Monday Morning Centre Back: Feelin' Alright

Alright, so one win doesn't solve all the problems or suddenly make everything better...but it sure feels nice to be looking back at a Dynamo victory after seven matches without one. There are still some points that need to be discussed but this team needed a win and they went out a got it on Saturday against Chivas USA.

Bobby Boswell's early disallowed goal was the right call. Kinnear talked about it post-match and said he saw the foul and felt the referee made the right decision. I didn't see the play in real time and since you don't get replays in MLS stadiums (even in the press box) of any potentially controversial call, I didn't see it until much later. Freeman interfered with Dan Kennedy (or at least it looked like he did), ref got it right, no big deal.

Hunter Freeman's turnover that led to Marcos Mondiani's goal was bad, really bad. Freeman knew it, he accepted blame for the mistake and he worked hard the rest of the night to make up for it. In situations where you make an early mistake. It wasn't a great opening few minutes for Freeman to say the least.

"Obviously, I barely hit it," Hunter Freeman said after the match. "It's inexcusable. I tried to put it out of my head as quick as possible. I thought for the rest of the game it wasn't really an issue. Sometimes when you make a stupid mistake like that, it can linger and it can affect you. Luckily the team fought hard. We dug out of a 1-0 hole. We came in at halftime, and I said, ‘I owe you guys. Just fight hard for me and we'll get out of this.' And we did. All credit to them. Like I said, it was just a bad mistake."

The Dynamo offense is still far to reliant upon set pieces. There's nothing wrong with scoring goals from free kicks and corners but the continued lack of goals from the run of play will hold this team back. Fortunately, we saw signs of improvement in terms of the urgency of play and the creativity from the midfield. Geoff Cameron has a strong match back in the CAM role, or at least until Eddie Robinson got injured, but he's still not the answer at that position. More importantly though, Brian Ching returned at last from injury and looked strong in about 20 minutes of action. As good as Will Bruin and Cam Weaver had been this season, Ching brings a whole new level of play to the field that the Dynamo have been missing desperately.

For now, I'll just be happy with three points.