It’s been a while, but we’re back with our staff and community player ratings from Atlanta’s trip to Nashville on Saturday. The 1-1 draw left Atlanta winless in eight, and the frustrations with Gonzalo Pineda aren’t going away for the fan base, but there were a few positives to take away from the second half and from individual performances. As always, our staff ratings are first, followed by the community ratings for comparison.
Staff player ratings
GK: Brad Guzan – 6
Guzan could have done better on the penalty, but I don’t believe the penalty he gave away was a foul on him anyways. He also made some important saves to keep Atlanta in the game, so it was an alright outing.
LB: Ronald Hernandez – 6
Hernandez didn’t actively hurt Atlanta United this week, which is a huge improvement from the norm, but he also didn’t do anything significant, so he gets a 6. This is probably one of his best outings for the Five Stripes, which is saying something.
CB: Stian Gregersen – 7
Other than one extremely dangerous half-attempt at a clearance in the first half that Nashville almost scored on, Gregersen played well, winning almost every ball in the air and shutting down both Sam Surridge and Tyler Boyd. It’s good to see the Norwegian healthy and leading the backline for the past two games.
CB: Noah Cobb – 6
Cobb was playing well until his gruesome injury in the second half. It’s still unclear how he’s hurt, but let’s pray for a speedy recovery for one of the few bright spots in Atlanta United’s season.
RB: Brooks Lennon – 5
What has happened to Brooks Lennon over these last few games? Pineda seems to be afraid to use him high centrally (because it didn’t work). He’s much more reserved and isn’t able to whip in crosses or combine with wingers, and it’s hurting Atlanta’s attack profusely. This misuse led to a bad performance in Nashville.
CDM: Bartosz Slisz – 7 (Man of the Match)
Was Slisz noticeable in the midfield for most of the match? No, because when Atlanta would enter the attack, he would sit incredibly far back. It’s good to sit behind Muyumba, but only slightly behind him, and this tactical misuse is hurting Slisz like how Lennon is hurt by misuse.
However, in a moment of brilliance, with Atlanta United’s only shot on target the entire game, Slisz scored his first goal with Atlanta, comfortably slotting the ball from outside the 18 into the bottom right corner to give his team an equalizer and the eventual point. The passion shown in his celebration and throughout the entire game is great to see, as even in tough times like these, Slisz shows fans that he deserves to wear the shirt.
CM: Tristan Muyumba – 7
Muyumba performed well as his combination play and runs off the ball were his way of being the team’s engine in Almada’s absence. He was a bit sloppy in moments, but he always got the ball forward and into good areas. The Atlanta attack just couldn’t do anything with it.
CAM: Nick Firmino – 6
Firmino wasn’t a world-beater, but he put in a solid performance. His passes forward to wingers and Rios up front were great ideas. Some were placed perfectly but the attackers (mainly Rios) mistimed or took too big of a first touch, and some were a little over-hit. He didn’t seem like the player that deserved to get taken off at halftime.
LW: Caleb Wiley – 4
Wiley began his career as a left winger and has played it before for Atlanta, but he was awful in that role against Nashville. Every pass was to opponents, he constantly dribbled into opponents, and he was a complete non-factor that hurt Atlanta’s attack. However, he did well defensively when he was moved to left back in the second half.
RW: Saba Lobjanidze – 5
Saba made some excellent runs off the ball, but dribbling in 1v1 situations and his shooting were struggles. He’s been struggling to score for the last few matches, so I hope he gets one soon for confidence. He is getting visibly frustrated when he pulls a shot wide or runs into too much pressure and that’s understandable. But, that doesn’t excuse that the chances missed are piling up and something needs to change soon.
ST: Daniel Rios – 4
Rios has been a serviceable striker since he joined Atlanta United, but he wasn’t in this match. In fact, it was his worse game by far with the team. His first touch was too heavy, he squandered build-up play, and he was always late to through balls meant for him. He and Firmino just couldn’t connect enough going forward, and he was a non-existent threat in the air. Also, while Rios is known for his hold-up play, there weren’t that many times where he held it up. It was an uncharacteristic display against his former club, to say the least.
CB: Efrain Morales (SUB) – 7
Morales played as well as Gregersen did when he subbed in for Cobb, putting in well-timed challenges to stop the Nashville attack and building out of the back well. It was a very positive showing for the young center back who Atlanta may need to rely on until Cobb or Williams are healthy.
LW: Xande Silva (SUB) – 7
I have sorely missed Xande Silva’s impact on this team. While the few games he had before injury weren’t the best performances (save match day 1 against Columbus, where he was the team’s best player), Silva came back with good skill, quickness, and energy that the team desperately needed. He made Atlanta United’s attack work, combining well with Tristan Muyumba, driving at players, and getting into dangerous positions for crosses. I hope he’ll be off his minutes restriction soon.
ST: Jamal Thiare (SUB) – 7
Not only has Xande Silva been missed, Jamal Thiare has been, too, and this performance is why. He got into dangerous positions (most of the crosses to him were blocked), but his best moments were on the ball. He would dribble past multiple defenders, once beating three defenders in a row in the second half to pass inside the box to Saba, who missed his shot. Thiare seems to be in the same form that he was in before he got hurt, and it’s badly needed.
Dax McCarty (SUB) – N/A
I don’t have a rating for McCarty, but it was nice that he got a big round of applause from Nashville fans on his return to the club he spent 4 years with as their first MLS captain.
Luis Abram (SUB) – N/A
Gonzalo Pineda – 4
This game was hard to pull player ratings from because it was boring. As a fan of the team, I’ve reached the point where I have to force myself to watch this club that has no idea what to do in the attack. Did things slightly improve in the second half? Yes, but only slightly as there was only one shot on target: Slisz’s goal. Players that were huge pieces of the attack are now misused and positioned improperly. What went from players just missing good chances (excluding Saba, as he’s still doing that) has turned into not creating anything at all. Where is this club’s identity on the field? The only credit I will give Pineda for this match was that he did make quality substitutions that seemed to give the team a second-half spark.
Community Player Ratings
Brad Guzan: 6.09
Brooks Lennon: 5.39
Noah Cobb: 5.61
Stian Gregersen: 7.09
Ronald Hernandez: 5.06
Bartosz Slisz: 7.85 (Man of the Match)
Tristan Muyumba: 6.45
Nick Firmino: 5.66
Saba Lobjanidze: 6.03
Caleb Wiley: 5.52
Daniel Rios: 4.79
Jamal Thiaré (SUB): 5.91
Xande Silva (SUB): 6.18
Luis Abram (SUB): 5.28
Efrain Morales (SUB): 6.59
Dax McCarty (SUB): 5.84
Gonzalo Pineda: 4.03
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Please do not give Pineda any credit for anything in this match. Not only did he not deserve it but it gives the FO excuses. The fact is we are winless in 8 and failed to beat a rudderless team without a manager in utter disarray. Beyond that it beyond obvious that Pineda can’t tactically manage his way out of a wet paper bag and almost every player on our roster has regressed. There are no excuses for any of that. Of tenured managers, only Heinze had a lower Points Per Game (PPG) ratio, and then only barely. This season Pineda is literally on par with the Stephen Glass era; and that despite having currently one of the best rosters in the league compared to the disaster roster that Glass did. And this is his 3rd season. He has had 3 years of patience and getting all the pieces he wanted and still owns a 1.32 PPG. Sorry not sorry, there is just no excuse for any of this. Pineda is nowhere close to the ambitions of this club and we have 3 years of data.
Beyond the stats, on a personal level, I literally fell asleep mid way through the second half. This is atrocious.
On the other hand… read that Pineda has had the least number of matches with a full roster or 9+2 (2 bench players) than any other coach we’ve had. Not an excuse, just something to consider
Five stripe final podcast. And yes, it could be the numbers are suspicious. I think they posted a link to their spreadsheet
https://www.fivestripefinal.com/p/was-tata-martinos-only-real-skill
Agree even though there may be a tinny little bit of truth to his analysis and maybe he is trying to give Pineda more room to try to right the ship. I honestly don’t know how we can look so inept when compared to other lesser teams. Seems we have a “better roster” but maybe we are bias and comparing our roster to the top teams, maybe we don’t. Do we get rid of Pineda now or do we wait until the end of season? Tough either way.
What’s happened to Lennon? Nothing he’s never been a good player. He can hoof the ball into the box but that is about all.
Yeah all he has going for him is being one of the fastest players on the field, a serviceable defender, a well above average crosser, the hardest worker on the field, and being 5th in the league on assists last year.
Really don’t know why we keep him on a barely-even-TAM contract.
Personally, I think he is a little overhyped. A lot of the stats you mentioned didn’t mean anything in soccer when I played. A winger has to beat his defender either going inside or to the edge. He also has to pick where to cross. He doesn’t do any of those two. He is an ok player, a little above average at best but he tries hard, so kudos to him for that, but we can’t expect any more from him. I think he should focus more on defense and occasionally venture forward if his back is covered. He’s no J Alba. I think Pineda’s way of playing requires much better players with excellent ball skills and quickness across the board. Unfortunately, that kind of roster doesn’t exist in MLS
I wouldn’t brag about that, dude. And I say that as someone who may be older than you. Back in the old Major League Baseball days, we used to think that Derek Jeter was a great defensive shortstop. He kept winning Gold Gloves as the best defensive SS in the AL and he kept making these bang-bang plays where he would barely get a ball and barely throw the runner out at first base. Then about mid-way through his career better ways were developed to measure defense and we could see every game in a season from every team and we discovered that much better players at SS were making those same plays only they were easy outs. The balls they were barely getting to and turning into bang-bang outs were balls Jeter wasn’t getting to at all and were thus turning into hits. I say to point out that analysis changes with time and you shouldn’t brag about how nobody cared about X back in your day because while you may think you are saying “We didn’t care about it in my day, therefore that is conclusive proof that it’s not important”, what you are actually saying is “We didn’t care about it in my day because we were too stupid to know it was important”.
There is nobody in MLS really like Jordi Alba other than the man himself, so?
If your argument, which I don’t agree with at present, is that Pineda is trying to play a style of play that the team is ill suited for, then we’ve got another FdB situation on our hands – if you are right. It doesn’t look to me like Pineda wants to do anything that can’t be done with the current roster.
Good argument. Hope you’re older than me ‘cause I’m OLD 😉 saw Garrincha, Eusebio and Pele play in their prime. In any event, I give you that some stats may be important, like goals scored and MAYBE assists, if a goal is directly a consequence of the pass or cross. All the other stuff to me is just journalism garbage. But that’s just my opinion. I think coaches can/should evaluate players based on their own criteria. If a coach thinks a good winger/wingback is someone who crosses incessantly without evaluating the successful chances of a cross or leaving his back exposed, then we have exactly what our coach wants. Your example of Jeter may be relevant but you could see he was awesome without all the stats; Great defense and great clutch hitter. In any event Lennon is what we have, so we have to live with it. On a side note, I think Pineda has asked him not to venture up the wing like he used to and we would get burned, just my guess.
I actually borderline hated Lennon when we first got him, but part of that was missing Gressel and part of that was the 2020 team being a train wreck. But he’s really won me over and I’ve grown to love the stability he brings. He’s super consistent (though he isn’t in great form right now admittedly) It was always weird watching him and Araujo interplay, they’re just polar opposite players.
yeah…people love to bag on him but until recently he’s played very well and very consistently for us. it’s not his fault when he delivers ball after ball into the 18 and we have no one that can finish.
no lately his crosses have been a hot mess for the most part. i can’t explain that, maybe he can’t either at this point. but the dude has consistently been one of the leagues best at assists and dangerous ball from wide areas.
My opinion is that the cross type changed. For a while last year, he was crossing more while we were in transition, so the defense was not set. Now, he is crossing against a set and waiting defense. He is also reverting back to his pass it back repeatedly days, which again is because the offense is to slow to build. Whenever we play with urgency and transition quickly, we see success. Yet we now want to constantly slow it down and build methodically out of the back. Is it a coincidence that our offense is struggling and our shots on goal are lacking when the defense is sitting there waiting for us?
Interesting point. If the defense is set, he has to pass it back or try to beat his defender which is his weakness, so we are seeing more back passes. What I don’t understand is why is he so far up the field if the defense is already set. I think that is a tactical problem
I agree with this, but I would argue we rarely ever have transition opportunities because team always holds it up for more possession.
While I have had issues with Lennon overhitting crosses (probably judging harshly compared to Gressel), I was actually a fan of him in his RSL days and thought he was a decent pick up. But two apects of the way we play leads to a lot of Lennon hate. 1. Our current plans run so much of the offense through him (which is problematic to say the least). 2. The way team plays is not conducive to crossing as much as we do (we generally only have one forward in the box, surrounded by set defenders).
100%. I think Lennon is best used on the counter, but we aren’t doing that much this season. A ball over the top, for him to go after with his blazing speed and cut across to GG or Almada is always a good option.
who on our team isn’t better being used on the counter?
that’s a good point. he always seems best when play is up-tempo, but that’s not pineda “possession at all costs” football.
for that matter, saba is probably best that way as well…which may be some of the cause of his recent run of bad form.
So, it seems our “system” is not utilizing our players best qualities?
In the specific case of Lennon, I think it says more about how poor we are on the left without Silva that we become a one trick pony down the right. The cat is out of the bag and other teams know how to prepare for our barrage down the right.
Personally, I see this specific case as more of a roster issue. Mosquera and Wolff just arent cutting it as rotation starters, which leads to pretty significant trickle down effects, especially when the best player on the team plays like he’s too good for the league.