Last year, it wasn’t a matter of bringing the ball forward in some staid, predictable manner. It was the off-the-ball play. We had a wide variety of ways to come forward. However, at a certain point you need the right movement, and we had too many players that either made the wrong move or moved too slowly (Emilio and Gomez particularly). Everyone we were playing knew that the problem wasn’t our ability to move the ball around well. The problem was that, if you could prevent us from penetrating early enough, things bogged down because we had a bad mix of players that were slow physically or mentally.

There are four principles of attacking play: Width, Movement, Penetration, and Improvisation. We often got stuck on Movement. We didn’t have the incisive runs that break open defenses.

All that said, we did have a pretty decent goal haul, so the fact that we’re all so upset with our offense is kind of odd when you think about it. Personally, I’m still much more worried about how we’ll defend as a unit.

As for Quaranta’s position, I would only play him centrally in a real injury crisis or emergency in-game situation. He puts in the necessary work and has an adequate touch for the job, but do you really want to take our best right midfielder and put him into a position that he just barely fits (especially when the next players in line for right midfield are as inconsistent as Khumalo and Shipalane, or as offensively limited as McTavish)? In 2008, Soehn tried him there during Gallardo’s injury. It wasn’t a disaster, but it was hardly a rousing success. It looked to me that Soehn played him there more because of the fact that Quaranta was one of the few attackers we had that was still giving his all as opposed to him being a good fit there. Quaranta doesn’t have the vision or passing range to be a true playmaker, so in my view we shouldn’t try to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

Moving on to Allsopp and the front line, it does seem like Allsopp’s supposed to be very good with through balls. Guys like Moreno, Pontius, and whoever ends up in attacking midfield will be looking for it, to be sure. Until we actually see him in action on this team, though, we won’t know for sure how to use him. Perhaps at Al-Rayyan and Melbourne, the defenses were most easily opened up by through balls; it could be here that Allsopp finds more chances on crosses, for example. How a player fits into a new team and a new league is always something of a mystery.

As for Pontius, I don’t think his game has much in common with Montero’s. Montero is quicker, more technically gifted, more clever, and a better finisher as well. Pontius is more physically aggressive, as well as taller, stronger, harder working, and more versatile. They don’t really approach things in the same way. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, I do think Pontius is better off up front, and the fact that we can have him lead the line or play underneath is a big positive. I’m looking forward to him having a big year.

On your final thought about coaching, don’t be so sure it comes down to that and that alone. Our runs off the ball can be improved, but a big factor there was the simple speed of our players; that’s been improved by changing the players, not coaching. Similarly, how we provide service to our forwards comes in part from how this group of players combines and what they find works best. In that case, coaches are just as likely to interfere with the understanding by forcing a way of attacking on the group.

I know they have differences. And I wouldn’t suggest they are completely the same. I would argue that we haven’t seen the best of Pontius though. And I think we are going to see more clever play from Pontius than we saw last year. We just have to get him the service…and the off-ball movement. He has the ability to not only score goals, but provide service to other guys as well. With the team moving together, this will be a dramatic difference in their play.
I see your point about off the off-ball movement but I would argue that that was also the product of the support from the midfielders. How many times do you make a run only to see that the center mid or the wing mids aren’t even looking for you? Or you make the run and they just dump it into the 18 with no regard for who’s there? This is something I have spoken to a couple of the players about. They were frustrated with the lack of cohesion. To your point in the four principles, I would argue penetration was stifled because there was no ability to get them the ball. Then Emilio just stopped trying. And improvisation was just non existent.
As for coaching, there are a number of ways that coaching has to affect our offense. We need to be more creative. This starts at practice. They need to figure out what they can do and what to expect from each other at practice. That’s where it all starts. This was clearly not happening.
Also, there needs to be a consistent lineup. I know that injuries and red cards can affect the lineup but Soehn messed around with players in different positions all season. He seemed to be married to the 3 man back line when it was clearly not working.
Beyond that, effort needs to go up. Their practice was a joke. I saw numerous practices and they were all just going through the motions. There was no intensity, especially after losses. That has to change and I hope Benny will change that immediately.