Rob Lovejoy was the Dynamo’s catalyst upon entering the game Saturday notching an assist, and scoring a wonder goal to secure a 3-0 win.
Houston, Texas — Goals are something that have been lacking of late for the Houston Dynamo, and after scoring just 2 goals their first 5 games Houston exploded with a 3 goal rout of CONCACAF Champions League finalists Montreal Impact.
The key to the Dynamo’s success this week? Taking chances.
Bizarrely, the Impact are yet to win this season in MLS league play and they have now been shut out in three of their first four games. Montreal looked very dangerous in the early going, they forced two saves fro Tyler Deric, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Giles Barnes scored with a glancing header 15 minutes into the game. It was tough to take for Montreal because the Impact had been controlling possession, Dilly Duka, Donny Toia and Ignacio Piatti looked particularly dangerous.
“[It was a] very tough game against a very good side” said Owen Coyle of the Impact side that featured eight players from their midweek game versus Alajuelense, adding “we’ve all seen the quality they have, especially on the counter attack — just look at Piatti he’s a wonderful player, I truly believe he would grace any team in MLS.”
Going into the game Houston were averaging 8 shots per game and only averaging two of those on target, tied for last in the whole of Major League Soccer. The Dynamo have been looking good defensively, but haven’t been able to get it done on the offensive side of the ball. Over the last two games, however, Houston has averaged 14 shots per game.
“Me and Brad said in the circle before we went out lets take some chances, have some shots and lets enjoy playing football” said Giles Barnes after the Dynamo win.
Barnes himself had 6 shots, posting 2 of the teams 4 shots on target for the evening. One of his attempts forced the opposition goalkeeper into a stretching finger-tip save which would’ve made the game 3-0 at the time.
“Owen’s been giving us a bit more of a license to attack and you know how well we’ve been doing defensively” said Barnes, “It’s about taking more chances going forward, supporting the lone forward and today it worked”
While Barnes’ comments are accurate there is still issues with Coyle’s “possession” style of football. The Dynamo only out-possessed Montreal on Saturday night for one 5 minute period, and amassed just 33.5% possession in the game — they also only passed at a 70% completion clip. It was concerning that a team that had 8 players play mid-week in Costa Rica still ran all over the Dynamo in the way that Montreal did.
But the up-side is that the Dynamo did indeed link the play to Barnes much, much better in this game despite not having much of the ball. The counter attack seemed slow and cumbersome any many attributed that to Boniek Garcia’s performance, but many will forgive the Honduran after learning that he was sent home from practice Thursday with an illness and still battled through to play for Houston Saturday night.
The real spark, however, was when rookie Rob Lovejoy interned the fray. Lovejoy made an instant impact, first, with some fancy footwork on the left hand side before sliding the ball through to DaMarcus Beasley who won a free kick right on the edge of Montreal’s 18 yard box, and then again a few moments later when he chased down the goalkeeper and blocked a clearance.
The rookie was no longer looking much like a rookie anymore.
In the 80th minute Evan Bush took a bad goal kick, it looked to be heading for an Impact player but there was Rob Lovejoy. He beat his man to the ball, dribbled it thirty yards and was faced with a decision: Did he play a ball inside the fullback to Giles Barnes, who was in acres of space, or did he take a chance.
He took a chance, and boy did it pay off.
Rob Lovejoy looked up, saw the defender bite toward Barnes, Bush unsighted, and the far-post? Wide open. Lovejoy opened up his foot and curled a 20 yard stunner into the top corner. Bush? He didn’t even move.
He was almost speechless in the post game press conference. There’s a shyness about him that says he wasn’t expecting this much attention so quickly — but he deserves every accolade and plaudit right now. He’s the most exciting player the Dynamo have at the present moment.
He did manage to eek out a few words though, regarding his performance: “I was just happy to be able to go out and contribute. It’s impossible for me to describe [the feeling of scoring first goal], I just wanted to thank the fans and show them how much they mean to me.”
Lovejoy’s wonder-goal had sealed the Dynamo’s emphatic win, but had it not been for Tyler Deric the result could have been a lot different. Montreal had 14 shots, forcing Deric into 5 saves.
While he was happy with the win head coach Owen Coyle did concede that his side could’ve been a little more organized at times, despite the shut out but also added that “you sometimes tend to over analyze games — we did very well against a very good team in Seattle and I truly believe we [Dynamo] should’ve been unbeaten this year.”
Unbeaten? Probably not. Tyler Deric is largely the person responsible for keeping the Dynamo’s collective head above water so far this season earning 3 save of the week awards in 3 consecutive weeks, while being nominated 4 times for the award. Sure, the Dynamo have been better than last season on defense, but they’ve certainly not been “unbeatable.”
The win over Montreal is huge confidence boost for the Dynamo going into their contest with D.C. United at RFK. If Houston can secure more of the ball versus D.C. United, and link the play like they did versus Seattle and Montreal, the Dynamo could be well on their way to 3 more points this upcoming weekend.
Follow Scott Nicholls on Twitter: @scottnicholls
