Houston, we have 3 points

Well, it definitely feels nice to come away with 3 points from that 2 game stretch... we may have gotten it backwards, of course, but a road win in Houston was huge. Collin making up for his late game lapse against Seattle in a big way. I'd love to make the trek down there some year, and much love to all the SKC fans who did, looked and sounded great.

Let's check the player ratings, shall we?

As I said, no surprise there, big game for Collin with the game winning goal and the clean sheet. Seth gets credit for the clean sheet and assist as well. Plus Collin is a fantasy stud. Mancrush. Etc.

Boom. Headshot.

Croque-monsieur, anyone?

I'm not crazy about most french food, but man do they make good sandwhichs. Good defenders too, apparantly. Does anyone want to argue that Collin wasn't the best player for the month of April? Probably. There's always gonna be an argument for Zusi, but Collin's game winning goal and clean sheet in New York, and another clean sheet against DC more or less sealed it.

Here's how player ratings for April looked. Lots of defenders in there. Two clean sheets and a 1.25 GGA is none too shabby. Zusi sneaking in there as well, and was great to see Chance finally score (twice!), even if the goals were ultimatly for naught...

So raise a glass of wine for the Frenchman. I've gotta think he'll be another MLS All-Star this season, and with the game in Kansas City, that's sure to be awesome.

Tis a funny game

You know, this was the second home game this year that was really far from enjoyable, except this time we actually got a good result from it. It's an odd game like that. One goal can totally skew one's perspective. I imagine had DC held us to a 0-0 draw their fans would be thrilled. A few seconds of lapse and it's time for Ben Olsen's head.

I'm not saying any veiw is right or wrong. I'm just saying.

I'm also saying this is one time when I actually disagree more than usual with my ratings system. I thought Aurelien Collin had a pretty poor game, both defensively and in distribution, but aparantly the people over at the MLS Fantasy game disagree, because he apparently had some excellent defensive work with no mistakes...

Any way, here's the player ratings. Soony may seem low but it's important to remember that playing time actually is a facotr, so notching an above average rating while only playing seven minutes is pretty exceptional.

You can see SKC had the edge in overall average rating, and I think that showed. Unlike Chicago, DC actually seemed to come to play, and a little more quality from Pajoy could have made it a very different game. How bout that Beiler though, huh? Acquisition of the season at this point, surely...

But, yeah, Collin with Man of the Match. Not sure I'd give it to him objectively, but who am I to argue with numbers?

Oh Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in...

Let me start off by saying that I hate my laptops keyboard and I'm not going to try to correct any typos that creep into this post.

Let me also say that I really thought about flying out to this game on Saturday since I had to be in New York today (Sunday) anyway, but ultimately I decided I love my family (just slightly) more than I love this team...

Still, snapped a photo of Red Bull Arena while flying in.

I was actually on the plane that brought all the players back. Gave a quick "Great results" to Vermes and Zusi and Collin, but I didn't want to be that fan when they were just getting off the plane. I did get a bit school girl giddy though...

Still, wish I could have been there, I actually think it was a great result, even as penned in as we were.

I think a lot of people are going to say that SKC was outgunned by New York, and they may have been right. NYRB had plenty of chances to win that game, but SKC played the kind of game visiting teams pull at LSP all the team. Balls to the wall, gritty, often lucky defending and a few great chances against the run of play.

I actually personally think Mr. Puma deserves man of the match for this one, but the numbers thought otherwise... here's the breakdown.

So, on the one hand, maybe a bit surprising to see Collin over Jimmy, but Collin had a really good game and I'm glad he's back in the starting 11. I was also a little surprised to see SKC with the slight edge in team average, but a lot of that was due to the great defending efforts.

So, kudos to Collin, and I will say it was also good to see Convey log a couple of minutes. Here's to hoping for a couple more next week.

New England is Revolting

Well, another good news, bad news type of game. Our defense remains really really really good. Our offense remains really really flat. Predictable. I guess the opposite of clinical would be unclinical, so unclinical in the final third. Really just sort of blah stuff, even though the chances are there.

I sort of feel like New England came out in almost a 4-6-0 and didn't put on any strikers until over an hour in, so in that sense I think their game plan worked. Keep it clogged in the middle, force us wide, and hope new legs can run at a tired defense.

I know a lot of people were upset at home much the Revs players were cramping up and going down, but really, in that heat and that kind of match, some cramping would be expected. I'm sure some of it was gamesmanship, but nothing was too outrageous for me. The ref did have three crazy non-calls on what looked to be a horrible application of the advantage rule, but all in all I thought the ref and linesmen had good games as well. No one to blame for that result except our attackers, and maybe Vermes, who kept his starting 11 so unchanged during the first eight games I think a lot of people thought he was crazy. Now that he's switching things up a lot, maybe he was on to something. I'd like to see Cesar starting more, as well as switching between CJ and Teal.

But, anyways, first, some game photos. It was really damn hot so I took a little while to walk around the stadium and snap some photos of our lovely little home. I also moved from the north stand to to east cauldron to the south stand throughout the game to get some new vantage points and, as much as I love the Cauldron, I may want to get "good" seats next year. I really enjoyed venturing out amongst the "normal" folks.

I've noticed that my photography seems to have gotten wose since I got a digital camera, but I really don't wanna drop a grand+ on a new digital SLR, so if any one know's a good camera in the $200-$200 range, let me know. Otherwise, I'm seriously thinking about going back to film...

Anyway, on to the ratings. A pretty big three way tie this week among SKC and New England. Reis, Collin, and Harrington share the honors, all coming up big defnesively, but you know what? I'm gonna give it to Mikey. He filled in on the back line really well and did a good job coming forward. For the most part his service was really good and I honestly felt like he could have been even more involved had Collin not overlooked him a few times. I think the ratings also show Kansas City had a slightly better game, which I felt was the case. Tough to not get three points at home against New England.

New England
Matt Reis	6.3
AJ Soares	5.8
Chris Tierney	6.0
Kevin Alston	5.5
Darrius Barnes	4.0
Lee Nguyen	5.0
Shalrie Jopseh	5.0
Benny Feilhauber	4.7
Kelyn Rowe	4.2
Stephen McCarthy	5.0
Fernando Cardenas	4.2
Ryan Guy	4.7
Saer Sene	4.2
Blake Brettschneider	4.2
Team Average	4.9
Sporting Kansas City
Jimmy Nielsen	6.0
Aurelien Collin	6.3
Seth Sinovic	5.8
Lawrence Olum	4.2
Matt Besler	5.8
Michael Harrington	6.3
Michael Thomas	4.2
Graham Zusi	5.3
Jacob Peterson	4.5
Paolo Nagamura	4.7
Bobby Convey	4.7
Kei Kamara	4.5
CJ Sapong	4.5
Soony Saad	4.2
Team Average	5.1

So take a bow, Mr. Harrington, I think it's excellent to have a guy like you coming off the bench when needed. A starter anywhere else in the league in my book.

Oh. It's you.

So April's not entirely over for all of us, but given that there's no game until May I figure I might as well crunch some stats and figure out another Man of the Month type thing. So I did. And this is it. And once again, I don't think it's much of a surprise.

Aurelien Collin is heads above the rest. Get it. Heads? A header joke? He scores goals with his head? Anyway, I was almost tempted to just say screw it, the whole defence get's it, but Collin has figured his way into set piece offence now in a Jimmy Conrad-esque way. With his defending and a couple of goals in April he definitely earns it.

Here's the full ratings for April. Remember, these are normalized to 5.0, so roughly half the players will be below that. It doesn't neccessary mean they're playing poorly, just that compared to the rest of the team they've added less value.

Player	Rating
Jimmy Nielsen	5.7
Aurelien Collin	7.0
Matt Besler	5.9
Seth Sinovic	5.6
Chance Myers	5.7
Lawrence Olum	3.5
Graham Zusi	5.8
Julio Cesar	4.4
Bobby Convey	4.9
Roger Espinzoa	4.9
Jacob Peterson	3.7
Paolo Nagamura	3.9
Kei Kamara	5.3
CJ Sapong	4.9
Teal Bunbury	3.7

Post RSL player ratings

Once more we turn our sites towards player rankings. Let's see what the magical spreadsheet tells us today.

I suppose first and foremost, I should say congrats to Mr. Collin for his second straight Man of the Match performance. Lock down defense and a great header for the game winning goal. Really can't argue with that.

Here's how the rest of the ratings broke down.

Player	Rating
Sporting Kansas City
Jimmy Nielsen	5.7
Aurelien Colin	8.4
Matt Besler	6.0
Seth Sinovic	6.0
Chance Myers	6.0
Michael Harrington	4.2
Graham Zusi	6.9
Bobby Convey	5.1
Roger Espinzoa	5.1
Julio Cesar	4.2
Jacob Peterson	4.2
Paulo Nagamura	3.9
Kei Kamara	4.8
CJ Sapong	4.5
Real Salt Lake
Nick Rimando	5.1
Jamison Olave	4.8
Tony Beltran	4.8
Chris Wingert	4.5
Nat Borchers	4.5
Kyle Beckerman	4.5
Luis Gil	4.5
Will Johnson	4.5
Johnathan Steele	3.9
Sebastian Velasquez	4.5
Fabian Espindola	4.5
Alvaro Saborio	4.5
Paulo Aruajo jr.	4.2

And of course the highlights. Annoying that they still use the away announcers...

Highlights - SKC 1 - RSL 0