East notes: Arnaud finally getting noticed
In eighth MLS season, Wizards veteran finding League-wide attention
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"We're not one of those so-called bigger market teams, so we just go about our business," Kansas City midfielder Davy Arnaud said in a phone interview. "If you get results, people will notice you."
If results are the only measuring stick, then Arnaud will certainly pop up on a few more radar screens over the next couple of months. Two sterling strikes in Saturday's 3-2 home loss to Toronto FC gave newscasts around the country highlight reel footage reacquainted observers around the league with his talents, but Arnaud's game didn't surface overnight.
The West Texas A&M grad has quietly excelled since bursting on to the scene with nine goals and eight assists in 2004, his third season with the Wizards. Arnaud has been a constant presence in the Kansas City lineup ever since. Along the way, Arnaud has picked up a couple of caps for the U.S. national team.
Despite being a constant presence in the Kansas City lineup, Arnaud has struggled to find a permanent position. Arnaud started his career as a striker, but has spent most of his recent time in midfield. Much of that midfield time was spent out on the right wing, but Wizards head coach Curt Onalfo shifted Arnaud into an attacking midfield role at the end of last season in an attempt to boost the offense.
The move paid off as Arnaud found himself in the center of the Wizards' offensive revival over the last six weeks of the season.. After tallying a goal in a 2-0 win against Los Angeles on Sept. 13 in his first game since the switch, Arnaud never looked back. With the oft-underrated Jack Jewsbury doing much of the dirty work behind him, Arnaud scored two additional goals to help fire his team into the playoffs and seal his place as the Wizards' top scorer in 2008.
The invigorated offensive output means Kansas City wants to stick with the diamond midfield again in 2009. The question is whether Arnaud or new Argentinean signing Santiago Hirsig will end up in that attacking midfield role in the long term. Arnaud said he'll play wherever Onalfo needs him to play, even if it means a shift away from the middle once Hirsig acquires full match fitness.
"As he gets more incorporated into the team, things could change," Arnaud said about a potential return to the wing.
Don't expect the newly-created buzz surrounding Arnaud's game to be among them.
New York in need of some Red Bull? While Seattle impressed just about everyone in its inaugural 3-0 win over New York last Thursday night, the Red Bulls impressed virtually no one with a error-ridden, lifeless display as Sounders FC's first match foe. Especially not their coach.
"It's one of those games you don't even want to look at the video," Red Bulls head coach Juan Carlos Osorio said after the game. "You want to throw it in the garbage."
Osorio will have to find a way to turn last week's trash into this week's treasure heading into Saturday's home opener against New England.
Unfortunately for Osorio, he doesn't have a lot of options given the number of Red Bulls slated to be away on international duty. Andrew Boyens (New Zealand), Carlos Johnson (Costa Rica) and Jorge Rojas (Venezuela) will be off with their national teams. Newly signed Spanish midfielder Albert Celades might or might not be eligible pending the approval of his P-1 visa. So even if Osorio wanted to make a few changes, he has precious few options to do so aside from inserting Khano Smith into the lineup after his suspension.
Revolution head coach Steve Nicol said he doesn't think Osorio will institute dramatic changes after the heavy defeat and won't try to accommodate for them anyways as he prepares his team for the short bus trip down Interstate 95.
"I can't imagine they are going to completely revamp what they do," Nicol said. "Will there be subtle changes? Probably. It's about covering a combination of the areas where what we do well and the areas where they do what they do."
Coaching in the shadows: New Columbus Crew head coach Robert Warzycha heard a question this weekend that he'll likely hear time and again this season: what would Sigi do (or have done)? This instance of WWSD presented itself when Robbie Rogers hobbled off at halftime of Saturday night's 1-1 draw in Houston. With Pat Noonan and Adam Moffat sidelined, Warzycha didn't have a plethora of midfield options. So Warzycha threw rookie Alex Grendi in off the deep end against the Dynamo.
"I don't know what Sigi would do," Warzycha told the Columbus Dispatch. "We have to think about what we would do. We still bring his name up all the time. I don't know. It seems like the substitutions worked today. With Alex, probably any coach would do the same. Alex is a left midfielder. It was easy to do it, instead of putting (Emmanuel) Ekpo to the left and putting in Duncan (Oughton)."
Warzycha also threw on little-used substitutes Jason Garey and Duncan Oughton in the second half. Garey's header created Guillermo Barros Schelotto's late equalizer to give the Crew a point.
"It's a different year, a different situation," Garey told the Dispatch about Warzycha's substitution patterns. "I think it's just a gut feeling that you get as a coach, and fortunately it worked tonight."
Clash of heads forces United change: Substitutions were also a major topic as D.C. United attempted to hold on to a 2-0 lead late in Sunday's 2-2 draw in Los Angeles.
Key United defenders Greg Janicki and Devon McTavish collided in the 75th minute with United seemingly headed to victory. United head coach Tom Soehn was preparing to insert Jaime Moreno into the game as a substitute, but had to switch up his plans.
As Janicki took eight stitches to his head and prepared to return to the game, Soehn readied Marc Burch to come on for McTavish, who needed seven medical staples to close a gash on the top of his head.
"We wanted to make sure one of them was going to come back in, so we adjusted," Soehn told The Washington Post. "It took us a little bit to get it out because they wouldn't let them in unless they changed their [bloody] jerseys. There was a lot of turmoil at the bench until we could get it done."
The turmoil extended to the field as United struggled to withstand a Galaxy surge on the field while playing with only nine men. By the time Burch entered the field in the 79th minute, United had conceded a penalty after a questionable handball call on Rodney Wallace and the grip on three points had all but slipped away.
"There's only so long you can withstand that type of momentum that they were putting on us," Namoff told The Post. "We were trying to weather the storm. Eventually they are going to find the holes and the breakdowns because we are limited on numbers."
Kyle McCarthy covers the New England Revolution for the Boston Herald and MLSnet.com and serves as a contributing editor for Goal.com USA. Kyle can be reached at kyle.mccarthy@goal.com.
