Thorns FC: Batting order

The much-anticipated top-and-near-the-top-of-table meeting last Friday ended up disappointing both sides with a 2-2 draw marred by some ugly fouling (Koroleva? Y’think..?) including what could easily have been a straight Gotham red and an in-fact Portland sending-off that might well have changed the possible result.

Before we get there, let’s look quickly at the Sofascore “attacking momentum” plot:

Now there’s an unpleasantly familiar sight; lots of Gotham blue (and absolutely no Portland green) over the first quarter hour or so. “Okay, team, let’s start reeeeal slow!” shouted no side coming out of the pre-kickoff huddle ever…but that’s apparently how we roll here in Thornlandia.

To make matters worse, a combination of space out wide (hmmm…where did we just see that. Wait, wait, don’t remind me…), inability to close down attackers (in this case Jessie Fleming spun by Gotham fullback Guro Reiten), and slack marking off the ball allowed Midge Purce to thread a seeing-eye grounder through the milling throng and inside Mackenzie Arnold’s right post for the first goal less that two minutes in.

Then, just as soccer-y things looked like going completely to hell, around the 18th to 20th minutes the Thorns started to tip the tilt of the field the other way.

The tipping point was exclamation-pointed by Renee Lyles’ adorable-as-a-fluffy-kitten shross sailing over Anne-Katrin Berger’s head to equalize.

Then the Thorns kept barging rudely forward.
– Nice buildup in the 25th minute off a Gotham turnover (Sophia Wilson’s feed was a skosh too far for Pietra Tordin).
– Clever little quick restart in the 30th minute; Reyna Reyes to Tordin to Wilson (who shot wide left…).
– Three minutes later another pretty build, from Marie Muller up to Olivia Moultrie; Moultrie’s pass was blocked, but right back to her to play out wide to Muller, and from there up to Wilson bombing to the byline. Wilson’s drop-pass set Tordin up perfectly for the point-blank shot…but Berger kicked the attempt back out and midfielder Jaelin Howell cleared it safely away.

Between that attack and halftime I counted seven more Thorns attacking possessions to only two from Gotham. Three produced Portland chances or half-chances;
35′ – Muller pressed a turnover and fed Wilson, whose shot on target that was blocked over the byline for a corner kick.
41′ – Another turnover (this one unforced) that Reyes set up for Cassandra Bogere, but which Bogere fired with left, and
45+1′ – Tordin’s pressing produced a loose ball; Tordin to Fleming for a run at the penalty arch to draw the defense, a feed to Wilson, whose blast was deflected high for another corner.

The peculiar quality of this match is emphasized by the weird mismatch in the stats.

Possession? All Gotham (63% to 37%), as we’d just seen in Denver and Seattle.

Shots? Nope. Portland with 10 (4 on goal) to Gotham’s 4 (only 2 on goal).

So the first quarter-hour or so did feel like the “Why can’t we keep the ball? Why are we giving the (opponent name) all the chances?” thing again.

But after that the play began to run the other way or, at least, ran enough both ways, it felt like it gave both squads and their supporters the sense that their club had a chance to win this thing. This end-to-end play both ways resumed for the quarter-hour after halftime, which included a couple of goals.

The first was a real happenstance that put Portland up 2-1. A well-worked 52nd minute buildup broke down inside the Gotham 18-yard box, one of the Batwomen booted the loose ball straight out front where a charging Fleming put her laces through it. With Berger covering the shot like whatever the German word is for “like a blanket” the drive rocketed the wrong way off one of her defenders inside Berger’s left post, and, well…Scheiße!

Ten minutes later Gotham returned the disfavor. Off a long service into the box Tierna Davidson headed a Rose Lavelle corner-kick service on to Sam Kerr’s head;

I’m not sure who was doping off in the Portland backline. “Leave Sam Kerr unmarked on a setpiece” is kind of one of those “get involved in land war in Asia” classic blunders. Was it Muller, who’s otherwise doing nothing other than standing around keeping each and every Bat onside? Was it Ryan, who checked back to Kerr only as the ball flew over her head?

Whoever(s) is was, Kerr’s flick bounced off Muller’s frontispiece right back to the Matilda’s foot, and her easy poke leveled the match.

The other part of the match that persisted was, unfortunately (if not unexpectedly, since Koroleva…) was rough play. I honestly thought that this…

…57th minute Jordyn Dudley chokehold-and-wrestling-throw of Jayden Perry was a straight-red “violent conduct” sending off.

Nope. Nothin’ but yellow.

So it wasn’t until the 73rd minute that we did have an ejection. Not Dudley, not violence, but perhaps the ugliest defensive mess the Portland backline has produced in a season that’s seen some real defensive bed-shitting going all the way back to Bogere’s calf-roping-red on Matchday 2.

Perry got the red, but Sam Hiatt bit off a huge chunk of the fuckup, too, which started with a long rainbow up to a (who else?) poaching Kerr.

Perry was supposed to be marking Kerr, so she was the Prime Suspect in the who-mugged-Kerr-in-the-drawing-room-with-the-candlestick game of Red Card Clue, but look at Sam Hiatt, who responded to the Kerr-Perry collision by bolting forward like a runaway firetruck.

Only when she got to the fire…

…Hiatt didn’t do anything to actually help put the goddamn thing out.

Instead she sort of crashed into the Perry-Kerr melange, bounced off while stumbling past them towards midfield, leaving Perry alone and helpless only to pull down Kerr for the DOGSO and inevitable red.

Leaving:

1. Portland to play down to ten for the final twenty-odd minutes. We’ll talk about this, but during that time the Thorns actually produced two decent attacking possessions, a shot on target and a corner kick, while
2. Gotham to manage only two half-decent chances, one shot, and a corner.

This wasn’t even a “draw that felt like a win/felt like a loss” so much as a “draw that felt like someone might have won the damn thing until play degenerated into a muddle of pointless possession on one side and shorthanded futility on the other”.

Overall?
1) I wasn’t pleased with the slow start or the early concession, but
2) I was fairly happy overall to see the squad grow into the match, and ended up thinking that…
3) This squad was playing the league leaders and (outside the first quarter hour) were solidly in it to win it and might have, had that first fifteen minutes and the sending-off(s!) gone differently.

I’m pretty good with that. Let’s see if we can move forward with it.

Short Passes

Look at the momentum plot again…

Matches the final possession stat (GOT 63% POR 37%) and passing (Gotham 84% of 498 passes, Portland 78% of 302 passes) but the attacking stats, though? Nope: Portland 16 shots, 6 on goal, Gotham 11 shots, 3 on frame, and xG (Portland 1,21 to Gotham’s 1.24)

Here’s Carlisle-sensei’s xG plot showing how little the possession difference affected the respective sides’ attacks:

That’s pretty much “dead even despite one side playing down to 10 for more than a quarter hour”. Carlisle points out that the best Gotham could do in that player-up period was a single shot.

Credit to Portland for tightening up and giving Kerr just the one poacher’s goal, though that first concession? C’mon.

And while I’m at it, perhaps some discredit to Gotham for not finding a way to keep Esther Gonzalez on the squad while she managed whatever’s going on in Spain (I wondered why she wasn’t in the 18; now we know) or to Amoros for not figuring out anything more dangerous for the squad to do without her.

Carlisle’s passing plots, first Portland:

The spacing and bold blue lines tell the story. 37% possession or no, that looks like ballin’ to me. We’ll talk about this, too, but while the thing that bugs me is the lack of width around Wilson, this plot cuts off at 74′, which is when someone we’ve been looking forward to came on.

Here’s Gotham:

Sensei’s final comment on this was “With Sonnett out of the backline, Gotham seemed quite lost. If the injury turns out to be as bad as it seemed, there will be a lot of work to be done to minimize the impact of her loss.” I’d add that the lack of passing connections to their Esther-replacement-Kerr and Kerr’s choked-off positioning suggests a combination of solid Portland defending and Amoros’ failure to figure out how to make this new XI work right.

Turnover and over.

Here’s how things are going;

Opponent – Venue (Result)	Turnovers
Washington – Away (W)	26
Seattle – Home (W)	11
San Diego – Away (L)	29
Kansas City – Home (W)	23
North Carolina – Away (D)	25
Angel City – Away (W)	22
San Diego – Home (W)	17
Chicago – Away (W)	32
Louisville – Away (L)	25
Angel City – Home (D)	No data
Bay FC – Home (W)	33
Kansas City – Away (L)	29
Utah – Home (D)	23
Louisville – Home (W)	21
Seattle – Away (L)	33
Denver – Away (L)	33
Gotham – Home (D)	23

Much better, especially since Gotham was right there, losing 24. What really helped was Portland getting stingy after the break, going down from 15 to eight. Gotham bumbled along, 11 before halftime, 13 after.

Fleming and Muller tied for Biggest Loser with four turnovers each, Bogere, Moultrie, Lyles, and Arnold lost three each.

For all that coughing up the ball, none were truly scary. That can’t be said for the turnovers forced by Gotham’s press; several of those were spooky.

Press!

Sixteenth match tracking the press. I counted either a 1) turnover (either from a tackle-for-loss or a mishit forced pass), or a 2) forced retreat or drop-pass that killed off a progressive action, as a pressing “win”.

Portland pressed hell out of Gotham, and well. A total of 86 presses, including several “soft presses”, where the Portland forwards feinted towards Gotham’s backline to hurry the Bats’ passing while keeping the space between them and the midfield tight to deny Gotham the short outlet pass. Gotham pressed 60 times.

The other positive was that Portland’s press was remarkably effective. A total of 58 wins (67.4%), 31 of 51 (60.7%) with 11 ball-winning presses in the first half, 27 wins of 35 (77.1%) with 12 wins in the second. Among the critical takeaways: Bogere robbing Davidson in the 25th minute, Reyes tackling for gain in the 34th, Muller takeaway in the 35th, Tordin in the 46th, Muller again in the 50th, Bogere again in the 52nd (that eventually produced the Fleming deflection-goal), Fleming again in the 66th, and Morgan Weaver in the 90+1st minute.

Just outstanding.

Gotham’s numbers are below.

Match time	Gotham presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-49′	34(17) (50%)	51(31) (60.7%)
45-95′	26(15) (57.6%)	35(27) (77.1%)
Match Total	60(32) (53.3%)	58(86) (67.4%)

My thoughts:
1) Possession? We don’t need no steekin’ possession. We have pressing! We take YOUR possession!

Here’s the running tally:

Match (Result)	Opponent Press (Success)	Thorns Press (Success)
Washington Away (W)	40(27) (67.5%)	69(41) (59.4%)
Seattle Home (W)	61(30) (49.1%)	35(20) (57.1%)
San Diego Away (L)	33(22) (66.6%)	88(40) (45.4%)
Kansas City Home (W)	26(15) (57.6%)	43(23) (53.4%)
North Carolina Away (D)	35(22) (62.8%)	56(26) (46.4%)
Angel City Away (W)	52(37) (71.1%)	61(32) (52.4%)
San Diego Home (W)	45(71) (63.3%)	45(80) (56.2%)
Chicago Away (W)	68(34) (50%)	97(51) (52.2%)
Louisville Away (L)	101(70) (69.5%)	62(35) (56.4%)
Angel City Home (D)	No data	No data
Bay FC Home (W)	59(34) (57.6%)	59(37) (62.7%)
Kansas City Away (L)	52(29) (55.7%)	34(20) (58.8%)
Utah Home (D)	99(55) (55.5%)	60(31) (51.6%)
Louisville Home (W)	55(31) (56.3%)	28(13) (46.4%)
Seattle Away (L)	67(46) (68.6%)	66(35) (53.0%)
Denver Away (L)	46(24) (52.1%)	53(27) (50.9%)
Gotham Home (D)	60(32) (53.3%)	58(86) (67.4%)

Corner Kicks

Four. Two in each half, both long.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
36′	Moultrie	Long	Bounced all the way through the pack to Lyles, who lofted a cross back in, but Berger came out strong.
45+2′	Moultrie	Long	Right to Berger.
51′	Moultrie	Long	Berger out to take.
89′	Moultrie	Long	Into the scrum, cleared away.

Nothing. Unless it was “Give the ball to Berger” Night and nobody told me.

Player Ratings and Comments

Wilson (+16/-2 : +9/-1 : +25/-3) Seriously hard-ass evening’s work, but…

Six shots, none on frame, no goals. Look back up at the xG plot; of the top four xG “good/great” shots? Tordin’s 32′ miss is 0.23 xG, and Lyle’s 55th minute effort that Berger hoovered up is 0.15 xG. Meaning that Wilson, for all her hard work, didn’t generate anything that was more likely than 0.14xG or so to go in.

I love her blue-collar grinding. But Wilson is our #9, our striker. Clever shrosses and lucky deflections are all fine good fun, but for the Thorns to get any silverware this season Wilson has got to put the biscuit in the basket. It’s really just that simple.

Lyles (76′ – +8/-3 : +2/-1 : +10/-4) When they ask you “was that a shot or a cross” your answer is “yes”.

Loved her fun little dance steps on the run-up to the shross. Remember where I said that Lyles looked “promising” on short minutes? Well, this was more minutes and, yes, Lyles looked even more promising. I like what I’m seeing, and I’d like to see her play a full 90 with 1) ten teammates on the pitch including 2) Weaver. Shall we?

Cakzada (14′ – +3/-0) Hung on for the point a player down, so, fine.

Tordin (76′ – +9/-2 : +7/-0 : +16/-2) Now leads the league in “assists” for her pass to Lyles, which is the most NWSLAfterDarkROFL thing I can think of but, kidding aside, damn effective and looked good playing off Lyles, Moultrie, and Wilson.

Weaver (14′ – +5/-2) Tough circumstances – on just as her squad went down to ten – but:
– brought all the fire we’ve expected from her, including what looked like quick burst speed (picking a Gotham pocket) as well as steady fast pace (running at goal), while
– still working on her return to form (the pass to Wilson after her steal was slow and behind her teammate).

As with Lyles last week, short minutes, brief view. Let’s call this a “hopeful return” and see how things progress. Just having the Weaver Option, though, should help give the Thorns attack dimensions it hasn’t had until now. Can our Swedish chef cook with that? We’ll see.

Bogere (69′ – +3/-6 : +2/-1 : +5/-7) Careless in possession (or stripped) and caught behind the play quite a bit, especially in that dreadful first quarter-hour (at 20′ her PMR was +0/-3). Tightened up after that (so +5/-4 for the rest of her shift) so that’s better. But given our current backline I’m not sure we can afford half of the double pivot to disappear (or worse) like that.

I’m still not a hater, but I’ll be curious to see if…

Nijstad (21′ – +1/-1) …might be better in Bogere’s spot. We might learn more next week.

Fleming (+5/-5 : +9/-1 : +14/-6) In Bogere’s defense, part of her struggle was that Jessie Fleming stumbled out of the starting gate, too. Like Bogere, figured it out through the first half, bagged a ridiculously-lucky goal (which is fine – they all count, and luck tends to even out…) in the second, and helped lock things down after the sending-off.

To a great extent as Fleming goes so goes the Portland midfield, and this match wrote that on the turf in letters of fire. Started out getting spun by Reiten on the concession, as Fleming settled down and started exerting control she helped neutralize Gotham’s midfield – and Howell, McCaskill, and Lavelle aren’t a gaggle of random U-23s. That’s damn good work.

But she needs to be able to do this for the full 90.

Reyes (82′ – +10/-2 : +3/-3 : +13/-5) No backline that ships two goals, and especially one in the second minute of play, can strut too much. Got spun by Reiten in the 14th minute (welcome to the club, said Fleming…)

That said, of her unit Reyna Reyes put in a pretty solid day’s work. In particular, Reyes usually tracks back faster (and anticipates sooner, so voiding the need to make those recovery runs) than either Muller or Vignola, who can be and not-uncommonly are caught upfield. Not the pushing-up threat the other two fullbacks are, mind, but has her moments in helping provide attack.

Vignola (8′ – +3/-0) Needed to simply play lockdown defense and did, so, fine.

Hiatt (+1/-0 : +2/-2 : =3/-2) We’ve already picked on her for the Perry red, so that’s that.

Look; Hiatt is what she is. In a stronger unit she’d be anything from a replacement-level starter to decent depth. She’s being asked to do more than her skillset will allow, which isn’t on her. But lacking a FO coup that scores someone that much better, the gaffer needs to figure out tactics and group dynamics to help her and her backline step up a bit. Right now our GA (20 in 17 matches, or 1.17G/Gm) is the worst in the top five of the table. We need to fix that.

Perry (76′ – +5/-4 : +0/-1 : +5/-5) Luckily you can only get so many minuses for a bonehead play. But what was it we said about Perry last week? Oh, yeah…

“Her rawness and decision-making-shortcomings are increasingly obvious…”

That. Well, shit. Wonder how far Obaze’s out the door on the CB depth chart for next week..?

Muller (+7/-3 : +4/-6 : +11/-9) Mix of solid and WTF? When Muller is on, she’s on, both defensively and going forward. When she brainfarts, as she did in the 14th minute (and I’d throw her “stand there and look pretty” on the Kerr goal as a “WTF?”), she can look pretty awful. Our whole backline is kind of like that, so not exactly surprising.

That sort of form across the defensive unit makes me wonder if the club should look hard at Vytas, who’s the backline coach.

Arnold (+2/-0 : +0/-0 : +2/-0) Screened on the first concession, helpless to do anything with the second, and a huge save in the 45+4th minute, otherwise little troubled.

Not a blinder, but for all that two got past her I’d call this better than her previous three appearances. Hopefully she and her squad can build on it.

Coach Vilahamn: I’m not really sure how much credit – or blame – to attach to the manager for this one.

One the one hand his squad came out colder than the ass-end of Antarctica. And shipped two goals, and had to play down a player for the final quarter-hour-plus. On the other? Played the league leaders straight up for damn near an hour, and had those other thirty minutes (and a shirt-pull) gone differently I thought his squad had a real chance at dunking on the Bats and jumping into the top three.

Now he’s got some new pieces to play with; Lyles and Weaver up front, Nijstad in midfield. Can he cook with that to pick things up a step?

He might have to, because we’ve got a real test coming up. Utah in Utah on Sunday, with the Sisterwives on short rest coming off a visit from the now-league-leading Washington Spirit midweek.

Big? Huge! Club the tired Mormons and seize the Holy Tabernacle of the Table? Ohfuckyesplease!

I’m laying in serious popcorn for this one.