By Niall McCusker

At the end of last season as the Timbers made a late play-off push they had a must-win home game against the Earthquakes in which they rattled off 32 shots, but could only manage a 3-3 draw. Impatience leading to tactical errors, coupled with a leaky defense, led to a lot of high scoring but frustrating encounters for Portland last season.

From the start of this year it was obvious the fun was over. It was time to get serious and build from the back, but the results were not really forthcoming early on and pragmatism without results is just boredom. But just as the frustration within the fan-base seemed to be reaching boiling point the wins started to arrive.

The return of Will Johnson and Diego Valeri from injury, Fernandez emerging from exile on the bench and Urruti and Adi both finding form up front have all contributed handsomely to a run of 7 wins in 8 league games. They have managed to find goals without starting to concede more – that begins to look like real improvement in the defense, as opposed to merely a defensive-minded, low-scoring team.

The fun is dead! Long live the fun!

Here are the individual ratings:

Adam Larsen Kwarasey 7: Another clean sheet, another game with no saves to make. When is the last time Kwarasey was forced into serious action at Providence Park? San Jose can normally at least be relied on to put in a few dangerous crosses, but even those were quite easy for him. The keeper’s best moments were probably a couple of nice long throws like the one that started the late move that led to Fernandez’s narrowly offside ‘goal’.

Alvas Powell 8: Unlike his keeper Powell did have a save to make, deflecting Sherrod’s header off the line with his arm/shoulder/chest. Take your pick from those options – fortunately for Powell the referee did not choose the first one. A penalty and man down for 65 minutes in the heat and the result would most likely have gone San Jose’s way.

In one of his first starts for Portland about 15 months ago, Powell faced Leandro Barrera, then with Chivas. The Argentine winger gave the youngster a hard lesson in senior football – beating him at will and eventually crossing for Chivas’ equalizer. On Sunday, one good first half move aside, Barrera was anonymous and it was Powell up providing good crosses.

Norberto Paparatto 7.5: He gave Sherrod too much room on the corner San Jose almost scored from, but apart from that another solid outing. Thompson got a one vs. one chance against him on the ground after thirty minutes and the defender strolled out with the ball after a confident dispossession. He will feel he should have scored from a late corner when he got up well only to direct his header right at Bingham in the San Jose goal.

Leading with your elbow is a cowardly way to go for a header and when said elbow opens up a gash on your opponent’s face you should be promptly rewarded with a red card. Sherrod only saw yellow from Salazar and Paparatto did well not exact his own retribution.

Liam Ridgewell 7.5: We did ask for a more Terry Butcher style look earlier in the season and the Englishman did sport a nice head bandage after an early clash with Sherrod. Decent effort.

Thompson and Sherrod had the look of a classic ‘little and large’ front pairing, but the two experienced central defenders handled them quite easily. Ridgewell’s only questionable move of the night was getting caught the wrong side of Thompson and pressuring him quite closely from behind – he probably knows that Salazar will not call that penalty, but still risky.

Jorge Villafana 7.5: The left back had a crisp shot across goal to force a corner early on and continued to present a good attacking option on the left side all game. The problem for Portland is that when most of their best attacking is coming from the full-backs the team is doing exactly what their opponents have game planned. The danger level from the wings needs to be stepped up to the next level if the Timbers are to find spaces in the middle against good defense’s like San Jose’s.

Portland had a shooting chance from a free-kick at the edge of the box at the beginning of the second half, two right-footers Johnson and Valeri stood over it – at least put Villafana in the mix to make the keeper think about a left foot possibility.

Jack Jewsbury 8: He got stuck in early with a fine tackle in the corner and that set the tone for a disciplined game in front of the back four. Thompson seems like the type of tricky little player who could cause problems for Jewsbury, but San Jose didn’t show much ambition. The veteran may not get forward often, but when he does he is making it a habit to get injury time winners. Those are fun.

Will Johnson 7.5: He probably isn’t the most popular man among Canadian fans right now but his decision to stay with his club instead of going to the Gold Cup is important for Portland. He has done very well since returning from injury even if his shooting boots deserted him when set up by Nagbe just before the half. In this game, with Jewsbury behind him, he got to go forward more than he has recently when partnered with Chara – he drove the attack on well in the second half.

Probably should have been sent off for his neck high tackle on Jewsbury after the late goal, that gets you the ‘sin-bin’ in rugby let alone soccer!

Dairon Asprilla (off on 73′) 6: His best starts have been in some of the games were Portland had a more 442 type look. Apart from one great interception and run to the edge of the box to earn a dangerous free kick he did not offer much going forward. But he is a battler and this is a game Porter probably expected to be a just that – he took a hit from Stewart’s elbow that would knocked a less tough player out. The linesman on that side had his hair nicely combed and looked good on TV for his mum, but next time he should try watching a little of the game.

Diego Valeri 7.5: He looks to be getting closer to full match form, but this was a tough game to demonstrate that against a disciplined defense. A delightful pass with the outside of the boot on the left wing to release Villafana offered a tantalizing glimpse of his full capabilities. As it was he worked well in the middle, he and Nagbe directed the attack fairly well. He found the net in a bemused fashion when he knew he was well offside from Adi’s flick on – it seemed the linesman didn’t know who had flicked the ball on so didn’t raise his flag. The refereeing crew got it right eventually.

About 75% of Portland corners seem to go in chest high at the near post, they don’t score from those, so if it is planned they should stop it. If not, find another player to hit them.

Darlington Nagbe 8 (off on 84′): He had an influential first half with some good driving runs forward, but releasing to his left and right wings at the correct times. In the second half he moved more left and had some nice combinations with Villafana. Nagbe looked to fade a little in the last fifteen minutes and should perhaps have been replaced a little earlier.

Fanendo Adi 8 (off on 79′): The Nigerian dropped a bit deeper in this game and showed some good hold-up and linking play. The best example was in the first half when he flicked on a long pass from Ridgewell for a give and go with Nagbe to get down the wing and deliver a good cross. But for some excellent defending from Goodson he might have got more out of the game.

Substitutes:

Rodney Wallace (on in 73′) 6: He was involved in the move that led to Fernandez’s disallowed goal as the substitutes combined to try to cause the San Jose defense some problems with a changed look in attack.

Maxi Urruti (on in 79′) 6: Porter kept his moves quite late in this game, more questions would have been asked if the 0-0 tie had held up, but they got the break-through.

Gaston Fernandez (on in 84′) 6.5: Another late arrival to the fray, he thought he had the game winner when he picked up a ball from Kwarasey in the Timber’s own half and started a move which he ended with a header to the net only to be denied by the offside flag (which was actually up in good time on this occasion).

The Argentine has been enjoying ‘megging players recently, his latest victim was Bernardez who pushed him in the chest to stop him getting past, giving up the game winning set-piece. Sure, he was not very ‘gata’ like in trying to stay on his feet, but that’s not his job – his job is to win fouls when he can for his team. If referees start to give free-kicks even when players don’t go to ground players will stop doing it, right now a touch of embellishment is required to make them do their job.