WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

I thought I would share some of my thoughts from tonights MLS Primetime Thursday meeting between New York and Chivas USA. The Red Bulls were able to hold off Chivas thanks to the head of Juan Pablo Angel in the 1-0 win.

Just a few points that I jotted down about the game, as always feel free to interject your own at the bottom of the post.

• Neither team really showed a lot to me tonight, Chivas for the most part in the second half looked like they were running out of gas and wanted the draw, that allowed New York to squeeze one by. Other than that New York really didn’t have their best night offensively until late in the game.
• Sure, New York held a red hot Chivas team to nothing tonight but the defense really didn’t have to shut down one particular guy from Chivas. The Red-and-White have no marquee striker like the Red Bulls do in Angel, so the New York defense didn’t have to zero in on one certain guy. That allowed them to mark up a little better, thus made them look better.
• But saying that, I did notice that they looked a bit disorganized when Ante Razov entered the game in the second half. It was the first time all game that they had to worry about someone and it almost backfired in a couple miscues that nearly cost them the game.
• Angel had a textbook header to lift the home side, but other than that Chivas really locked him down all night. The one time they left him with an inch of space he made them pay for it. Yeah, even hurt he is still that good.
• Boy, this game showed me one thing out of Chivas…even with the nice play recently they desperately need a go-to striker that is healthy for one and someone that can cause havoc in the other team’s defense. They have that when both Razov and Maykel Galindo are healthy but we haven’t see that since late last summer.
• Neither goalkeeper were really tested tonight, though I will say Jon Conway made one or two stops that saved the game for New York. Especially one chance late in the game where the New York defense allowed a tough shot in on-goal and Conway made the save and didn’t allow an open Chivas player to get the rebound.
• If Angel can be healthy again New York’s offense will be fine but seeing him limp around makes me really wonder how well this club will play if he has to sit out any more. Honestly, that isn’t a good thing.
• New York got the win based on just a little more effort. But really you should win your home games no matter what. Hell even Real Salt Lake has no problem doing that.
• Chivas should be a little bit disappointed that they didn’t at least get the draw in this one, but then again they lost focus late and New York made them pay for it.
• Decent crowd tonight, even though it was a little over 9,000. I say decent due to the nasty weather in the east coast right now. Still these week night games are getting terrible attendance figures right now. That has to change.

Okay, what did I miss?