Another weekend another disappointing outing from the Hounds. This time we had the pleasure of receiving two punches to the gut with back to back losses. It was always going to be tough for new interim head coach Niko Katic to turn the team completely around in a week. However, for the team to get zero points and to lose the way they did, it’s clear there are deeper problems than just the coach.

For whatever reason Wilmington seems to have our number this year. They can’t score against anyone else but when they play the Hounds it’s all they can do. Nine of their eleven goals scored this season are against the Riverhounds. Letting up two goals early set the tone for the rest of the game and killed what little if any positive momentum the Hounds brought into it. It also exposed the back line problem which was masked some during the last few low scoring games. Niko returned to a familiar back line with Marshall, Green, and Flunder, but also made the interesting choice to throw Vincent in the mix. It was a head scratcher for sure as he’s mostly played an attacking midfield role for as long as I can remember. We figured Niko would experiment with the roster (and he sure did this weekend), but Vincent in the back (along with general tracking and positioning problems the defense has had all season) really backfired. Let’s take a look at the first three goals Wilmington scored.

First Goal

Things started out well with the first goal. Everyone was tracking their man and the Hounds had excess guys covering the Wilmington player with the ball. Keep an eye on the player with the red dot.

This is where it starts to break down. The ball gets popped into the air. Green continues to track his player while Flunder is tracking the ball. (It might be the other way around. Video quality isn’t great). Red dot player starts to make his run.

The ball bounces around a little bit. Flunder is now playing man Green’s mark, and instead of tracking the red dot player who is making a run Green gets caught watching the ball. To be fair to Green everyone gets caught watching the ball and ignores red dot making a run. This guy runs by four players and no one picks him up.

The ball gets passed to red dot who’s now unmarked behind most of the players. Vincent makes probably the correct call to pick him up, but unfortunately this leaves his initial mark wide open to tap the ball in off of Hunter’s rebound.

Second Goal

The Hounds had a ton of numbers back and for the most part everyone was on their man.

Like the first goal nearly everyone floated towards the ball carrier on the outside and which didn’t leave anyone really supporting the middle of the field. Vincent makes the mistake of getting too far in front of his mark which once again allows Wilmington to just tap the ball in after the cross.

Third Goal

On the third goal again the Hounds had a few guys back but marking was an issue.

Whoever it is running down the middle for the Hounds never picks up the guy behind him, or if he did he left him too much space. The defender on the far side never comes over for support.

I give Vincent credit for being able to stick to his man the whole way, but again no one picks up the Wilmington player until too late and all he had to do was tap it in.

 

Vincent put in a lot of effort but it’s clear he’s not a defender. The next game he was replaced by Fekete who knows the defender craft better even if he hasn’t seen significant play time in a while. Vincent aside, the Hounds were often caught ball watching and did a poor job of marking Wilmington players. This isn’t something new, and as I said before with the low scoring games recently it hasn’t been at the forefront. Yes you could say Hunter needs to control the ball better, but there’s only so much he can do when the defenders don’t mark up. If you look at most of the goals scored against the Hounds this season very few are actual good goals. Instead they’re mostly the result of poor fundamental defensive play. I don’t know of it’s a coaching issue or the player’s mentality, but something needs to change and fast.

The Riverhounds take on RWB Adria in the US Open Cup this Wednesday night at 7:00pm. If they can’t win in league play, at least they can (hopefully) beat up on an amateur team.
 
#UNLEASH