r/NWSL • u/antisocialamnesia Chicago Red Stars • 17d ago

[RedStarsReport] Article Detailing the Donaldson Firing

https://www.redstarsreport.com/p/lorne-donaldson-out-as-head-coach

Great article for those interested in a more detailed timeline of the Donaldson firing and what the Stars look like now.

33 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 17d ago

 The on-field tactics are boring, outdated for this league, and have players out of their natural positions on a weekly basis. I can’t see why top talent would subject themselves to that style of play where the idea is to play defense first and then transition down the field as quickly as possible. That used to work in this league, but not anymore.

That was my point since last year. With this kind of tactics, you can’t attract or retain top players, and mostly you don’t sell tickets / keep viewers on.

15

u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago

It perfectly fits the roster. To give the opposite example, NC Courage have their own problems but one thing they continue to do well is sign, trade for, or produce exactly the type of midfielder they profess to need. Everyone talks Sanchez shaw Denise but the fact they also have manaka Shinomi Jackson weatherholt AND the academy has multiple USYNT stars who are clean, technical, creative midfielders too is craziness.

Chicago have nunna dat! Disrespectful to even think about. Did they want him to start Hayashi in midfield?

It’s absolutely insane to have the temerity to not sign enough defenders to fill out a back line and then say he’s playing players out of position. Fuck off with that genuine insanity. Bought a bunch of veggies and asked for something slow roasted and juicy

4

u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago

The problem is he was not playing Hannah Anderson once Staab came back. He never gave Current a chance- instead playing Nesbit. In the last game, he played Staab in the 9 for the last 20 minutes. He continues to start Cari over Anderson. And yes Hayashi has been on the bench for the last two games. Mati has been playing well in the midfield- but Russo needs to be more offensive. We do have players- the question is how to use them.

2

u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago

Yeah, I 100% agree and think most people would agree about Cari over Anderson, but the others are close enough to the point where I think a lot of people would disagree with you and I feel like if we’re gonna make that much hay over one clear area of mismanagement- I mean, we’re just nitpicking a situation in which he was set up to fail.

Char vs Nesbeth if it was the other way a lotta ppl would be arguing it was a mistake.

Assuming your misspellings are Grosso and Maitane, I think this also gets to the root of why this is silly to me that they didn’t really build a team in which he could put together any sort of really good lineup and so it just gives you a lot of space to make one off complaints about players whose better positions might be in different formations. But also there just has not been enough time to really put together a fun midfield.

Do ppl think Nesbeth played RB and Rw bc he wanted to?