I take on the subjects of the Montreal Impact's chances to claim the MLS Supporters' Shield, the club's playoff aspirations and end of game substitutions suggestions to Marco Schallibaum.

Bye Bye to the MLS Supporters' Shield?

With the Seattle Sounders flying high right now ,since their marquee signing Clint Dempsey, they're on top of the Western conference with 50 pts. That's five more points than the Impact with the same amount of games played.

The Sounders have 6 games left, including 2 games against teams out of the playoff picture. In my opinion, the Supporters' Shield winner will be decided this weekend. On September 29th, in a mouth-watering game, the New York Red Bulls face the Seattle Sounders at the green nation.

A Sounders' win will give the Cascadians a huge boost with 2 games in hand. A tie will still give a slight advantage to Seattle. But in the case of a Red Bull win on Sunday, we will have a nail biting finish for the Supporters' Shield but I'll still give an advantage to the Sounders.

Thierry Henry's team still has to play against teams that are battling hard for a place in the playoff: New England 5th, Houston 4th and Chicago who are 6th but only 1 point away from the last playoff spot.

Conclusion:

With the signing of the current best American born player, Clint Dempsey, the Sounders will surely win the Supporter's shield for the first time of the club's history.

Will the Impact make the playoffs?

Should Impact fans start to panic?

When we look at the schedule, Montreal is still 3rd with 1 game in hand over most teams and 2 games in hand over the Eastern conference leader: the New York Red Bulls.

The problem is that the game in hand will be against the LA Galaxy, in Los Angeles. The Galaxy is such an organised team with a lot of experience. Of course, they don't have Beckham anymore and traded goal scoring machine Mike Magee, earlier this year.

But they still have Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan, who are easily among the top 5 best players in this league. Beside this game against a western conference beast , Montreal plays 4 other games against teams that are battling for a playoff spot.

Eastern Conference

# Club PTS GP PPG W L T GF GA GD HG HGD RG RGD 1 New York Red Bulls 51 30 1.7 15 9 6 47 36 11 27 15 20 -4 2 Sporting Kansas City 48 29 1.66 14 9 6 43 28 15 28 14 15 1 3 Montreal Impact 45 28 1.61 13 9 6 46 42 4 29 11 17 -7 4 Houston Dynamo 43 29 1.48 12 10 7 37 36 1 23 9 14 -8 5 New England Revolution 40 29 1.38 11 11 7 41 33 8 25 12 16 -4 6 Chicago Fire 39 29 1.34 11 12 6 36 43 -7 26 7 10 -14 7 Philadelphia Union 39 29 1.34 10 10 9 37 39 -2 21 5 16 -7 8 Columbus Crew 38 30 1.27 11 14 5 36 39 -3 19 8 17 -11 9 Toronto FC 23 30 0.77 4 15 11 25 44 -19 18 -3 7 -16 10 D.C. United 15 29 0.52 3 20 6 19 48 -29 14 -9 5 -20

They're playing away against the Chicago Fire and the Houston Dynamo , who are respectively in 6th and 4th in the East.

With 2 home games left, Montreal plays against "easier" opponents who are the New England Revolution (5th) and finally against the Philadelphia Union who are currently in 7th . The Union have the same number of points as Chicago.

We all know the Impact's away form and with 5 games left but making the playoffs should not be a problem. With a potential of 6 points against non-playoff teams, history is on the side for Les Bleus.

Building on that is key , especially when you know that Hernan Bernardello should be back in a couple of weeks. Eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions League, the schedule will be much easier and the focus will be on the MLS regular season.

Conclusion:

Montreal is not making the playoffs as a top-2 team in East. Even though, it almost looked like a sure thing, the Impact will need to settle to be part of the MLS playoffs craze.

Should there be more rotation at the end of games?

We finally saw a lot of young players at the same time on the field and they actually did well.

Against CD Heredia last night, I was satisfied with the performance of the defense. It was pretty experimental with 3 young players playing next to the experienced Hassoun Camara in the middle.

Even though he missed a lot, A LOT of goal opportunities, Andrew Wenger worked hard and was very often in a good position to score. He was rewarded with a goal at the end.

Daniele Paponi showed us the grit of the beginning of the season. The fan favorite, Blake Smith is not injured anymore and Collen Warner had a solid game.

Players such as Marco Di Vaio and Patrice Bernier should be able to get a breather once in a while at the end of games.

I was disappointed by Sanna Nyassi's performance, who had the chance to shine with Justin Mapp on the bench.

Maybe it's a little too soon for players like Karl W. Ouimette, Wandrille Lefevre and Maxime Tissot to get involved in the final games of the season. I still think that Wenger, Paponi, Smith and Warner could really help and be part of the team that will bounce back for the final stretch of the season.

Conclusion:

It was very satisfying to see the `bench players` perform in a Champion's league game. Hope to see them more involve during the final stretch.

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