Although the Houston Dynamo midweek match against the Seattle Sounders was a bit of a letdown given the collapse which led to a 1-1 draw, the team can rebound against FC Dallas to bring El Capitán home to Houston to win the Texas Derby. The match against the Sounders saw a much stronger Dynamo side, on paper, fall victim to its own shortcomings early as they were too timid in the offense and sat in. Interim Manager Wade Barrett made a pair of tactical decisions early into the 2nd half which boosted the offense with Will Bruin and Andrew Wenger taking the responsibility of creating chances.
Coming into the 2nd game in a week is no easy task, but health is the Dynamo’s friend and there are plenty of options for any player that wore himself out earlier this week. Tyler Deric and DaMarcus Beasley remain the two players unlikely to rejoin the team at this point. Fortunately, the two players that seemed to make the most difference against Seattle, Bruin and Wenger, were both substitutes and could take their momentum to FCD in the starting lineup. Another player that didn’t see time is Mauro Manotas, a player that’s seen consecutive starts before the Sounder match, so he should be ready to see the pitch either as a substitute or starter.
Defensively, teams rarely make too many changes even in a double game week, and I would expect to see the same lineup on defense as we saw against Seattle or something very similar. Still, Barrett has made this backline one of the top defenses in the league since he became interim manager and he’s done that through several injuries which has enabled him to shift things around several times and each time has come out fairly well.
My Preferred Starting Lineup
I continue to rock the 4-4-2 in my preferred starting XI because I truly believe we need the extra man up top if the focus of the rest of the team is more defensively oriented. Furthermore it allows Cristian Maidana to leave his role as a number 10 and evolve into a new role, one close to why he was brought in to begin with: a Brad Davis role. Yes, that was mostly set pieces rhetoric, but we’ve seen managers experiment with him out wide and honestly, I think he’s better there and he plays very a lot like Davis as well.
My Projected Starting Lineup
While I think my lineup is the way to get the most out of the squad, I believe this is how we’ll lineup. Manotas has fresh legs and played Dallas in the US Open Cup so it makes sense to let him loose against FCD who recently returned from Nicaragua for CCL. Wenger definitely deserves a starting nod given his performances so Chaco or Boniek will likely have to surrender a starting role unless one of them is moved centrally for Alex, Ricardo Clark, or Collen Warner.
There are plenty of options to choose from so who do you want to see start against FC Dallas? Let us know below and share your starting squad in the comments below!