By Niall McCusker

When Portland’s single defensive midfielder formation was rolled out successfully at the end of last year’s regular season, most notably with their memorable 5-2 win at the Galaxy, we said:

“This look for the Timbers is not going to be a tactical panacea, some day, some team will rip it a new one. But it wasn’t LA.”

And it wasn’t LA this season either, it was a bad beating at the hands of Orlando the weekend before that convinced Caleb Porter to revert to his twin defensive midfielder look. He told MLS:

“At the end of the year, we were playing 4-3-3 and to make a 4-3-3 work, you have to have every piece working together and the pattern in the last three games prior to this game was that it just wasn’t working. We were giving up too many goals. It’s the old insanity, right? You can keep doing the same thing and expect a different result or you can evaluate your system.”

The change gave Portland a more solid look and allowed them to earn a good road point and regain their confidence prior to two home games in five days this coming week.

As Porter noted above the 4-3-3 is inherently a more risky system, it is not designed to grind out results, so when the team doesn’t play well a bad beating can be on the cards. At the end of last season Portland’s defense was the best in the league, so Chara could provide any assistance they needed by himself. But with Villafaña’s transfer to Mexico and Ridgewell out injured that is no longer the case – so the reversion to a more conservative system should really have taken place a week earlier.

The Orlando trip was the team’s longest road journey of the year with a left back starting his first game in the league and his first on an artificial surface, a lot of players returning from long trips for international duty and an opponent featuring a former World Player of the Year who likes to find space between the lines. Tally the factors in that equation and your solution should be to add some support for your defense.

Yet there must have been a temptation to stay strong offensively against LA, going for the win like in their last visit and keeping the elderly Galaxy midfield on the back-foot. But Husidic coming for Gerrard helped LA’s midfield mobility and Portland’s attacking midfielders have been in somewhat less than scintillating form – so the more conservative system was the right way to go.

Veteran campaigner Jack Jewsbury came in for his first start of the year (as the ever unlucky Ben Zemanski is once again injured) and freed up Chara to take a slightly more flexible role. It wasn’t perfect, with a few poor giveaways here and there, but both teams played reasonably well in a balanced and entertaining match-up. After initially looking like he would be physically curtailed by the experienced Jelle Van Damme, Fanendo Adi came into the game well.

It looked a little like the first leg of the Western Conference finals against Dallas last season as the target-man came out toward the halfway line creating room for others to make runs behind him. In the end it was his own great run into the right channel and an excellent right foot finish that gave the visitors the lead.

Much was made of Nagbe’s ‘correct’ position finally being unearthed in last season’s run to MLS Cup. But the reality is that in some games Portland will still need a proper second defensive midfielder and in those situations Nagbe will slide back up to his wide forward position. Well at least nominally wide, as he pulled into the middle as he normally does, leaving lots of space for Powell to exploit from right back. In this game the young right back did not take enough advantage of his chances to get forward and take on retired beach-lover Ashley Cole.

Nagbe worked well with Valeri at times, but starting in this position he could push up more in support of Adi and get himself into the penalty box. Asprilla and Melano have not found their scoring touch (assuming they have one) so far this season, so if Nagbe could rediscover his scoring from 2013 (remember those 9 goals!) when he starts wide it would be a real bonus for the team. Sadly for him it looks like he might be in the rehab room for a while after Nigel de Jong took him out of the game.

A dismissal for de Jong might have allowed Portland to hang on for the three points, but in the end they had to settle for the draw. Borchers was unlucky to guide Lletget’s cross into his own net as LA pushed forward in numbers.

If MLS referees need to go to ‘training workshops’ to understand what an ‘over the ball’ tackle is then it might be cheaper for the league to have them watch this clip of Graham Souness. But they should definitely voice over the announcer saying ‘that is a booking’ – with ‘it is no longer the 1980’s that is a red card, all day, every day and twice on Sundays’.

“The RICO Act ….. allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing”

No-one knows what Bruce Arena said in the locker room before the game, maybe it was something along the lines of, ‘these guys embarrassed us last time they came here, make sure that doesn’t happen again, get a good hard tackle in on Nagbe or Valeri when you get the chance’. Or maybe he didn’t say anything like that, but when a bookie employs a known goon and sends him out to collect debts surely he know a leg or two is going to get broken in the process?

As it turns out Nagbe escaped more lightly than previous victims of de Jong such as Stu Holden and Hatim Ben Arfa and merely has a sprained ankle. But Portland will still have to figure out what they want to do in his absence, which comes during a busy section of their schedule.

The Timbers will have to ask the veteran Jewsbury to play two games in four days if they want to stick with two defensive midfielders (and they should) versus FC Dallas. The alternative would be to bring in Ned Grabavoy, who has been showing well off the bench, and have him play in the middle sliding back to help Chara when needed. His experience, ability to transition play and set game tempo make him best suited to replace Nagbe.

Jack Barmby and Darren Mattocks will also have the chance to compete for starts on the wings and McInerney should get his first start versus either Dallas or San Jose. It is time for Portland to shake off the last of the post-cup hangover and start moving up the table.