Diego Valeri: Hope he has been working his shoulders as well as his knee in rehab – Portland’s season rests on them.
By Niall McCusker
Another Cascadian derby, another boring game. Anyone in favor of bringing back the leaky defense and the free scoring forward line so Portland can get the 4-4 ties and 3-4 home losses from last season? OK, probably not a great idea. So what is the solution?
Moments of genius aside, soccer is primarily a numbers game. A good microcosm of this season happened in the 8th minute of this match, Urruti had dropped deep to win the ball and he, Nagbe, Yartey and Wallace sprint off on the break. Problem is they had six defenders to deal with while Chara and Jewsbury both decide not to go help. There is unit of 6 at the back and 4 at the front and there is not enough overlap and flexibility from the defensive midfielders to support the forward group.
The more defensive mindset is paying dividends at one end, 4 clean sheets in 9 games is pretty good. But 3 of those 4 have been 0-0 ties. A team that plays this system also needs goals, your strikers are going to be living off one or two chances per game, so they have to be clinical and efficient. Adi and Urruti are decent players, but neither really fit that bill. Your other chance to score is from set-pieces: corners, free-kicks, long throws etc. – but this is Portland so that’s not going to happen.
So the Timbers will need to come out of their shell a little tactically and 90 minutes from Will Johnson for T2 on Sunday night suggest he may be ready to bring that change soon. Last season Johnson received some criticism for too frequently abandoning his defensive duties. But this Timbers offense needs help, if the defense is truly an upgrade from last season let them prove it without the safety net of two conservative defensive midfielders.
Here are the individual ratings:
Adam Larsen Kwarasey 6.5: He had another relaxing day for Portland’s new keeper. He will probably not be in favor of the midfield casting off the defensive shackles as all he had to do in this game was pick up the ball twice in the first six minutes. Opta might call those saves but he knows they aren’t.
Easiest log slice ever earned for a clean sheet?
Took a couple of runs out of the box to sweep up long balls, but mostly to relieve his boredom rather than out of necessity.
Alvas Powell 7: Powell sat back early and showed Mattocks a little respect, but after about 15 minutes he started to push forward and it was his cross that hit Kah’s outstretched elbow to earn Portland’s penalty.
Like a lot of crosses from both fullbacks in this game I’m not too sure who the intended target was – but perhaps Powell was showing wisdom beyond his years in deciding that hitting the ball in the general direction of his old colleague was as good a plan as any.
Dribbled into trouble a few times going forward, but solid defensively all game against the speed of Mattocks and Manneh.
Nat Borchers 7: Borchers didn’t have much to do for the first hour. He marked Rivero while Ridgewell waited to clean up any scraps – there were none, as Borchers won the few balls hopefully hoisted in Rivero’s direction by Vancouver. More work to do in the last thirty minutes as Portland finally pushed some numbers forward leaving Vancouver a few chances to break, but he continued to do what needed to be done.
A competent, if light, evening’s work.
Portland’s defense may be a little high in numbers.
Liam Ridgewell 6.5: The Englishman sent Borchers to do the work while he surveyed from his bridge in captainly fashion. All these clean sheets look good for the league’s highest paid defender, but time to push the midfield up and let these guys actually work hard for them.
Made the pass of the game in the 92nd minute, a delightful long ball into the right channel onto Valeri’s chest, a sharper Valeri might have earned him an assist for that.
Jorge Villafana 6.5: Villafana gave Rosales too much room to swing in a dangerous cross in the first minute, but was solid defensively after that. Slipped in Wallace a few times early with nice little passes, like Powell a few of his crosses could have been better, but it was often slim pickings when trying to find a target in the box.
Got caught up field right when Manneh came into the game, the defensive midfielders cover for the full backs when they attack, Jewsbury tracking Manneh was a scary speed mismatch but Portland got away with it.
Jack Jewsbury 6: His capable but conservative presence in the line-up is probably a key ingredient of these 0-0 draws. Got forward a bit late on and actually had Portland’s only shot on target of the game, he will feel he should have got a bit more on it, as he is well capable of scoring from the edge of the box.
A few uncharacteristic bad passes in the first half and a bad giveaway on 82 when pushing forward. Portland need to find a way out of their scoring malaise in the coming weeks and Jewsbury may find his spot taken by the returning Johnson.
Diego Chara 8: He was Portland’s best player on the evening, if you watched on TV it just doesn’t do justice to the amount of ground he covers when you see the game in person. In the first half, of the two defensive midfielders he sneaked forward a little more, but got back in time to fulfill his defensive obligations.
Could be Portland’s MOTM most weeks, but the wee man was especially good against Vancouver.
In the second half as Portland became a little more adventurous he really came into his own. His 55th minute tackle on Rivero was an absolute joy for aficionados of that art. Drove a counter attack forward minutes later and was stopped by a Kah foul that earned him a yellow. Two minutes after that he was sprinting back into his penalty box on a Vancouver counter and was perfectly placed to cut out Manneh’s dangerous cross.
He continued to win balls and drive his colleagues forward for the rest of the game.
Ishmael Yartey (off in 52′) 4: First the good, tracked back well and made one good run on goal in the 43rd minute only for Urruti’s pass to be hit slightly too strongly. The bad would take a bit longer to fully quantify. Lost the ball in a dangerous place in his own half in the 33rd minute and passed it directly to opponents when under no pressure in the 22nd and 46th minutes.
Portland had 65% of possession, this attacking midfielder had 8 passes in the opponents half in his 51 minutes out there, 3 went to opponents and 3 back into his own half – enough said.
Darlington Nagbe 6: Firstly the penalty, there didn’t seem to be much debate among the players, so obviously he was the known choice to hit one in this game. He took the set-pieces too and Porter’s idea to make him take more responsibility seems a good one, even if it back-fired in this case. Portland’s 2 regular penalty takers, Johnson and Valeri weren’t on the field. Jewsbury has scored penalties before, but has hit the post with some too, it happens to everyone.
In this game Nagbe didn’t make the same number of surging runs forward as in previous weeks, mainly because Urruti was coming deep and showing for the ball, which is a departure from the previous tactic to leave that space for Nagbe. He still played fairly well after the miss, but getting that goal might have kick-started some goal scoring for him.
Nagbe: denied by the post
His best moment of the game was actually defensively in the first half, when his free kick was cleared and fell to Chara who attacked up the left and lost it letting Vancouver counter – with Borchers, Ridgewell and Chara all caught in the attack, Vancouver had numbers over. But Nagbe had fallen back and positioned himself in the center circle and cut out the pass, not his usual highlight, but it was smart play.
Rodney Wallace (off in 78′) 6.5: He got forward early and combined well with Urruti, later in the half he hit a great cross onto Urruti’s head, who missed it from 5 yards out and looked a yard offside anyway. I’m not sure whether the linesman missed that or the referee just waved him down and let Vancouver take the goal kick – either way Urruti should have hit the net.
Wallace often had to lay the ball back or try to pick a pass to a crowded out attacker in the box. It must have been a nice change when he looked up in the 72nd minute and saw Valeri making a well timed, late run into the box, Wallace’s cut-back to his feet was good and a more match-fit Valeri would have buried it. Wallace has had some quiet games this year, but he should have about 4 more assists, if his colleagues would do their part.
Maxi Urruti 6 (off in 66′): He can score goals, but as noted above he’s not prototypical clinical finisher – this game was a good example of what he can offer in terms of showing for the ball and laying it off, he worked very well with his midfielders and even knocked down a few long headers.
Urruti had a hardworking game – but Portland had no plan to get the ball in the net.
The interaction with the midfielders actually reminded me of Ryan Johnson in the Timbers successful 2013 season were he facilitated goals for others instead of scoring himself – sadly for Urruti, Portland’s midfield is ice-cold in terms of scoring this season.
Substitutes:
Diego Valeri (on in 52′) 6: Porter probably didn’t want to give him as long as 40 minutes on his comeback, but Yartey needed a sub and Portland needed a spark. His entrance certainly got the crowd going and injected an energy into the game. He was busy right away, hitting a free-kick and then a half-volley which was blocked out for corner, which he took. A nice, long cross-field ball to Urruti shortly after that showed that his radar was still well calibrated.
Valeri’s presence on the field not quite enough to inspire the victory.
A couple of giveaways demonstrated a little rust, but overall he looked as sharp and fit as could be expected after a long layoff. Portland badly need some passing and invention at the top of the ‘D’ as well as players making well timed runs into the box. He would normally score Wallace’s cross but the winger will still have been glad to see an actual target to aim for. It was classy of Ousted and Waston to check on Valeri as he stayed down briefly after the miss.
Fanendo Adi (on in 66′) 5:
Didn’t get on the ball enough in his 25 minutes, when the ball did find him he was often deep in the corner, not an optimal place late on when Portland are pressing for a winner. On 69 he did well to muscle past his defender and get a run on goal, but then he ignored Valeri and Wallace inside him. In the 90th he controlled a throw-in nicely, turned and almost got his shot away.
Like a lot of Portland’s attackers he didn’t play badly as such, they all just played without any smart ideas about how to break down Vancouver and actually get some opportunities.
Gaston Fernandez (on in 78′) 6: busy in his short time on the field, he had 4-5 really nice little touches and passes and one really bad giveaway in the middle that let Vancouver counter. If Portland had red hot midfielders it would be easy to understand him languishing on the bench, but when Yartey is starting over him after last week’s performance in Seattle it is easy to imagine he is quite frustrated.
Cascadia Corner: Off-color Whites survive weak Timbers onslaught
