The Chicago Fire fell 1-3 to Toronto FC Friday night. Here are three takeaways for Fire fans:
A Tale of Two Strikers
Michael de Leeuw and Nemanja Nikolic, two normally very good soccer players, are not meshing well at the moment in this 4-3-3 system. MDL tends to run inside thus crowding Niko’s workspace, rather than keeping to the touchlines. They seem to slip into each other’s space far too much, and it’s greatly impacting Nikolic’s ability to get involved in matches.
Pauno should forget the MDL-on-the-wing experiment, only referring to it in emergencies. MDL needs to be pushed back to Striker.