Photo: Kyle Grantham
The Philadelphia Union’s rough start to the season continued with another ugly home loss, this time to the San Jose Earthquakes. Let’s get right to the ratings.
Player Ratings:
GK Andre Blake – 6
Not much to do on the goal, not much to do otherwise.
LB Giovanny Sequera – 5.5
Caught out of position a few times, including by Timo Werner’s brilliant pass for the only goal of the match, but it’s hard to hold it against the surprise Union II callup. Had perhaps the Union’s best chance of the night with a nice cutback and shot in the 57th minute.
CB Nathan Harriel – 5.5
Should have scored on a diving header right after half-time. Otherwise an uneventful night.
CB Japhet Sery – 5
Was solid enough defensively, but the Union need better possession play out of the back.
RB Frankie Westfield – 6
Over-aggressive at times in the back, but one of the few potential sources of joy for this Union team going forward, including with two key passes and six successful crosses.
DM Danley Jean Jacques – 5.5
There were a few signs of the old maurading midfielder from last year, but the central midfield has been much too passive through the start of the season.
DM Jovan Lukic – 5
Not terribly involved other than getting a yellow early in the first half.
AM Milan Iloski – 5.5
It’s still not clear where the Union’s creativity and attack is going to come from this season, but Iloski consistently looks the most likely. Unfortunately, he has not yet found his form from last season.
AM Indiana Vassilev – 5.5
Vassilev had two good opportunities around the top of the box, one in each half, but placed his shot right at the keeper both times.
FWD Agustín Anello – 3.5
Apparently had one shot and completed one pass before being subbed at halftime.
FWD Bruno Damiani – 3.5
Closest he came to scoring was when he nearly blocked a pass from the San Jose goalkeeper in the 30th minute.
Substitutes:
(45’) Ezekiel Alladoh – 4.5
Decent penalty shout in the 65’, but might have been better served just taking the shot.
(66’) Jesus Bueno – 5.5
Always covers a lot of ground and keeps things ticking, but rarely makes things happen in the attack.
(74’) Stan Korzeniowski – 5
Another combative performance from the big forward, who is already becoming a bit of a fan favorite.
(74’) Alejandro Bedoya – N/A
(82’) Ben Bender – N/A
Geiger Counter
Armando Villarreal – 5.5
Ignored a decent penalty shout on Alladoh, but otherwise I can’t say I really noticed him.
Player of the Match: Timo Werner
The German brought a touch of class to an ugly game, and ultimately that was the difference.
What’s Next
The Union will have to figure things out fast before they host Club América in the Concacaf Champions Cup on Tuesday, March 10 at 7:00 PM.
I think I watched a different game. Only 2 starters and 1 sub less than a 5? This team was horrible last night. Blake’s score is on target. Maybe give Sequera a 5 since it was his first game and at times he was the best player on the team. Other defenders should all be below 5. Midfielders and forwards? All below a 3 for me. The team was crap last night and could easily have lost 0-6 rather than 0-1 if San Jose had played like a halfway decent team.
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The Union will NOT figure things out before Tuesday. Best hope is a 0-0 draw like they had at home against Pachuca 2 years ago. Then they can get blown out in Mexico City.
I’m going to agree with the rating of Westfield, his crosses and passing in the second half gave me hope that as the season goes on maybe he can start to replace Wagner as offering width in the attack. Is he as good as Wagner right now, not at all. But trying to find positives from this start, this is one I’m betting on.
Offensively, yes, although he had at least one cross late that was way too strong. Defensively, though, when Winer wasn’t wining and was actually trying to play, he pretty much owned San Jose’s left side so it was Frankie’s job to defend him…and that didn’t go so well.
Iloski and Cavan need to be the AMs. There’s zero creativity coming from Anello and Vassilev. Strikers are starving for service let alone a line breaking pass.
Iloski and Lukic are too high. Lukic’s passing was poor. Iloski muffed at least one good chance, but mostly was invisible. We can and should expect more from these players. 4s. ‘Dre is too high, as well. A fair number of his long kicks were way off-target on a night when the Union were playing “boom ball.” Other than Westfield, who might merit a 5, I didn’t see any player on the Union side who merited more than a 4.5. I don’t know how you could have missed Referee Villareal. He called a lot of push fouls. . . except for the push on Alladoh in the box. Although he was in improvement over Chris Penso, he contributed to the lack of flow in the game: 4 for him, too.
Do we have another St. Louis second season situation or is it our new, young roster isn’t used to playing together? Players have significantly regressed from last year. Lukic and Vassilev are absolutely terrible. We are getting killed in the midfield and turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. Not sure what Damiani is doing and Anello looks to be completely out of his league. I am not a Jesus Bueno fan but prefer him to the constant Lukic turnovers. The offense is completely listless. NOTHING! I understand not starting Eze but man, what a price to pay!!! He is the only dependable striker and has good hold up play. Damiani was terrible in the hold up. Maybe he can play off of Eze. Cavan needs to start and bench Vassilev. He was terrible in the DC game which I was at and hasn’t improved. We need some energy and positivity right now. I get the Sequera starting thing but he is totally out of his league. I am not as negative as some of you are on Frankie. He is constantly improving and his passes do remind you of Wagner. The back line was going to be a challenge without Makhanya, so not much to say there. Finally, the scores are WAY WAY too generous. Do we have a Jim Curtin issue with not playing Cavan??? We suck and need to turn this around. Any port in a storm.
There is speculation that Man City would rather Sullivan play against Club America rather than San Jose. If that’s the case, it brings up some issues regarding another team controlling Union personnel (and makes you wonder why he was even on the bench). But it would explain why he didn’t play Saturday.
I’m ok with these ratings. Mostly average with bad scores for the strikers seems about right to me
Agree that the scores are way too high. Frankie was okay going forward but a liability defensively. When you have a kid making their debut on the other flank you as a full back have to be more restrained. That is squarely on Carnell as it has to be his instructions – the coach has to protect Gio in that situation and he looked completely lost (understandably). More importantly, why does Carnell insist on starting Damiani. Why? I ask everyone to not follow the ball and for just a little bit watch only Damiani when we are in the opposition half. He stands too close to the other forward, he lacks awareness so he flicks on a header to noone, he gives up the ball constantly, and on Saturday he couldn’t even complete a five yard pass when he (under no pressure) just played it into touch.
Back in the lean days I used to say, “OFF with their heads !!” then MelloYellow’d. Or maybe they were just better. Anyway, I do not believe in interacting that way any longer with Union players.
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So… let’s try this one, “…when I am king, you will be first against the wall.”
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Sure Cavan plays against Club America. Fine, so when Union get bounced from this ancillary tournament, I will expect to see him a regular in the starting lineup I guess.
Meanwhile, Tim I appreciate your POV, I do —and understand he is not 26… but in America the average 16 year old is playing three games most weekends being run ragged in games they have to pay to play in… so I imagine he could have come on for his typical 30 minute teaser Saturday night in an otherwise GODAWFUL soccer affair.
I get Danley was largely solid for us much of last year, but I think that recency bias is clouding some people’s views a bit. He’s been a turnover machine this year, and many of those turnovers were in costly moments that they either snuffed out promising attacks or led to dangerous counters for the other team. The passing of the whole teams need to be better, but he’s being looked to as one of the regulars now on a young team with a lot of new faces.
He has been abysmal.
After reading all comments about the San Jose match…. bravo to all, excellent coverage… but I thought the most insightful comments were the comments about the new lighting system… which was kinda cool… but with ZERO chances of sunset beyond 730pm… as good an investment as fireworks at 4pm?
$7M on strikers who aren’t striking… midfielders who aren’t midfielding and a back line that MIGHT be a top backline by season end… but can we wait? Can Coach Carnell wait?