As always (at least at this point in the season), don’t put too much stock in scores week-to-week: I’m tweaking the formula a bit between weeks to find one that I like. The post should be internally consistent at the least. Community ratings are on a 1-10 scale (don’t forget, you can vote in them each week).
Midfield
Alan Winn 25.96 (93 minutes) – Community rating: 8.75 – For the second week in a row, Alan Winn is my man of the match. This time, though, the positives that he brought weren’t nearly as dragged down by the negative of “what-if” or lost potential for plays he didn’t finish. His goal included an effective-if-clunky cutback with the backheel, and the finish was much more impressive than it had seemed live. He was willing to provide a bit of a high press at times, and his speed continues to change the game down the wings.
Bolu Akinyode 17.23 (93 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – I’ve been a bit of an Akinyode skeptic (at least in comparison to some folks, like my friends at Soccer Speedway), but I really felt he turned a corner for me in this game. Whereas he’s typically extremely conservative with his passes – willing to pass back or laterally, and often very short, which results in nice completion percentages but not necessarily effective soccer – he was more willing to push the ball a bit, and even carried it at his feet upfield a bit more. He’s still improving in controlling it out of the air (he’s often winning headers, thanks to his height, but not quite getting the touch right), and needs to be more effective working back, given his role as a defense-first midfielder, but I thought he had a great game.
Michael Reed 14.77 (93 minutes) – Community rating: 6.25 – Reed has been very quiet in past games, and was quite a bit more active in this one, given the quality of opposing offense he has to deal with. Simple volume of involvement is a big factor in these ratings (trying to figure out exactly how to value it is part of what I’m tweaking each week), and he was in the mix a lot. He still seems to be a little inaccurate on passes – or puts them in unnecessarily risky areas – but his role as a defensive field general from midfield allowed him to step up.
Taylor Washington 8.89 (68 minutes) – Community rating: 6.50 – Given Nashville’s desire to attack 1) with Alan Winn and Kosuke Kimura and 2) down the right side of the offense generally, Washington wasn’t super-involved in the game. His speed down the left does make the opponent stay honest, and he was a step or two away from running down longballs from his opponents on multiple occasions. That he played seven minutes or so after receiving the knock (a minor hamstring injury) that eventually took him out of the game also depressed his score.
Matt LaGrassa 0.33 (25 minutes) – Community rating: 6.25 – LaGrassa came on for Washington and mostly played out of position on the left wing (though he and Winn flipped sides a couple times, as well). NSC was trying to run out the game by the time he came on, so there weren’t as many opportunities for him to make an impact. He had a couple mistakes – including two separate instances of dribbling out of bounds under minimal pressure when he was supposed to be taking the ball to the corner flag and earning a throw – that he didn’t have enough involvement to come back from.
Forwards
Lebo Moloto 20.42 (88 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – This was a bounceback game for Moloto after he was quieter in the forward role last week. He was much more comfortable playing a second-striker role running onto passes in hold-up play (albeit partially because he was starting from deeper positions, giving him a bit of familiarity as a usual midfielder), and was able to both pass to players down the sidelines or even run them himself. He drew a ton of fouls against a physical Charlotte defense, as well.
Michael Cox 11.18 (77 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – I’ve finally figured out what I think of Cox, and at this point it’s a pretty tight comparison: he’s a bit of a poor man’s Jozy Altidore. He’s at his best getting long balls with his back to the goal and a defender that he’s boxing out, and quickly distributing them to runners. The problem is that he has a tough time getting a soft first touch from chest to foot, with it often bouncing away when he gets that first foot to it (in this game, Moloto was among those who made that not-too-damaging to the team). He also likes to run behind the defense a bit, though with Winn running the wing, it wasn’t as necessary here. He provided a pleasant defensive spark in the high-press game, too.
Ropapa Mensah 2.96 (15 minutes) – Community rating: 7.25 – Like Cox, Mensah often takes really hard first touches, allowing the ball to get away from him. He also has a big, strong physique to box out, but that’s pretty much the end of the comparison. He relishes getting behind the defense – although in this one, he didn’t trust his speed on two occasions (that looked almost the exact same, though one was a turnover and one was a shot), instead dribbling in slowly after a defender has recovered, trying to cut back across his face, and losing advantageous position. Of course, he also had a beautiful first-touch goal, as is tradition.
Defenders
Kosuke Kimura 15.62 (92 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – I’ve been harsh on Kimura in past performances (though not unfairly), so I definitely need to give him props in this one: he was great. He’s a ball of energy willing to get up the field and work back fast if possession is lost, and that was a good fit for what NSC needed alongside Winn up the right side. He’s still iffy with his passes at times, but he cleaned up some of the things he’d struggled with in previous games (keeping his feet on the outside when a winger tries to cut back on him, bizarrely inaccurate free throws that had to be due to some sort of hand injury), and it’s clear that the 4-4-2, at least for now, seems to be a better fit for him. The overlapping run, rather than having space of his own on the wing with a tightly-packed central midfield trio, is good for him.
Justin Davis 13.17 (92 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – Davis continues to be, well himself, even after the shift to a 4-4-2. He likes to get up in the offense, but it’s more of a ball-carrier position toward the center, rather than the “raging fullback” that Kimura’s style seems to be (and with a winger on his side in Washington who’s totally comfortable being a wide defender, that’s a good fit). He still seems to make some really scary moments for his own team, but a desire to push the ball up the field with well-placed long passes and a knack for timing his crunching sliding tackles works out well.
Liam Doyle 11.59 (92 minutes) – Community rating: 6.75 – Doyle is a walking, talking headed clearance much of the time, and he’s a sniper on long-balls starting offense from the back. He still has a tendency to step up with inopportune timing (see: Ottawa game), springing a second runner in on the goal, but the even backline seems to make that less dangerous: he’s one of two guys locking down the middle, rather than the final line of defense. He gave up an awful free kick at the top of the box when solid positional play would have been more effective, too. Overall, it was a decent game, but only that.
Bradley Bourgeois 10.31 (92 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00 – Bourgeois had a couple really nice chances on corner kicks – like, three or four, so it had to be something NSC identified on film – and if he’d hit one of them, his offensive contributions would have been impressive to go along with a fine day defensively. He did give it away at the back a time or two, and got turned sideways to give up space a couple times.
David Edgar 2.16 (5 minutes) – Community rating: 5.00 – Edgar’s low rating both in my system and presumably according to the community were a simple product of limited time on the field. His entry put NSC into a five-man backline with him in the center (Doyle left, Bourgeois right in a defensive 5-4-1 holding the lead), and I thought he was fantastic for what little we saw of him. A few more weeks with the team might see him in the starting lineup.
Goalkeeper
Matt Pickens 14.40 (92 minutes) – Community rating: 8.75 – Pickens could probably be the man of many matches, but his total lack of involvement in the first half is both 1) a good thing, and 2) going to keep him from racking up big point totals. His free kick save was awesome (probably the USL save of the week, though there were some strong contenders this week, as well), and the difference in the game in the end. Of course, it was worth about one goal though, so can it be valued more than Winn’s or Mensah’s goals? That’s up to the reader to decide.
Community comment: “The save Pickens made was so good it made my wife cheer.”
Don’t forget to vote in next week’s community player ratings to have your opinion heard!
Club and Country 