Riverhounds' unbeaten streak ends as attackers again fail to impress

A goal early in each half consigned the Riverhounds to a 2-0 defeat against host Memphis 901 Saturday night at AutoZone Park to bring their unbeaten run in the USL Championship to an end when they were lacking on both ends of the field. 

On the surface, coming into the game off the back of a seven-match unbeaten streak in the league isn’t too shabby. However, with the last two matches ending in stalemates and Bob Lilley knowing that the team still has a lot of work to do to be at their very best (see his comments after their draw with North Carolina FC last time out), one of the easiest things to do is to change the lineup. That’s exactly what he did for the game in Tennessee, with Sean Suber, Dani Rovira and Bradley Sample taking the places of Illal Osumanu, Robbie Mertz and Kenardo Forbes respectively in the starting 11:

Those changes though didn’t have much of an impact in the opening stages. It took just seven minutes for Memphis 901 to take the lead in the game, as after a long ball over the top from Lucas Turci wasn’t dealt with by Junior Etou, who rather than letting the ball go over the top and out for a likely goal kick or head it back in the direction of Gabriel Perrotta, put the ball back into the danger zone and right into the path of Marlon Santos, who had plenty of time to take a touch and fire the ball past the outstretched arm of the Paraguyan and into the far corner to put the Hounds in a hole early:

There are two glaring issues here for the Riverhounds. As previously mentioned, Etou put the ball into the one area that he shouldn’t have. It wasn’t even a case of him being slightly off balance after going up for a challenge, he should have had enough wherewithal to deal with it better. However, as Perrotta made clear with his reaction in the aftermath, the Riverhounds just weren’t quick enough to the second ball, either in getting to the dropping ball first, or getting in the way to provide a better blocking attempt from the Santos effort. 

Much like the game in Tulsa though, the Hounds weren’t willing to take the deficit lying down and had a few chances to draw level. Patrick Hogan very nearly made up for his part in the opener as he fired a header into arguably the perfect spot to beat Tyler Deric, however a covering Dylan Borczak cleared the ball off the line to keep the score at 1-0. Minutes later, Edward Kizza managed to latch onto a through ball over the top and his controlling touch brought him some space, but his left-footed effort could only flash across the face of goal:

The Hounds were very nearly caught napping just before the half-hour mark as Santos, who had been momentarily off the pitch receiving treatment, much like a hockey player springing past the defensive line after coming out of the penalty box, was in acres of space down the left flank and managed to cut back inside, but fired his effort straight at Perrotta when he arguably should have buried his chance. 

The overall sluggish start didn't go unnoticed by Lilley.

"We didn’t do ourselves any favors starting slow, and I feel like we didn’t really establish any type of rhythm early," Lilley told reporters after the game. "We have to start with more energy. Right away, our front line was backing off, and they played long balls in behind us."

If you’re looking for a symbol of just how unlucky the Hounds have been when it comes to converting at times this season, their effort on the 30-minute mark summed it up perfectly. Hogan had done a great job of getting his head on an Etou cross to the back post, his header though fell right onto the foot of AB Cissoko, who steered the ball onto his own post before being cleared to safety. 

In response to the Hounds' continuing efforts to break down the Memphis back line, coach Stephen Glass took the unusual move of making two substitutions, neither of them as a result of injury and bringing on an extra defender to push from four players at the back, to five:

Lilley responded by starting the second half with a substitution of his own, with Rovira coming off to be replaced by Griffin. However, it didn’t have the positive impact that Lilley probably would have hoped for, as within two minutes of the restart, the Hounds were down by two, with Oscar Jimenez firing past Perrotta:

This one might be painfully obvious to point out, but this is all down to Langston Blackstock who allowed Jimenez to get clear behind the backline and gave him all the space in the world to cut inside and fire past Perrotta, and whilst Perrotta should be doing better (goalkeepers hate being beaten at their near-post) in anticipating the shot rather than selling out for the cross, he was let down by Blackstock who hung him out to dry in the first place.

That goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of the Riverhounds, as for most of the second half, there wasn’t really a lot to shout about in terms of chances created, certainly not as many as there were in the first half, with the sole exception of an effort from substitute Kenardo Forbes in the dying minutes.

The only positive from the second half is that Memphis' lead wasn’t stretched any further, with the only real scares for Perrotta being a weak effort from Nighte Pickering that Hogan was able to track back and clear away from danger after he had slipped past the back line and beaten the goalkeeper with a shot and then a smart save in a 1v1 situation after Pickering had again made his way through the Hounds backline. 

The fact that I've managed to go through this whole report without mentioning the name of Kazaiah Sterling should tell you an awful lot about how he performed, or rather didn't perform. It's true that he is no Albert Dikwa (the Riverhounds' and USL Championship's top scorer from last season), and has done OK in his time so far having made the step up from USL League One. But if the Hounds are to be serious contenders, he needs to start seriously leading the way, not go missing like he has in these past two games. 

Lilley though didn't want the blame to fall on one person, as he put the whole attack on blast by saying that the whole group needs to improve in a variety of aspects. 

"A few times, we were crossing balls with only one guy in the box," Lilley explained. "We started to play through the midfield, but we didn’t have the quality we needed in the final third.

"I think we play in front of people far too much. There are times we get the ball in the final third and everyone wants the ball to their feet. You’re not always going to get the ball, but we need to have dynamic runs early. We need our front guys spinning in behind or our wide guys timing runs. And even when we do that, sometimes we’re so slow that we wait too long, and we’re crossing into a crowded box."

You have to at least credit Lilley for calling out the whole team for the situation. If they can't recreate Dikwa with one person, the least they can do is do so as a collective, with players from all over the team chipping in. The only question is when are the goals going to come, because they've only scored more than once twice this season, and that just isn't a formula for success whichever way you look at it.