Any Point is a Good Point. Timbers 1 - Dallas 1. (Review)

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I come to Timbers games to have fun.  For the first 79 minutes of the home game against Dallas, I was constantly reminding myself this.  The Timbers were saved an embarrassing home defeat to a ten man Dallas side by a Jack Jewsbury strike about 10 minutes from full time.  Jewsbury hit home from outside the 18-yard box after a flurry of activity in the Dallas box for the Portland equalizer.  Earlier in the match, in which the first half finished 0-0 with very, (very) few chances, Scott Sealey put the away team ahead in the '51 minute of the 2nd half.  A probing pass unlocked winger Breck Shea behind the Portland defense, who crossed the ball first time into an on-rushing Sealey to finish past goalie Troy Perkins.  Effectively the Portland defense was dismantled by two quality passes and a finish.  About a minute after the goal however Dallas defender Zach Loyd saw a red card after receiving his second yellow.  Loyd, an outside back had been battling with Portland winger Franck Songo'o, both of whom received yellows earlier in the game.  This was the point in the game where I was sitting at the top of my section sweating all through my Timbers jersey thinking the red card would be a momentum change for Portland.   Guzzling down water through a refilled beer cup I assumed Portland would seize this opportunity to take control of the game and make Dallas pay.  Perhaps you can tell by my tone that this was not the case...really at times it became difficult to tell which team exactly had a man sent off and was down to 10 players.   

The captain Jewsbury played one of his better games of the season.  He was mobile, taking good touches and spraying the ball around for the Timbers in the midfield.  When it really looked like Portland weren’t going to take advantage of having the extra man, Jewsbury was the one who came up big in the 79' with scoring the goal.  Youngster Brent Richards had another good game and validated his continuing run of being selected as a starter.  Next time Richards plays, its worth pointing out how many damn headers he wins.  Try and count if you can see how many he does because I did, and short of me missing one with my hands buried in my hands before the goal, he won them all, the kid can leap.  Defender Hanyer Mosquera played well, a presence in the back partnered with David Horst, and as always you can never question Diego Chara's work rate.  

Those were the good points.  Kris Boyd looked abysmal, and didn’t even touch the ball in the first 15 minutes; in sum he looked like a Scotsman in 90+ degree weather.  Stephen Smith also fit this description of the struggling Scot in heat, and he was continually exposed for his lack of pace down the wing.   Nagbe, who had one good shot on goal, was otherwise missing in the game and had little effect.  Songo'o was perhaps one of the more frustrating for the Timbers however.  Yes, he had the ball a lot and was taking players on, but if you break down his level of service to how much he was hanging on to the ball, his production was horrible.  Songo'o would take 6 or 7 touches where other players were taking 1 or 2.   His decision making was a little questionable as well, making some cynical and unnecessary fouls and it was probably just as possible him getting sent off as his man marking partner  Loyd was.  I was surprised Songo'o stayed on the field as long as he did.

While the Timbers didn’t have their worst game of the season (by far) really only half of the team showed up and the whole teams play suffered because of it.  Dallas play maker David Ferreira, albeit an unpopular player for his diving and antics, looked like the most skilled player on the field.  When seeing a player like Ferreira on the other team it shows how much the Timbers lack a creative midfielder or player for that matter to feed the forwards.   With the way the Timbers played the majority of this game they can consider themselves a little lucky to get a point.  However any point is a good point for the Timbers at this stage in the season.