Toronto FC will square off with San Jose on Saturday night at BMO Field with their playoff hopes hanging in the balance. Toronto currently sits in last in the Eastern Conference and nine points back of the Red Bulls for the final wild card spot. With seven league games remaining for Toronto the playoffs are somewhat of a longshot, but these games will prove very valuable to Winter in order for him to analyze the talent he has on the team and allow him to continue his rebuilding process.
Winter will undoubtedly be tinkering with his line-up for the remainder of the season and trying to find chemistry between his players. Due to injuries, trades and suspensions, Toronto has not been able to field a consistent starting XI over the course of the season. The last few weeks have seen the least amount of changes to the starting XI and the results have followed. Toronto is 4-2-2 in their last eight games overall and they have picked up points in three of their last four league games. Ryan Johnson and Peri Marosevic have helped spark an attack that lacked any sort of flare for the majority of the season. With Johnson and Marosevic finding their stride, Plata continuing his stellar rookie campaign, and De Guzman finding his form, things have been looking up as of late for Toronto FC. Winter will use the remaining month of the season to try and find the right chemistry up front and in the middle which will allow him to shift his focus solely to the back line.
With Toronto’s attack finally finding the back of the net, the problem has now shifted to the back four. In all honesty, Toronto’s back four has been absolutely dreadful as of late. Richard Eckersley has been the only real bright spot on defense although he finds himself in the referee’s book far too often. The centre back duo of Andy Iro and Ty Harden has looked and played terrible. They are constantly found out of position and have cost the team points on multiple occasions in the past few weeks. Andy Iro has hit an all-time low in terms of his performance. He was at fault for all three goals DC United scored in a 3-3 draw back on August sixth, including conceding a penalty in the 87th minute which allowed De Rosario to tie the game at three and end Toronto’s quest for their first road win of the season. Unless Iro shows a drastic improvement in his game over the coming weeks, I do not see any reason as to why Winter would keep him in the teams plans for next season.
Alan Gordon, Jacob Peterson and Nana Attakora will return to BMO Field this Saturday for the first time since the club dealt them to San Jose just over a month ago. With all four of Toronto’s wins this season coming at BMO Field, this is a great opportunity to grab three points against a San Jose team that is also currently sitting outside of the playoffs, seven points back of New York and two points up on Toronto. This is a great opportunity for Toronto to leap frog one of the teams that currently stands between them and New York for the final playoff spot. Toronto will have two weeks off before they travel to Columbus on September 10th for their next league match.
(image courtesy of Paul Giamou/TorontoFC.ca)
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