Adrian Heath’s Quotes Do Little to Inspire Confidence

Adrian Heath had some baffling quotes after the 4–0 dismantling in Seattle. He sounds like an overwhelmed and broken man. Whether it be injuries, poor effort, or a plethora of red cards, Heath seems like he’s out of ideas on how to turn things around for Orlando City.

Here are some of his post match quotes and we will try to do our best to decipher what’s going through his head.

Heath spoke with Paul Tenorio of the Orlando Sentinel after the match and said:

“We haven’t done ourselves any favors. Certainly today wasn’t good for us, unacceptable for the players we had in,” said head coach Adrian Heath. “We have to regroup and see what we can come up to and need to instill confidence again in the players and get to a better shape. I’m a little bit concerned with our away form at this moment in time. The differences between our home and away performances are night and day at this point. Individually and collectively we have to make it better.”

First of all, their home form has been dreadful all year, however their road form is now replicating it. That being said, they’ve won 1 of their last 4 home matches. Two of those have featured red cards. Their form is bad on all fronts, no matter how you look it at.

Speaking of red cards, here’s a doozy of a quote:

“It’s the sixth game this year (7th actually) where we’ve had somebody sent off, not really any of them have been for anything malicious…”

I’m not sure if Heath is just incoherently rambling, making excuses or if he’s generally confused that players can be sent off for something other than trying to break an opponents leg. Most of us watch soccer all over the world, and in every league players get sent off for persistent fouling or a collection of yellow cards- even if those fouls weren’t particularly malicious. This isn’t the 90’s anymore. The game is played differently now and if Orlando City refuses to adjust then they will continue playing with 10 men. We can hate the refereeing all we want, but at some point, this team needs to adapt to how games are being officiated.

You didn’t see Tyler Turner making excuses about his red card. He took it like a man and apologized to everybody. I think we can all accept a poor performance from a rookie as long as you own it.

The whole Tyler Turner issue provides another great segway into deciphering Heath’s quotes. Here’s what the manager said when asked by Paul Tenorio about why Turner was among the starters instead of 9 year veteran Corey Ashe (who’s 2nd on this team in assists having only played 5 matches).

“He’s got to learn, he’s got to play in places like this if he’s going to have a future in the game. And today, it looked a little bit too much for him, culminating with getting sent off.”

So, are we at the point of the season where Heath has given up on the playoffs and is now more interested in getting the youth some minutes? If so, that’s fine, however he quickly changed his tune from before the match, when the playoffs were still the goal, to after the match when it sounds like the playoffs were a lost cause.

This team brought in Corey Ashe for this very reason- when one of their regular fullbacks were injured, to avoid playing Tyler Turner. Even more baffling is that Ashe has played extremely well. He’s tied for 2nd of the team with 2 assists in only 5 matches played. It was just one the many lineup mistakes that Adrian Heath continues to make.

Servando Carrasco at right mid? Darwin Ceren at left mid? Corey Ashe and Carlos Rivas on the bench?

Is Adrian Heath purposely playing people out of position like Darwin Ceren just so he can put Servando Carrasco on the field?

His lineups leave me with confusion. Why on earth is Adrian Heath willing to throw Tyler Tuner into the fire when he’s clearly not ready but he’s unwilling to give Carlos Rivas a consistent run of games? By the way, Carlos Rivas is tied for 2nd with Corey Ashe on this team in assists too, and he’s only started 7 matches.

All in all, it was another incredibly disheartening performance from Orlando City and I’m not sure how even the most positive die-hards can be confident that this group will turn it around. The coach certainly isn’t confident, therefore neither am I.

The expansion year is finally taking it’s toll, but all hope is not lost. There are still 9 games remaining and anything is possible in MLS. While Orlando City’s playoff hopes are hanging by a thread, the biggest thing this team needs to show is consistency and improvement.

One thing that is certain, capitulation and regression will eventually cost somebody their job.