“We will see how Maicon is doing tomorrow,” said Toronto coach Preki. He has trained today and looked o.k. but he hasn’t played for quite some time. If he plays against Chicago we will have to limit his minutes because he is not at his full speed and we don’t want to take any risks.”
The above quote, from Luke Wileman on the tfc website fills me with pessimism for tonight's must win game against Chicago, meaning as it does that O'Brian White will once again be leading the line, a job that right now he really isn't cut out for given the lack of support Preki's favoured formations and system will give him.
In the last month, since Maicon Santos was injured against Chivas followed by Chad Barrett's injury against New York, we've still been playing the same formation, with the hard work and discipline that Preki stresses, and in a way it's worked well. Aside from that crazy game against New York when a whole bunch of irregular things happened and we lost 4-1, we've been very good defensively, letting in only 1 against New York, Cruz Azul, Arabe Unido and Dallas, and keeping a clean sheet against Salt Lake.
At the other end however it's a different story, in those games, we've scored 0 against New York, an unexpected 2 against Cruz Azul, 1 against New York, 0 against Arabe Unido, 0 against Salt Lake, and 0 against Dallas. Given those stats, unless we change our approach, I'd suggest 1-0 Chicago is a likely result. If TFC has good luck and gets a few bounces, then maybe we'll get a tie, or an outrageous 2-1 win. Following Preki's complaining about bad luck after the Dallas game, I'm beginning to think that's what he's playing for, keep it tight and hope something happens. And who knows, maybe we are due some luck, but I'd rather we weren't relying on it as our main hope.
Personally, as our defence and Frei in goal have proven themselves to be reliable, I'd go for something more attcking. Play Gargan at RB rather than the more, erm, mercurial Maxim Usanov to solidify it as much as possible, if Harden's comfortable at LB, he can replace Garcia as his reward for a couple of good performances while Nana was out, then let the midfield be much more attacking than usual to help the forwards out and maybe we'll score some goals. Have Joseph Nane as a dm, then let De Guzman, De Ro and Mista play as fairly free roving attacking midfielders supporting White and Ibrahim up front.
It's maybe a bit on the reckless side, and therefore not something Preki would be likely to do, but I'd rather take it to them and try and score some goals, and potentially lose 3-2 rather than sit back, before they inevitably score and we never ever look like equalising, I've had too many of those matches recently.
And oh, White, if you get the ball in space in the box, for god's sake SHOOT!
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