Player Ratings: Houston Dynamo vs. the New England Revolution

The 2018 campaign for the Houston Dynamo has started off less than ideal as the club hasn’t won a match in its last three outings with the latest 0-2 loss to the New England Revolution coming at BBVA Compass Stadium. It’s still quite early, but with two home losses in that three game stretch, there obviously are some issues that we’re beginning to see. The New England game captured some of those issues perfectly as individual errors, a system that can put a lot of pressure on a currently pretty injured defensive line, and missed shots stood out.

The ratings were, as you’d expect in a 0-2 loss at home, low for most players in this game. I generally agree with the ratings, though would probably move some things around to change up the Top Performers section.

The Top Performers:

Tomás Martínez, Man of the Match, (5.7) – Martínez isn’t my top performer in this one, I’d probably go with Alberth Elis for just creating so many scoring opportunities even they didn’t go in. For a stretch after New England’s first goal, the defensive midfielders dropped back to help the defenders, but that created a huge gap between Martínez and the other offensive players and the defenders and other mids. That was problematic because Martínez would have to drop deeper with his back to the attacking players to receive the ball which is not what you want your number 10 doing. Overall, he had a decent game passing wise, but he (along with everyone else sans Elis) needs to do a little bit more for the team to get back on track.

Chris Seitz (5.7) – It’s hard to blame the goals that the Dynamo conceded on their goalkeeper. The first goal was a 4v1 counter attack and the second was Cristian Penilla catching Adolfo Machado slightly flat footed which opened up a shot. Seitz finished the day with four saves and he nearly got a hand on the cross for Teal Bunbury’s opening goal.

Alberth Elis (5.6) – Even though he didn’t score, Elis was extremely active on the offensive side of the ball as he generated several close chances for the Dynamo to get on the score sheet. He also set up his teammates for some close chances. The real issue is if Elis wants his season to take off, he’s going to have to put some of these away and he missed some fairly easy chances – the kind we used to go off on Will Bruin for.

Head Coach Wilmer Cabrera (4.8) – I think we weren’t initially prepared for a team that plays very similar to the Dynamo in style. If we were, individual errors would hurt, but they wouldn’t necessarily be costly. Wilmer made some adjustments in the second half tactically and we began to increase the number of chances to equalize. I can’t put the game on Wilmer because even though we conceded a first half goal and went down a man, this game was winnable if we could have finished our shots.

The Rest of the Starters:

DEF: DaMarcus Beasley (4.6)

DEF: Leonardo (5.4)

DEF: Alejandro Fuenmayor (4.5)

DEF: Adolfo Machado (5.2)

MID: Darwin Cerén (4.1)

MID: Eric Alexander (5.3)

FW: Andrew Wenger (5.3)

FW: Mauro Manotas (4.8)

The Subs:

FW: Romell Quioto (5.1)

FW: Mac Steeves (5.1)

MID: Memo Rodriguez (4.8)