Sunday, May 08, 2016

Something Gives, But Not in KC's Favor

A pair of teams with a combined 11 games winless meeting in a game, while a draw was a possibility, something had to give. Unfortunately for Kansas City that didn't give in their favor as they fell on the road to the Houston Dynamo 2-0 to end the Dynamo's six game winless streak, and extended Kansas City's to six, their longest since 2011.

Kansas City controlled the majority of the game with over 65% possession over the course of the game, but again struggled to translate that possession into meaningful chances on goal, forcing Houston's Tyler Deric to make just three saves. KC did have chances though, Dom Dwyer set up Graham Zusi near the top of the box, but Zusi pulled his shot wide of Deric's post. Over the course of the half, KC dominated possession and looked more like the home team than the Dynamo. An inability to take advantage of that possession though came back to bite them in the 30th minute when the Dynamo took the lead. A long ball over the top to Cubo Torres was flicked into the path of Giles Barnes who fired a shot past Tim Melia and into the net to put Houston on top. While Kansas City couldn't take advantage of all their possession and put shots on goal, Houston didn't have that problem with their possession putting five of their six shots in the first half on frame. The last of those came in stoppage time and doubled Hoston's lead. After some good play by the Dynamo, Andrew Wenger won the  ball in front of Seth Sinovic, touching the ball into the box and roofing the ball into the net past Melia to make it 2-0 before half time.

The second half saw much of the same as Kansas City threw numbers forward looking to find a way back into the game, but their shooting struggles continued. The insertion of Diego Rubio and Jimmy Medranda did add some life to an offense that seemed to be devoid of creativity, but KC still couldn't find the final ball and still struggled to create chances as they failed to win for the sixth straight game.

Wizards Man of the Match - Jimmy Medranda - I almost gave this to no one for the play tonight, but Medranda was a bright spot for KC. I'm not sure if either of KC's starting wingers are the players Peter Vermes talked about not giving enough effort, but Medranda at this point for me as earned himself a run of starts for Kansas City up top.

Player Ratings - Melia 4, Sinovic 4, Besler 4, Coelho 3, Myers 3, Mustivar 4, Espinoza 4, Feilhaber 3, Davis 4, Dwyer 4, Zusi 4. Subs Rubio 5, Medranda 5, Abdul-Salaam 4.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to know who Vermes is referring to in this quote from the Star.
“I think there were certain players that absolutely hindered us throughout the game,” Vermes said. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the kind of moves that I wanted to make because people got a little tired. (But) there were certain people that really hurt us in the game tonight. They lacked a competitiveness that you need in this league to keep yourself in the game.”

Mike said...

It's something I'm intrigued by too. We won't have to wait too long to find out come Wednesday. Could be an interesting lineup.

Anonymous said...

Yeah this is the harshest language I recall seeing him use towards our players since he called out Jorge Claros for being out of shape.

Anonymous said...

seems to me its fielhaber. 3-0-0 without him, 1-5-2 with him.

Anonymous said...

I'd buy that.

Ky said...

I think that Benny has had a poor showing as of late, but what he is capable of doing merits a bit more time. The defensive lapses on the other hand are inexcusable; defense has always been a trademark of Vermes' system. I would venture a guess that there will be more defensive adjustments to the squad.