Nashville earned a road draw against a top East team… but the way the game played out will make them regret missing out on all three points. 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
This was a pretty standard game tactically for what we’ve gotten used to: a 4-4-2, with the second striker (Lebo Moloto behind Ropapa Mensah) often a bit deeper, but the two men up top basically playing side-by-side tactically. The strikers also pressed a little bit higher up the pitch at times defensively.
The midfield was fairly standard as well, with Taylor Washington, Bolu Akinyode, Michael Reed, and Matt LaGrassa working left to right. The only potential surprise was LaGrassa on the right, but with Alan Winn nursing a slight injury, he’s been the go-to replacement there in USL play (with Robin Shroot also getting a bit of time). The defense was the unit we’re accustomed to, as well: Justin Davis, Liam Doyle, Bradley Bourgeois, and Kosuke Kimura, with Matt Pickens behind them.
The subs were a pair of like-for-like replacements, then a defense-for-offense swap at the end. Brandon Allen replaced Mensah at the top striker, Ish Jome replaced Washington at left midfield. With four minutes left in regulation (four minutes of stoppage time made it eight total minutes left in the game), Ryan James replaced LaGrassa, and Nashville SC went to a 5-man backline with James at left back and Davis sliding in to be a left centerback, and essentially three defensive midfielders on the field.
Against Charleston’s 3-4-3, Gary Smith went with a gameplan that saw a lot of crosses in from the wings (I’ll have a film room piece on why that is tomorrow). It’s a low-percentage strategy – but of course, forcing a low-percentage gameplan is part of why teams go with three at the back. NSC took what was made available to them, and frankly, the Boys in Gold should have been able to put another one in (and did, but it came back on a phantom foul).
Gary Smith community rating: 7.00
Midfielders
Michael Reed 14.77 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
I’ve been a bit of a skeptic of Reed at times – he’s a decent player, right-place right-time, but rarely a difference-maker. In this game, with not a whole lot of offensive fireworks either way, his steady play in the middle was able to earn him man-of-the-match honors. The central midfield had plays to be made against the 3-4-3 formation, and Reed made them. He had a bit of a playmaking flair with a couple nice backheels that I wouldn’t have expected out of him, and on the basis of high involvement without the big mistake, he earns the honor.
Bolu Akinyode 6.45 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
There were more true mistakes in this game than we usually see from Akinyode. His passing was still pretty successful (80%), but he picked out some wrong targets for those passes, leaving his teammates in heavy fire as the ball arrived – and he was back to settling for extremely conservative options instead of more ambitious plays at times. He also had the ball tackled away from him more frequently than I can remember (and made fewer tackles himself). Not a bad game by any stretch, but a bump in the road of what was a straight upward directory.
Taylor Washington 7.18 (82 minutes) – Community rating: 7.50
Like Akinyode’s performance featured some of the weaknesses it had previously appeared were ironed out of his game, Washington was back to the very slow start: he has trouble involving himself in the game (not always his fault – he can get open in dangerous position and not get the ball). Given that this game featured a ton of crossing (and he was responsible for six of those crossing attempts, including a successful one), he got into it. He also scored the game-winner that came back on a terrible foul call where the ref was in the perfect position to see that there was literally no contact between the players… and called it anyway. Bad break, or Washington could have been the hero.
Matt LaGrassa 6.97 (87 minutes) – Community rating: 8.25
LaGrassa has a tendency to float centrally, which can mess up the spacing and eliminate passing lanes for teammates when working the ball through the midfield (Washington also did it once in this game). However, he has a willingness to both pass up the sidelines and make runs up them. I’d actually like to see him get more involved in the final third, because he has that ability. On one occasion, he received the ball at the top of the box, but didn’t trap is well and had to turn back and lay it off to a teammate (Reed) rather than take the shot himself. I’d like to see the confidence to take that shot.
Ismaila Jome -0.73 (13 minutes) – Community rating: 6.75
Jome comes out with a negative overall score, but that was really just a matter of limited time: I marked him for one negative play, and he just didn’t have time to make up for it with only 13 minutes, including the end-of-game malaise when NSC was willing to play for the draw (or at the very least keep numbers behind the ball and let the forwards win it without help).
Forwards
Ropapa Mensah 12.45 (67 minutes) – Community rating: 6.75
Given that Mensah is a fave-rave of the fans (not that there’s anything wrong with that – he’s a good player), I’m surprised to see what I evaluated as a good-not-great performance get a pretty poor community rating. I guess that’s the price of not scoring as a forward. Mensah is getting so, so much better at doing the little things other than scoring though, and those (along with fitness, so keep in mind that he only played a little over 2/3 of the game) were what was keeping him off the field early. His effort in the high-press is improving, he showed off some pretty impressive technical skill in this one, and the flashes are there, goals should come in buckets.
Lebo Moloto 12.35 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
I was actually pretty down on Moloto’s performance through 45 minutes, and while he rebounded to put together a nice day… this was a performance that I think is outside the range we reasonably expect. He gave the ball away more than ever, cut off runs early (when the ball still was served), and just looked a little uncomfortable all around. Like I said, the rebound was there, but sinking so deep into the midfield for the ball really stunted how it felt like the offense should have run.
Brandon Allen 2.65 (28 minutes) – Community rating: 7.00
Not a whole lot going on here: about a third of his time came in the “trying to preserve the draw” phase of the game, when the forwards were still free to get upfield, but didn’t have a ton of midfield support. Before that, he looked a little dangerous on a couple crosses to him, but in other areas of the pitch, you can tell he’s still getting on the same page with his teammates.
Defenders
Bradley Bourgeois 12.04 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 7.25
Bourgeois was the most consistent player defensively on the day. He was partially culpable on a couple late threats by Charleston (but was third-most culpable at worst on either of them), but tends to be in the right place at the right time, and is the least scary to me of the centerbacks with the ball at his feet. He also had a couple good chances on headers from the corner kicks late in the game, but couldn’t quite put either on frame in traffic.
Kosuke Kimura 11.49 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 7.25
I thought this was Kimura’s best performance of the year (which is good, given that he’s steadily shown better performances over the course of the season). He’s looked so different that I wonder if he was actually hurt to begin the year. He’s looking quicker defensively and faster getting up the flank, but doesn’t give up his spacing and responsibility tracking back. His first touch and passing have a bit of a wildcard factor in terms of when you’re going to get a weird, bad one, but that’s been reduced, too.
Justin Davis 11.48 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 8.75
Davis does a lot of really exciting, fun defensive things in a game (backtracking with great speed, slide-tackling, etc.), as well as being willing to get forward – so much that he’s a designated set piece taker. He’s also capable of The Big Mistake a couple times a game, and hew was primarily responsible for Charleston’s goal, when he tried to play physical defense, got pushed off the ball, and didn’t recover with speed to prevent the cross. He and Liam Doyle also had miscommunications on a couple Charleston chances late (that were almost identical to each other) that could have given the Battery all three points.
Liam Doyle 9.69 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 9.00
Doyle’s set-piece goal was an absolute banger, and one of the hardest hits I’ve seen from Nashville SC this year. Doyle was generally fine throughout the game too, with his usual penchant for booting laser-guided passes over the top making a solid showing. However, he was as responsible as anyone for Charleston’s goal, and was absolutely lost on the two Charleston chances that didn’t go in: he and Davis couldn’t decide who was bumping out to the runner to prevent a cross, and instead both got stuck in no-man’s land, unable to prevent the cross or mark the recipient. It’s something we hadn’t seen Doyle struggle with before, so hopefully a matchup/one-time deal.
Ryan James 1.125 (8 minutes) – Community rating: 7.25
Not a ton to see here: a nice headed pass, some solid positional defense, and only eight minutes on the field, when Nashville was just trying to protect giving up the winner. He was brought on in that situation to prevent things like the two scoring chances I mentioned in both Davis and Doyle’s sections, and Charleston didn’t get them. Call it a win.
Goalkeeper
Matt Pickens 3.52 (95 minutes) – Community rating: 8.75
There wasn’t a ton of opportunity for Pickens: he made exactly zero saves. He was screened by his own players on Charleston’s goal, but was absolutely beaten on the two shots that Charleston earned late (the Battery just couldn’t manage to put either on net). Tough to ding a guy primarily for not getting a ton of work, but aside from coming off his line to cut out through balls, just wasn’t much to do.
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