Join the the Cannon Crue in the discussion of, well, a not so good performance.
[00:00:09] Welcome to Cannon Crue, I am Graham and I am joined here by Patrick. How are you Patrick? I'm doing really well, how are you? I'm doing well. So you traveling around the south here? Yes, lots of travel, lots of out of town work, lots of apparently dogfights in my house right now, but a lot of stuff happening in life. Wife is third trimester pregnant so there's plenty to do. Hey, congratulations.
[00:00:39] Thanks boys. Not that you had anything to do with it, but congratulations. Ryan, how are you bud? I'm doing fantastic, how are you? Hey, what's on your chest there? Is that a West Ashley shirt there? West Ashley soccer, yeah, just came out of practice. They had a game the other night? Yes we did. Beat Somerville, what was it, 3-0?
[00:01:05] Yep, the green wave was not so greeny. I think it was 4-0 and the green wave crawled back into their bus and went back to where green waves live. But we're here not talking about that, we're here to talk about the Charleston Battery in the most recent matchup between North Carolina, played up North Carolina. North Carolina, not the best result. What's your initial thoughts, Patrick? Disappointing.
[00:01:36] This is not a great start for us. North Carolina haven't even beat the battery since 2009, I believe. So, it's kind of a game I think everyone overlooked and it's hard to judge because it was the second, third game of the season. So, I think last year we had a similar kind of like rough start, but this year we're getting some goals.
[00:02:04] So, it's disappointing to lose. It's worse losing from an own goal, but we were all there at the watch party and I really thought we were going to nick one back and tie it up. And the energy was there and the team looked alive in the second half, but I don't know. Maybe the same story. We just looked so lackluster to start games off. Ron, what do you think?
[00:02:31] Oh, again, I, you know, what Pat said, I think we start the game very flat-footed to start the games. And I'm not, I'm just not seeing the, the want and the drive from the boys coming off of the bench. Maybe it's not necessarily the substitutions or who's getting subbed in. I mean, I think I've seen certain key players. I'm just feeling like there's no, there's no spark coming from a person right now.
[00:02:59] Like when Cal finally got the pin that we'll get to in a minute, you felt the spark coming right at a halftime. And then they came at a halftime and they've just looked just as bad as the first half. Yeah, let's start out with a formation. There's a four, two, three, one, I believe kind of a double pivot in the back there with, we've seen in the past with. And Aaron and Alan, how do you think that worked out for us?
[00:03:25] It seems like we just took a really strong defensive posture. And did that hold us up from our attack? I don't, I mean, it's hard to say, but when you bring players on like Drac in the second half, and he gives you more offensive play than you saw in the first half, you kind of have to say, yeah.
[00:03:47] I mean, it was more defensive minded, but this is the battery. This is pyramid. We want possession. We want to cycle the ball. But it's not going in our favor. I mean, and it, it's similar to another team we enjoy watching Granite, but defensively, it leaves you open for counter attacks. And, unfortunately, like it happened a lot in this game where we probably should have been down by two or three or four goals.
[00:04:16] I mean, there was a chance where Malloy gave the ball back to Archer and Archer was just caught a little too flat on his feet. And I don't know how they missed, but they were right in on goal and hit it wide. Oh, first off, I should have started out by happy St. Tottenham's day. I think that's today, right? I think it's today. Yeah. Happy, happy Schitts, Schittsburg day with the boys.
[00:04:46] Today was a good day in that aspect. What? So let's talk about laundry on the, as a, as a right back. Do you think he added, took away? Just, just, he added to the midfield, but he didn't add anything special. And we definitely struggled. And that was our biggest weak spot and our back line. I mean, he's the reason they scored their first goal. Yes.
[00:05:12] And he was then countless amount of times just caught out of position, like way too far forward. And maybe that's something that I think that was, you know, about, but like, you don't, you don't think that wasn't the idea though, with him playing back there. I think it is to play as like almost two CDMs and two cams where you're almost playing a three, two, four, one.
[00:05:39] Yeah. But at the end of the day, if your guy's running past you on a counter, you still need to get back and cover that guy. He's, he's your responsibility. Like we're not asking a center back to come out and cover a winger who wants to cut the ball and just run past you at speed. You got to at least kind of be a little bit of a defender and show him to a side or at least not make everything easy on the attackers.
[00:06:08] Yeah. I think that was definitely a weak side. There were some other things I think were going on that were really hurting us from performance level. I mean, we just made it so inviting. Like that side was just so inviting. It's like, you knew exactly where North Carolina was switching the ball to every time. It's like, Oh look, it's going right over the top, left side of the top. That's how teams beat us. They just put over the top. Yeah. Because they know we, we pressed so far forward that it gives them the best chance.
[00:06:34] And it seems like what we did, if you, if you look at our passing, we were trying to go up the sides so much and we just left the middle open. And I think the reason why we brought Cal in is to kind of fill up that middle to give us some speed there. And we weren't taking advantage of that. Plus some other issues. Does this just show you how important Segbers is in our team? Yes, absolutely. He simply can't even have people cover for halftime before being subbed on the second half.
[00:07:04] Like he, he can't even have two guys cover his spot. He plays that what you're describing Ryan perfectly, the attacking, but will defend and be that first guy back. I think when he comes back, he's going to win a man of the match and he's going to be around for a while if they can make that happen. They're going to find a new love and appreciation for Segbers. I truly believe that coming up now with how we're struggling. Yeah.
[00:07:32] I don't think we brought a lot laundry into cover for Segbers. I think it's just one of those things that he might've been the best position that pyramid was thinking to fill that. It just didn't work out very well. Well, Landry is a midfielder. You didn't think of, um, well, I didn't actually see him get carried on the travel roster. Oh, black stock. Yeah. He was on there.
[00:08:02] So, you know, that's another guy out with injury. So you can kind of see where, you know, on their bench, they did have Josh Drack and that was really the only defender or we have Joey and center back still. Well, we have some, you have a makeshift Chris Allen. Like, it's not like, Oh, Chris Allen could go play left back only as like, that's not his position either. Throw him in it right back and see if he can play a little defense.
[00:08:31] And I mean, that's the perfect example of slot in to that center mid role and then just drop back to right back to cover. Like Drack and Dos Santos are the guys on the left side. We don't need to like mess with the right side. The right side can be our question mark of let's put a more defender style player who can get back and cover. And then he can support our offense, but he doesn't need to be that main guy.
[00:09:01] Yeah. And maybe he, maybe he needs to go up towards the middle in front of, uh, or the two, uh, defensive midfielders from that right back position and just kind of make us three at the back. I don't know. Uh, we've seen, uh, man city play that a couple of times. We've seen Arsenal play that with, with Zinni. Um, maybe that's what you do with that. Cause cause he's a midfielder and that's a strength.
[00:09:25] Do you guys think that we should, that Cal need somebody up top with him as like a supporting role as playing two up top? Or do you think one up top is sufficient enough? I think anything's open at this point. Right. I mean, we're like scoring enough goals to win. We're, I mean, what did it for us last year is putting three, four past the other team.
[00:09:52] And then you can overlook the defensive mistakes, but until we get the goals in the net, I mean, we're as a fan base, you're going to focus on defensive mistakes. Cause that's what lost you the game. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying again, it's another game room. You know, my boy, Maddie Myers was left on the bench and I'm thinking, you know, possibly he could be a good fit to be a partner with Cal.
[00:10:22] Like I was thinking that's where it was going. So, you know, it just leads me to think of what's potentially going on behind the scenes to where he is not to that standard. You know? I mean, cause Jackson Conway got in, you know, over Matt. Can I ask it this way? What do we need to just think about rotating Rodriguez off the field to start games to maybe create these runs and these chances in to Jennings?
[00:10:52] Well, and that's what came on and didn't make a little bit of a difference. I don't like how I don't, I'm not sure why he causes us already. And I'm not like, are we saving them for something? Why are we, I'm just kind of confused on why we're saving, like, you know, resting, resting in playing certain players where they're at.
[00:11:21] I feel like this roster could be a little bit better with the personnel that they have already at hand. Well, let me go back to putting Chris Allen and Malloy back in front of our back four. Does that hurt us? Does that not give us another player that should be pushing up? It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like one of them was pushing up while the other one was, was still right, playing six. And the other one was pushing up when we had, when we were in attack. It just seemed like both of them were so far back.
[00:11:50] There was five of our players, I mean, six of our players behind the ball at any time. Are you talking about when Drac was in? No, I'm talking about starting out with, with Chris Allen and Aaron Malloy. Oh, kind of that double pivot behind everybody. Yeah. I mean, there's certain teams that's going to work for a more centrally oriented team where you want kind of those guys that are really great in possession and can play the smarter ball.
[00:12:18] But the teams were going against, I mean, mainly it's kickball. Like let's boot one down the wing and just exploit space. And I, I think it was the wrong ploy to have maybe Allen in there. Like I like he causes creativity a lot more in a game like this, just to even move off the ball and create a little space for Rodriguez or Torres.
[00:12:42] Like we know Torres is going to roam free, but like you need someone to kind of be that second threat to attract a guy to him who also continues to move. And I think we were just lacking that. Yeah. And we, we try really hard to get down the sides, both sides. And I think maybe that's the way we were trying to spread it out and open up that middle and it just never happened. And a part of it, I mean, we had 571 passes to 303.
[00:13:09] Um, but if you look at the passing numbers of like one, David, they're low that he, his passing was so far off this match. I think it really hurt us because usually he's a pretty good passer and putting ball in the people and then moving. And just, he just didn't seem like he was being able to function at that level. Um, when he was playing the other night and shots on targets, a big one.
[00:13:33] Like you could take as many shots as you want, but if they're blocked or they go wide, they don't really matter. You can't get deflection off a keeper mistake. You can't get maybe a flick off of just some feet trying to stretch out and maybe redirect it to goal. Like it has to be on target. And that's another thing we just haven't seen.
[00:13:53] Yeah. One David was at a 55% in the opponent's half for passing, whereas, uh, laundry and Rodriguez were 75 85. So to me that made a huge, huge difference because we took away a lot of our offensive power. Uh, if he's missing passes and not being able to pass and then move and receive it, then I think that that really hurts us.
[00:14:32] Well, is there anyone that maybe we should revert? Like thinks that we should revert back to players who were on our team last year. Let's just go back to that and start with that and then add the new guys in little by little. Yeah, we, we made a lot of changes this season and we talked about this, uh, first, it seemed like they were a little awkward.
[00:14:58] And this one, I think we put a little more players that we're used to seeing out there. There was laundry that was different and Cal, but besides that, I guess Martinez over too. But besides that, it wasn't a whole lot of changes. Like the first match we started, I think five different, um, players that haven't started for, uh, with us before. Maybe we're just missing.
[00:15:22] Yep. And then if you look at that extra winger, like that left sided winger that competes with Rodriguez because Zeke is not that guy. We saw him come on and he just looked still a little too fresh to the scene of like, I don't know how to describe it, but it wasn't like attacking style or like confidence and going for the ball and challenging.
[00:15:49] I don't know how well he's going to fit in this team for the rest of the season if he doesn't build that confidence. But I really think we're missing how Torres used to compete with Rodriguez on that side. We need one more guy to just do that and step up and just be like, Hey, next game I'm taking over cause you had a bad game. Yeah. Remember last year we had this guy named Nick, uh, Markanik that, that people had to play against cause he was such a threat. And now we don't have that.
[00:16:18] Maybe teams recognize that. And so they can focus more on one David and, and put more pressure on them. I don't know. Maybe what if we pop Cal out to a side and like, we have Ryan's boy MD just come back up top and just get a little bit of a different look. I mean, Cal's fine on the ball. He can take people on. He looks for runs most of the time. So I, I'm honestly thinking like, why would you want to do that?
[00:16:46] Why not try MD up top towards out wide cow on the other side? Cause cow can whip a ball into the box. I've seen him. Well, I've watched videos of him doing it at Tampa where he makes a run doc defensively, wins the ball, and then is able to go down the line and whip a ball in like he's got great services and deliveries. And he could provide not necessarily work. I mean, there'd be a Nick Markanick.
[00:17:13] He's won a golden move before, but he could provide that extra oomph that we're looking for right now. And that's maybe a spark of how we can get goals. Well, the one practice I went to coach pyramid was talking about, they work hard on trying to spread things out to create that space. Yeah. And that way you can go through the middle. It would just never got to get into the middle because they were clogging it up. I don't know what was happening.
[00:17:41] I, when you look at the, the, the passing pattern, it was all going down the side and it was then coming in the middle towards the box, but there was nothing really going down the middle to the start play off with. So maybe it just didn't develop the game. You know, state didn't develop to where we were being successful and spread out enough. And it just didn't work for us.
[00:18:06] I think it's just, you know, again, it all comes down to past patterns, cone drills, everything's all good and done at training sessions. And you go home and you can go to bed, right? When it's game day, it's all about your decision making, your mentality, what you're taking from the training pitch and what you decide you want to implement onto the game pitch. Right?
[00:18:30] So these guys are going through emotions and stuff like that on the training pitch, but are they mentally equipped to be on that game pitch right now? Are they in the same lingo with everybody else on the pitch? And are they on the same page and level of trust knowing that if I get nailed or side tackle from behind, this guy's going to come over and push the guy off or, you know, step up for me. Right? Or are they just gonna, you know, walk away and let me have to get up myself.
[00:19:03] And you just want to, you just want to see more of these players having that trust with each other. I'm not saying that they don't have it, but you can see that there is some miscues and misconnections and stuff. But are we going to, to get past that? Are we going to get past that? Maybe not. Maybe this is, we just had a couple of off games and maybe this is one of them. It just didn't work out for us. We weren't connecting passes. We weren't the best defensively. We, you know, facing a couple of injuries, right? You know, before the season started.
[00:19:34] So, I mean, maybe they're saving them for this month, right? If you look ahead to the schedule for this month, right? I'm thinking back, why, why save some of these players? Like, why not start a cause of why not start Josh track out wide, you know, and putting another midfielder there, giving him minutes to. And it's like, if you're looking ahead at the schedule, you know, we played three total different competitions.
[00:20:03] And just the month of April itself, five games across three different competitions. So there's a lot you are playing for in this, this month now. Um, that's unfortunate. You know, we did take that North Carolina loss for granted because again, like as Pat said at the beginning, we hadn't lost since 09. That's, that's a long time.
[00:20:25] And I know there were some years where we didn't play them, you know, probably, you know, a few seasons, but still, you know, I want that Darby cup to come back here in the summertime. Yeah. Yeah. And after a Louisville loss where we corrected the shit pun intended against Rhode Island, like you kind of thought things were clicking a little bit. These guys are gelling the connections there because the Louisville game, it was very easy to see.
[00:20:53] Hey, this is the first time competition they're playing together because the passes weren't just like off. They were way off. Like there was no one run making a run to where a pass might go like half the time. So, I mean, you go into a game against North Carolina, that's not the strongest of an opponent. And you just think, Hey, now's a good time to nip three points. We saw them last year. They get stronger as the year goes on.
[00:21:18] So like if you're not taking the points off of them now, when it should be easier, because I'm paper, you have the better team. I don't know. It's like that three steps forward, two steps back, but it seems like we just took five steps back and we kind of need to figure out who's going to be covering for a guy if he runs forward. Cause our center defenders play correctly most of the time, 90% of the time.
[00:21:48] But this game, it was like, they weren't shifting over a little bit in preparation of the wing backs going forward. So like there was just way too much gap 20, 30 yards between the center back and the sideline is a lot of space for someone to get in behind and just have their field day with it. I agree. And maybe we'll make those adjustments. We'll see. Uh, do we want to talk about the, uh, I don't want to talk about their goals. Do you want to talk about, uh, PK?
[00:22:22] Yeah. I mean, it was a pen pretty clear, right? Now, what did they call the pen for? Was it a foul on him or the handball? Say that again, Patrick. Oh, I was just saying, did they call it for the foul on him or the handball? I don't know. I thought it was the handball, but I wasn't for sure.
[00:22:52] I was pretty disgusted at that point. So my attention was waning, but either way, I think it was like, maybe he got away with the foul, but then because it was a handball, he definitely had to call it. Yeah. Like one of them, you know, he can't, he can't let two things go by. Yeah. Dang it. Now I gotta do something about it. Um, what's the other, other thing was that how about our keeper?
[00:23:20] I know there's two goals. One of them, I mean, off Graham, I mean, off a Smith's head. It wasn't anything you do about that. What do you think about the first goal? Ryan? Again, it comes from fast play in the midfield. We're allowing this, these teams to come in and turn on us in the midfield and to pass out.
[00:23:46] Um, and we're allowing these teams to do it early in the game and allowing to set tempo. I think this season so far, we've become susceptible to going down early, you know, two out of the three games, we've already gone down early Rhode Island. We had a great bounce back game dominated Rhode Island, but this game against North Carolina, we just look completely flat, just completely flat. And that's okay. What about the, what about, uh, keeper's performance on that first goal? Right. Was it his fault?
[00:24:16] It's just things that happen. It happens. Uh, he did have some, he did have some great saves during the match. He bounced back amazing though. He, he, he definitely won the second half for Charleston. He kept them in that whole second half. He had, I think it was three saves in the second half. One of which was definitely the game. Clint, the game saver where he kept them in the match for as long as he could, you know,
[00:24:44] obviously we couldn't get the second goal, but as a keeper, he did what he could do. That's fantastic. Cause that's bouncing back from his first match where he, you know, let a howler or, you know, whatever it was, I don't know what he did. Uh, and he's looking a lot stronger. So I have a lot more faith and confidence in him. We got to score more goals. We've got to score first, you know? Yeah. Uh, so I'm, I'm glad he's back there. So let's look the other direction. Let's look to Saturday. I think the game time kickoff is at five 30 at Patriots point.
[00:25:14] Patrick, you done a little, uh, research on her, on our program. The array, the, was it, is it the Tampa Bay? What are they called? The rowdies. Oh, those guys. Yeah. The, the Tampa Bay green people that show up and were very quieted last time. I think if I'm right. Patrick, what's your thoughts on all your scouting this past week? Uh, I think they're a bad team.
[00:25:42] Their goals that they give up are huge mistakes. Um, I think the gate goal, they gave up against Las Vegas was a, the keeper, the keeper came out to try to clear it, cleared it off his defender's head outside the box. And it fell back into the box in front of a Las Vegas lights player. They lost that game one nil. Um, there was another, what was the recent game they played? Was that against?
[00:26:12] Well, they've lost to Tulsa one zero, which was a big surprise. Cause that's a Midwest team. They lost to Tulsa and that was similar. It was a corner kick. Keeper came out for it. Totally whiffed on it. And just. Tapping goal. Um, but defensively they look really shaky. So they're, their center backs are not very great when pressured with the ball.
[00:26:37] I mean, watching their games, just anytime they have it and the other team press them, there was two or three. Situations where it's one V one. And the guy just whiffed or completely just. Buffed it in his like feet and gave it right to an attacker. So. I mean. I look at that and I look at the battery and that's exactly what the battery do. They like to high press. They like to win that ball back.
[00:27:08] And this is a game that I think if we press really high. And. Go ahead. And challenge their defenders challenge their goalie. Like. We're going to get a bunch of goals out of this. Um. The other factor is when they defend. We. They literally swarm the ball. Like they leave their wings wide open. So their wing backs are. Gone. They suck into the middle.
[00:27:35] And that's exactly what we've seen from the battery. How we play is we love to kick it out to our wingers. And kind of get that ball in. Look for that in this game. I really think that's going to be a big difference. I mean, they're. They beat. They beat. A Miami team. That got 11 points in the league last year. And is 0, 0, and 4 this year. So their win doesn't mean anything. Now, you also got to remember this too.
[00:28:04] This is a massive, massive game. Not only because it's our biggest rival. But also because. This is Cal Jennings old team. The team that he won two golden boots with. I don't know if you want to leave with them. But he. He's definitely a part of their history in that club. Yeah, I think he needs to put it too. So. I think if we. I think if we close down.
[00:28:33] So they have one guy. That they brought in. Bassett. Who loves to just hit the ball. And he's got. He's got a strong foot on him for his size, but. He won golden boot. I think two years ago in the Canadian Premier League. So. They have some attacking threats. It's not that they don't look good. They do possess the ball a lot. Like their main thing is over 60% possession. Kind of like the battery.
[00:29:01] So I think it's going to be a big midfielder game. But like I said. This can be the turning of the tide where. We get those defensive make mistakes on the opposite team. And we. Capitalize on them. We get the goals. And then maybe we just win the game one nil. Two nil. Yeah. Well, hopefully we go back for a double pivot and we can push. We actually pivot. And either Aaron or. Aaron or the. I can't.
[00:29:31] Chris moves up. And does that pivot to add that other player up there right outside the box. And I think if we can do that, that'll add a little more to the midfield. And so they either have to swarm here like you're talking about and give us our wide spaces. And maybe that's our success right there. And if. One David is on his a game or even on his B game the other night, he was probably on his D game. I think with his prolific. Shooting. And passing. You know, he's going to get some.
[00:29:59] We're going to get some rebounds and get some poachers in the box and see what happens. So I got a step for you. Granite. Since you love. Stats and the stat magic. Stats. The battery in our two losses had 64% possession and 65%. In our win, we had 47%. So under 50. Interesting. And Miami likes to possess the ball.
[00:30:25] So this could be a sit deep a little bit counterattack type game. Maybe. What about Tampa Bay? Do they like possessing the ball? Oh, sorry. Tampa Bay does. Yeah. They all like possessing the ball. It's the football way. They like possessing the ball. They're Florida teams. That's all they can do. They like to, you know, lose matches. So. Okay. What else do we want to talk about? Is that it? Is that all we got? Oh, $5 beers.
[00:30:54] $5 beers. $5 beers on Saturday. Also announced. Yep. The battery third round U.S. Open Cup. We will be playing. Georgia Tormenta. Tormenta. So that will be. If I remember right. April 15. Yeah. April 15. Juan David scored that. That crazy. Midfield strike. Against Tormenta. Two years ago. Can't remember what it was. Which one.
[00:31:25] And so if you're a season ticket holder. Make sure you go in and accept the offer. I think that's what they're probably going to say. Everybody's going to be in with the West. I mean the East stands. You know. So it looks like we're packed in there. So it should be a pretty good match there too. So Saturday. 530 kickoff. Which I kind of like. Kind of like the earlier match there. And we'll be out there in the parking lot. Having maybe an espresso. Or some kind of soft drink. Or something along those lines.
[00:31:56] And I think that's all I got. Something warm for the cold weather. Something warm. That's it. We are the Batarang.