(Wait, do cogs fire? Should I have said “piston”? I’m so mechanically inept.)

In the midfield (and to a somewhat lesser extent the offense), everything had moments when they were firing, but they weren’t in sync. I did think Malouda had some good moments (as did Toulalan and Vieira and L. Diarra) but they didn’t go anywhere because they never connected with anybody else’s good moments.

What we need aren’t players who can put together individual good momentsl. What we need are players who are good enough to figure out how to sync with the players around them to move the ball up the field. And i’m not sure how we get there.