FanPost

Orlando fan's take on Adrian Heath

I originally posted this under the article on Heath's press conference and was asked to make it a Fan Post, so here it is. I'm going to add a little bit to the 3rd paragraph from the bottom, since it's a Fan Post now, over what I originally posted.

I live in Atlanta so I’m an Atlanta United fan, but I’ve been following Orlando City for the past couple of years while we wait to get our team. It’s not a bad decision to hire Heath as he is worthy of a second chance in MLS, but he did deserve to get fired in Orlando at the same time.

Heath is married to the 4-2-3-1. On rare occasions the team will play something different, but mostly it will be 4-2-3-1. Yes, he likes to attack and that is an attacking formation. At times, it worked remarkably well in Orlando. It’s not his fault but Orlando got injured at a just unreal level in 2015 and being an expansion team, they didn’t have the depth to overcome it. Teams started double and triple teaming Kaka and due to injuries and basically Orlando was stopped once Kaka was stopped. In 2016 he got some players back from injuries and more depth and the double team Kaka idea didn’t work so much any more. But Heath’s Orlando teams were weak defensively and relied on goaltender heroics too much. I’d expect that to happen in Minnesota, at least in the short term.

As an outsider I can tell you that Orlando’s front office is just a mess. The owner interferes at times to the team’s detriment. He brought in a guy from the Portuguese league to run things and his GM quit outright after not being given assurances on what his and the new guy’s role would be. Atlanta swooped in to hire him. Then like 2 weeks later after all the turmoil, the Portuguese guy quit, citing "homesickness". Heath didn’t have a lot of input on personnel moves and he needs specific players for the 4-2-3-1. The organization made a splashy signing of former Italian national Antonio Nocerino and he played terrible under Heath. Heath is supposed to have input on your team’s moves and this is a good thing because Nocerino was awful until Heath left and the 4-2-3-1 got dropped. The 2 in Heath’s 4-2-3-1 tend to be defensive first midfielders with limited offensive skill sets and you’ll need to get guys who are suitable for that role. Heath likes the full backs to join in the attack and do crosses and you’ll need guys who can do that well too.

The biggest downside to Heath was that by the time 2016 rolled around, something in him changed. I’m guessing that the front office told him that if he didn’t make the playoffs in 2016, he was gone. Orlando barely missed in 2015 but they had some awful losing streaks where nothing was working and Heath was out of answers. In 2016 Heath managed very timidly and refused to use substitutes at times, telling the press basically that it didn’t make sense to put weaker players out there later in the game (I’m sure those "weaker players" absolutely LOVED hearing that one). Orlando lost so many games under Heath in 2016 where they gave up goals in the final 10 minutes. He would turtle up the team and stop trying to attack to preserve a tie and often they would fail to preserve the tie and lose. He was managing not to win but not to lose. BIG difference. By the time he was fired he was long out of new ideas to turn things around. I wouldn’t call him a "The beatings will continue until morale improves" kind of coach as he seems to mostly be a players’ coach, but it seems fair to say that captain and team leader Kaka wasn’t sorry to see Heath go either.

Heath does tend to not trust his reserves much and outside of Lewis Neal in 2015 which was partly, but not totally, due to the injury situation, I can’t really point to other guys he played a lot by choice who needed to sit. Another guy brought in by Orlando in 2015, Corey Ashe, probably was done so without Heath' s input late in the season. Orlando at the time desperately needed more FBs and Ashe was a depth type acquisition - a spare part and no more. Ashe played, didn't do much, got hurt, and then played again only when there was no other choice. This just illustrates how if Heath doesn't like a guy he's not going to play him so Heath having input on player moves in Minnesota is good. He talked big both seasons about the team doing its best to win the US Open Cup and then we fans were pretty shocked to see the lineups he produced for most of the games. Let’s just say that winning with those lineups, even against NASL or USL teams, was going to be an uphill battle. Another negative was that because he didn’t trust his reserves much, he wasn’t real keen on showing USL players that they actually could play their way up to MLS. That was very publicly one of the very first changes new coach Jason Kreis made in Orlando. Heath needs to fix that in Minnesota.

It’s not a terrible hire as if he learned from what went wrong in Orlando he could do a good job, but I would fully expect him to react very negatively to being told his job is on the line if he doesn’t get to the playoffs. If it reaches the point where the MU front office feels like such a threat is needed, it’s probably time to find a new coach ASAP and just move on from Heath.

Good luck to you guys in 2017! We’re guessing here that Atlanta-Minnesota will be the first game for both teams, but we have no idea who’ll get the game at home. Maybe Atlanta will for weather reasons, but note that we’ll start the season in a temporary home. Our real, new stadium won’t be ready until July at the earliest so we’re having to temporarily use Georgia Tech’s football stadium at home.

This FanPost was contributed by a member of the community and was not subject to any sort of editorial or approval process. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions held by the editors of this site.

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