Nashville earned its biggest win of the year by knocking off Louisville City FC in resounding fashion. How’d it go down? Quick note: my ratings are score-based after a film review, and on a scale that… there’s technically no range but anything over 15 is generally good and under 9 or so is bad for a full game worth of performance. Community ratings are on a traditional 1-10 scale.
Formation and tactics
With Matt LaGrassa starting over Alan Winn (who was suffering from a minor injury that required a cortisone injection to be numbed up to enter the game late), the midfield four takes on a bit of a different shape. It’s still two wingers – Taylor Washington on the left and LaGrassa on the right – with Bolu Akinyode and Michael Reed playing the central defensive roles, but it’s a bit more compact on the right side, with LaGrassa comfortable playing a bit more centrally. That allows Kosuke Kimura to make overlapping runs from his fullback position. We see a bit of that on the left as well, but Justin Davis doesn’t need to play as far forward because Taylor Washington is more comfortable maintaining width and getting upfield.
That combination of slightly different skillsets on each side of the field (plus LaGrassa’s tendency to drift inside a bit more) allows Nashville to use the principles of both the 3-5-2 and the 4-4-2 while remaining in the shell of the latter formation.
Early in the game, Nashville’s plan seemed to play a few longballs to the strikers (particularly Ropapa Mensah in hold-up play), and send in some early crosses when the field started to shrink with a lot of bodies forward in the offensive third. That made sense in this one: both strategies force Louisville City to run a little bit more, and on a very hot day when the Boys in Purple had a short bench due to injury, that tires them out and gives Nashville an upper hand.
When Nashville started making subs, the tactics did change a bit: Alan Winn coming on for Taylor Washington flipped the two-footed Matt LaGrassa to the left side, while the heavily righty Winn played on his natural side (Washington is a natural lefty). After David Edgar replaced LaGrassa, NSC went with five at the back, and while Davis moved forward a bit, they were pretty conservative at other spots (as in: even Alan Winn dropped into a defensive midfield posture). When Ryan James replaced Lebo Moloto, it was a pure 5-4-1 with Mensah up top and the midfielders staying pretty defensive (James played LWB while Davis played LCB).
Quick side note: this was, by like a factor of 10, the worst-produced NSC game of the year (including previous home games presumably produced by the same crew). In the interest of fairness to the players, I didn’t knock – nor did I credit – them for plays that happened while a close-up of Louisville coach James O’Connor’s forehead was deemed more important to the director than the ball actually being in play on the field.
Gary Smith community rating: 8.64
For what it’s worth, I think that’s a conservative rating for a guy whose team just banged on the No. 1 team in USL, even though I don’t rate the manager.
Forwards
Here’s your man of the match, folks:
Lebo Moloto 20.24 (89 minutes) – Community rating: 9.45
Moloto has been really good in the past few game and not getting enough credit for it (whether it’s his own finishing coming up a touch short, or his final pass not getting the end product it deserved). He was, uh… well worth crediting here, folks. He started just a little slow, but put in good work in the high press to make things tough on Louisville’s patchwork backline. Also later in the game he had a really nice goal and then a header that was so much more impressive than he’ll ever get credit for. I guess that’s good?
Community comment: “Mensah and Moloto are starting to get really good chemistry – connecting really well.”
Agreed.
Ropapa Mensah 15.49 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.23
I’m somewhere between the numerical rating (very good) and the community rating (good-not-great) based on the eyeball test. Mensah still has some letdowns in hold-up play and gets frustrated when things don’t go his way. His game falls apart when he gets tired (though going the distance was a nice look in this one). He remains among the most talented players on the team, and if he’s going to add an assist-style playmaking bent, that’s very good. His cross for Moloto’s first goal was out-of-character in a very positive way, and if it’s a matter of adding to his game rather than happening to have a nice moment, look out, USL.
Midfielders
Bolu Akinyode 8.54 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.36
I’ll admit that I’ve been a skeptic (I would hope that the concept of spending several hours breaking down each game gives me a bit of a justified soapbox when doing so) on Akinyode, and there are still two primary areas of concern in his conservatism passing and a tendency to not put in superhuman effort tracking back defensively to cover. However, he was quite a bit more adventurous playing the ball forward, worked into the offensive third, and had more playmaking flair than we’ve seen. If he can amp up the recovery effort, this is a special player at the USL level.
Taylor Washington 10.79 (71 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
You may as well copy/paste last week’s entry here: Washington seems to disappear from games (or take a while to get involved) largely because he likes to play high and wide – preventing him from making a huge defensive impact and making him reliant upon teammates for a serious play on offense – but when he gets involved in the game, he does a lot of positive stuff, and does it in bunches. He came out early for gameplan purposes, not because he was doing anything wrong.
Matt LaGrassa 10.42 (82 minutes) – Community rating: 7.27
I touched on LaGrassa’s tendencies when breaking down the offensive scheme above: he’s comfortable floating inside (which may be a liability in some formations, but is a good fit for what NSC wants to do on the edge and has at the fullback positions behind him). He likes to make an impact defensively but is a little tentative in executing his assignments there (on one occasion in the first half, he sunk to cover a winger who wasn’t there, which allowed an unchallenged shot at the top of the box). He’s the most comfortable of NSC’s CDMs – which is what allows him to play on the wing – and I’d even like to see him get the start with one of the others in the middle.
Michael Reed 8.29 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.18
Reed played the role of “extreme centrally oriented Taylor Washington” in this one: he scored low less because he was doing bad things, but more because he wasn’t doing anything at all early in the game. He rebounded to put up a decent mark, but not having a huge defensive impact (nor making up for it offensively) is unideal for a central midfielder in this system. He settled in later, but still has sketchy moments with his first touch, and settles for shorter passes offensively at times. Nothing to blast him for in the least, but there’s upside to be explored here.
Alan Winn 2.98 (25 minutes) – Community rating: 2.98
Winn came onto the field and immediately had a good threat on the offensive end, which is obviously what he’s there for. Given that he had to get a cortisone (I assume) shot just to reduce the inflammation of his mystery injury enough to see the field, that’s good. His effort on the defensive end was as good as ever, and he was drawn into a pure defensive role a bit more than ever before – unsurprising, given the game state when he came on. If he can get to full health (unless it’s something that needs to get a stretch here and there, I’m disappointed that Smith bothered with him in Wednesday’s Open Cup match after this one), the sky’s the limit.
Defenders
Bradley Bourgeois 11.82 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.09
I’ve made no secret that I really like what Bourgeois brings to the table: he plays way bigger than his height and is able to clear balls or (a new trick!) carry forward before distributing. He had a couple really sketchy moments in this one trying to clear unsuccessfully, and that’s a return to the very beginning of the year and some mediocre form, but it’s not damning in the least to me.
Liam Doyle 11.47 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 6.55
I review the film to try to avoid falling back on my preconceptions about players, and I fear that the community may not have the same standard (which is fine: it’s inherently an opinion piece), because other than a very poor performance against Indy, Doyle has been really good. He didn’t get caught trying to stab-tackle at all in this game – generally his primary weakness – while being solid in clearing the back-end and laser-guided as ever with the left-footed longball.
Justin Davis 9.75 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
Davis is the reverse Taylor Washington, and instead of having very little involvement at any point, he’s very involved with extremely variable high and low points. (which, in hindsight, may not be a coincidence: he may absorb much of the action along the left side, leaving Washington without much to do). He tends to let guys in behind him, and while he doesn’t always recover, often the recovery is a flashy slide-tackle. He’s good at getting forward into the attack, he plays a nice ball on the set piece… just cut out some of the extreme negatives and that’s a good day.
Kosuke Kimura 9.06 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 7.27
Kimura struggled mightily the first time out against Louisville, but this was easily his best performance of the year (to the eyeball test, if not necessarily the numerical rating). He was far more composed over the ball, stayed in front of wingers to prevent crosses, and got forward in combination with LaGrassa until the subs led to a formation change. He’s still only OK on passes with his left foot (or those covering distance but not hopeful lumps forward), but if he’s going to be energetic and stout, that’s fine. He’s lowest among starting starting defenders to the numbers, but the eyeball test was more in line with the community: he was outstanding.
David Edgar 1.5 (14 minutes) – Community rating: 6.91
Edgar came on when NSC was trying to close out the victory, and as the middle centerback, he didn’t have a ton to do. He didn’t make any mistakes, and had a couple nice tackles that he was able to distribute quickly to teammates, and in only 14 minutes, there’s not much more you can ask.
Ryan James 1.19 (6 minutes) – Community rating: 6.73
Like Edgar, James didn’t have enough time on the field to make an impact. He played wide as a right wingback when NSC didn’t want to send him forward, and Louisville was too gassed to challenge him. He showed initiative to try to play Mensah long toward the end of the game, but that’s about all he had the chance to show.
Goalkeeper
Matt Pickens 12.83 (96 minutes) – Community rating: 8.00
Pickens didn’t have a ton to do, and obviously he kept a clean sheet. There was an instance or two where he might have been beaten by a shot if it had been on-frame (including a Doyle reflection that probably should have been a goal), but not letting any in still counts for the positive.
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