DC United season assesment and thoughts on Jaime Moreno

The MASR today ltalks to Coach Nowak, Eskandarian, and Bryan Namoff about United’s season so far. As a fan, you have to be happy with the best start ever, and being in 2nd place this early should pay off later in the season, barring a devastating losing streak.

They also discuss Moreno’s form, which after a promising start has slumped.  I’m a bit confused about what to make of some statements made by Nowak who says of the Bolivian international “I think sometimes he needs to play the ball a
little faster and simple.  He needs to use the options around him and
create space for other people, like our second line players, such as Christian [Gomez] and Freddy”, and later says the biggest weakness on the team is the coaching “That’s mainly me”.

So, he’s asking Moreno to sort of play against his nature.  Moreno has always been prone to dribble a bit much and pass up what look like decent shots on goals.  So Peter’s critique that he needs to play faster and use the options around him are valid. But then he goes on to say he should play more like Gomez and Freddy, who are midfield players, not forwards.  Talk about confusing – maybe that’s one of the coaching weaknesses?  Is Moreno being asked to play a game much different than what he’s used to? 

A better writer than me would go back and recollect on Moreno’s stellar 2004 season to see what he was doing right.  Definitely toward the end of that season, it seemed Gomez, Eskandarian, and Moreno had a near perfect understanding of how each of them could be dangerous.  They may need to sort that out again.