a little dunking that made the game read a little more lopsided than it should have. The Red Bulls were visibly the better, more talented team but that translated more to moving the ball forward than chance creation. Cincinnati created more shots – e.g., Adi had (and failed) a one-on-one test of his own – and that made this a game that could have ended either way…but you’ll have to move to an alternate universe if you want a happy ending…you think Alan Koch still coaches in that universe? (Nah…)

There isn’t a lot to analyze after that. New York tends to turn games ugly, and that bogged down large chunks of the game in a series of close-quarter wrestling matches over the ball. It wasn’t a permanent neutral, but neither team passed well (or often, for that matter) – which is to say, the Red Bulls have nothing to gloat about (and this performance makes me want to dial back talk of escape velocity for them; New York is grinding out wins, not designing them). They put two shots on goal and both of them went in, end of story. Before that point, they wandered aimlessly in the attacking wastes and survived the odd scare from Cincinnati…hold on…

I want to pause to bitch about the utility of the shots/shots on goal stat. At some point in the second half – a moment The Mothership didn’t think to add to the highlight reel – Adi and Roland Lamah combined on a solo raid that ended with Lamah getting the ball inside the Red Bulls’ penalty area. New York shut down his first look, but Lamah spun out of it and got free for a shot. He missed, obviously, and the ball rolled wide of the whole damn net. Still, that was, 1) a good chance, and 2) one of the worst looks for New York’s defense all night. And yet, according to the numbers, one of Cincy’s best chances shows up as one of its six shots off target, more fuck up than opportunity, and that's backwards.

Hmm…that miss makes a decent metaphor for the game as a whole. Cincinnati played all right, the Red Bulls didn’t force them into very many mistakes (where bread meets butter for them; Deplagne did it too himself), and they generally managed the game to where it was their game to lose; they gave New York very little, and they deserve credit for that, at least. They can’t buy much on that credit, not against a back-drop of needing wins, but it was still a solid performance against a team with a strong, recent history.

With that, the question becomes how to turn solid performances into wins. The short answer: they should get wins by playing the same way against weaker teams – i.e., patience, grasshopper, at least until Montreal comes to Cincinnati again. (I kid, I kid.) If nothing else, I liked the way they showed FC Cincy lined up in the broadcast (both The Mothership’s recap and the MLS app shows a different line-up, and I’m calling bullshit on both). I think the broad outlines of that – flat-four defenders with a defensive midfielder planted in front of them, with two box-to-box guys running behind a front three of Lamah, Adi, and Emmanuel Ledesma – is the most balanced line-up that FC Cincinnati can play right now. It keeps them solid at the back, while at least throwing…something at the opposition’s defense. All of Cincy’s attackers have their limits – Adi was a reliable pain-in-the-ass yesterday, but none of those three are world-beaters – and that makes getting enough of them at the sharp-end of the attack a necessary choice. That just leaves the question of who Cincinnati plays in that (modified) 4-3-3 (or is it more of a 4-1-2-3?). That opens the more pointed question of who’s up to snuff…

To start, Cincinnati needs to get its fullback situation sorted out. The term “X Factor” typically gets used as a positive, but I want to hang that on Alvas Powell in the precise sense that, you don’t ever really know what the fuck is going to happen when he is near or on the ball. To give one example, who the hell is Powell guarding on New York’s twist-of-the-dagger goal? He’s aware that Omir Fernandez is there, because he keeps his eyes on him. Powell, though, looked surprised when the ball came in, or at least that’s what one might think on seeing his legs go wobbly like a marathoner who’s about to drop out of the race. My best defense is that Powell thought he had someone charging in behind him, but, nope, it was just Fernandez, right in front of him, going to ground for the header. He’s erratic in the attack as well and just looks generally…unsettled. I’d start looking for solutions for Powell, and as soon as possible. If there’s a solution on the roster now, I’d say use it.

Moving upfield, Caleb Stanko might seem like a good little destroyer to sit in front of that defense, and he’s good so far as he goes…the question is whether that isn’t another position where Cincinnati shouldn’t look to go further. Once you start playing this game all over the field – e.g., the Justin Hoyte ‘n’ Kendall Waston CB pairing looks all right, but could it be better? – I think the exercise will give a little more clarity on where FC Cincinnati should look for trades and acquisitions. I focused on places where defensive personnel could improve for a reason – i.e., that’s where Cincinnati’s alleged strength lies – but…does it, really?

To turn to the attack, I’d like to see Ledesma get a longer run in the attack – and I suspect that playing he, Lamah and Adi as a three-headed beast might come off – but I’d also cashier Ledesma in a heart-beat if you told me Cincinnati found a better player. And I raise that point to acknowledge the reality that Cincinnati just doesn’t have the personnel to succeed (or at least it very much feels that way). I believe they can be competitive in MLS, and with current personnel, but I can’t see them going anywhere, unless there’s some as yet undiscovered way to get more out of this line-up.

I’m going to close with the handful of players who, 14 games into this season, have me convinced – the keepers, basically. There, I would include: Spencer Richey, Kendall Waston (who, full disclosure, I doubted going in), Deplagne (all was immediately forgiven), Leonardo Bertone, Lamah, and Adi. I would be open to losing/trading just about every other player - some more than others, obviously.

This isn’t some cri de Coeur to burn it all down – they need a full roster if nothing else – but so much as a statement that I’m willing to be very open-minded when it comes to building a better roster. More to the point, I like a lot of the players I didn’t name as keepers – e.g., Victor Ulloa, Allan Cruz, and, yesterday, Frankie Amaya impressed me enough with the intelligence of his play and his commitment on both sides of the ball (nice shot too) that I’d keep him and play him just to see where he goes. The question isn’t always as simple as good or bad players; just as often it’s how those players fit together. And it’s possible that the fatal flaw in FC Cincinnati’s came with putting too little thought into that question.

At any rate, things don’t look great, and maybe the sky will only stop falling when it touches ground (wait…hasn’t it?). FC Cincy has two games left before the Gold Cup break – away to the now-less-quietly-improved Colorado Rapids, and away again to New York City FC, which I wouldn’t expect to go well – after which, they’ll have some more time to tinker, maybe find a way to get more out of this current group. It won’t be until July 7 that they can look into changes to that current group…

…the only thing I’m sure of is that it’s gonna be a long season.