April 29, 2016
Paul Rudderow/Philly Soccer Page
Ray Gaddis, left, will start in place of the suspended Fabinho on Saturday afternoon.
By my count, Union manager Jim Curtin has five personnel questions to address ahead of Saturday's game against San Jose.
A couple of these obviously depend on injury status, and Ilsinho is further along than Tribbett. The Brazilian midfielder came off the bench last week, while Tribbett was kept out of the 18 entirely. He's still not 100 percent with the ankle injury he suffered in training before the Seattle game.
As for Alberg, he likely begins the game on the bench, with Tranquillo Barnetta in the No. 10 role.
At the No. 6, I like the idea of Creavalle keeping an eye on the movement of Chris Wondolowski. It's similar to the way Clint Dempsey drops in as a second striker/CAM, and that's how Philly built the gameplan in Seattle.
And the easiest decision of the week addresses question number five, where Ray Gaddis will step in for Fabinho.
You know what you get with Gaddis at left back.
Ray is a lockdown 1v1 defender with limited offensive skills that are further diminished when he plays with his weak foot on the left side of the field.
Fabinho, on the other hand, will get forward and hit crosses into the box, but doesn't have the defensive instincts that Gaddis possesses.
Gaddis played 45 minutes last week and finished with 2 tackles, 2 clearances, and 6 recoveries. He didn't put in a wrong foot as he dealt with both Stiven Mendoza and Khiry Shelton, who swapped sides several times over the course of the game.
Twice to begin the second half, New York tried to hit Shelton in the left channel, but Gaddis made two good plays to get on the inside shoulder, shield, and snuff out the attack.
That's what Gaddis has done well over the past four seasons.
This week, he'll probably matchup against Alberto Quintero, who may or may not make way for Shea Salinas in the second half. The 45 minutes against Shelton and Mendoza was a good warmup for another tricky assignment this weekend.
There’s a scene in the 1973 James Bond movie, “Live and Let Die” where Roger Moore is trying to evade henchmen at a Louisiana flight school.
He hops in a plane with a trainee pilot and famously says, “let’s just wing it, shall we Mrs. Bell?” before eventually driving the plane through a closing set of hangar doors and ripping off both wings.
In a way, that was how the Union performed in wide areas last season, i.e., they got nothing from the wings.
That's really changed a lot this season.
Let’s start by taking a look at the left midfield and right midfield positions in 2015, but we’re going to focus on the first seven games for now, since that’s how far we are into the current campaign.
Your first choice wingers were Andrew Wenger and Sebastien Le Toux last season, with Eric Ayuk and even Zach Pfeffer getting some playing time. There was one occasion during that early stretch where Le Toux play as a striker in place of the missing C.J. Sapong and Fernando Aristeguieta, so he didn’t see as much time out wide as Wenger did.
Here’s how the main three guys fared over that early part of of the schedule:
Le Toux: 0 goals, 1 assist, 12 shots, 4 shots on goal, 511/630 minutes (Le Toux also assisted Pfeffer on 4/11/15 while playing in the #9 position)
Wenger: 0 goals, 0 assists, 12 shots, 4 shots on goal, 599/630 minutes
Ayuk: 0 goals, 1 assist, 3 shots, 1 shot on goal, 225/630 minutes
In total, the wide positions provided 0 goals, 2 assists, 27 shots, and 9 shots on goal in 1,335 minutes of play.
Chris Pontius puts @PhilaUnion in front after a great cross from Barnetta #PHIvNYC #DOOP https://t.co/f3bfDayLE2
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) April 23, 2016
Fast forward to 2016, and here's what the wing play looks like:
Chris Pontius: 3 goals, 1 assist, 16 shots, 8 shots on goal, 543/630 minutes
Le Toux: 2 goals, 1 assist, 8 shots, 5 shots on goal, 332/630 minutes
Ilsinho: 0 goals, 0 assists, 4 shots, 5 shots on goal, 242/630 minutes
Leo Fernandes: 0 goals, 0 assists, 4 shots, 1 shot on goal, 150/630 minutes
You see the instant upgrade that Pontius gives on the left side. Andrew Wenger, to his credit, has been much better in Houston this year, but really struggled for the entirety of 2015.
Even on the right, Le Toux has improved on his early season form. Ilsinho and Fernandes haven't hit the score sheet yet, but that probably won't be the case for much longer.
If you add the numbers up, it looks something like this:
2015 wide play through 7 games: 0 goals, 2 assists, 27 shots, 9 shots on goal, 1,335 minutes
2016 wide play through 7 games: 5 goals, 2 assists, 32 shots, 22 shots on goal, 1,267 minutes
That's a huge difference.
