Riverhounds struggle on the road as they play out sluggish draw in Detroit

The Riverhounds stretched their unbeaten run to five games in the USL Championship as both them and Detroit City showed their fatigue during a 0-0 draw at Keyworth Stadium on Wednesday night.  

Whenever teams are forced to play three games in the space of seven days, especially in the summer heat and even more so towards the latter part of the season, it’s going to be very difficult to ask the players to put on a spectacle, and tonight was about as far from a spectacle as you could ask for. 

The Riverhounds started off better of the two sides, but tried to be a little bit too creative at times and wasted a couple of chances inside the first 90 seconds by trying to play one pass too many rather than being aggressive and taking a shot, something that was set to develop into something of a theme over the 90 minutes. 

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a scare or two for the Riverhounds, as they were put under the cosh just before the half-hour mark due to a miscommunication between Pat Hogan and Eric Dick, with the defender misplacing a defensive header back towards goal, totally ignoring Dick rushing out to claim the ball himself and see the ball trickle inches wide of his net. 

Less than ten minutes later and yet another miscommunication at the back, this time allowing Elvis Amoh to sneak through the backline without much of a challenge, he latched onto a through ball from Ben Morris but Dick was quick as a flash off his line to make sure his effort had nowhere to go but onto his chest as the ball bounced away to safety:

Another moment of panic came on the stroke of halftime, as Amoh managed to dance his way away from Luke Biasi inside the box and fire a shot that thankfully went sailing over the bar, but having started the better side, it was clear that the Hounds were losing their grip on the game, with the stats telling the whole story:

USL Championship Match Center

Halftime stats for the game between Detroit City FC and the Riverhounds

The second half started in a pretty similar fashion to the first, except this time when the Riverhounds managed to get into Detroit territory, they managed to get a shot away, albeit was a rather tame effort from Bradley Sample served off Junior Etou’s cutback, but it at least gave some sign that Lilley’s halftime teamtalk might be set to produce something. 

Tempers flared just past the hour mark as a Kenardo Forbes freekick was gathered by Nate Steinwascher, but he didn’t hold onto the ball totally cleanly, as Hogan tried to make a nuisance of himself by trying to make sure his foot would be first to any loose ball. Steinwascher and the rest of the Detroit team took exception to this, and a few handbags were exchanged, nothing too serious, but Hogan did pick up a yellow card for his troubles:

Both sides tried desperately to break the deadlock in the late stages, but other than a Stephen Carroll header from a Detroit corner kick that flashed across the face of goal, there wasn’t really a lot to write home about, and that lack of action certainly seemed to irk Bob Lilley as he spoke to the Riverhounds' media team after the game.  

"I mean, in the game, we pushed and had a better second half. We had a good start ... we were lucky on a few occasions in the first half. I'm proud of the guys' second half and obviously we talk about creating more chances, making the keeper work more."

As I said at the start of this piece, the match was far from a thriller, and one that neither team will be looking back on as a high point for them in 2024. 

Whilst the Riverhounds get a slight pass for their performance given how they have had to come back from the west coast and then travel again within the space of a few days, and on the surface it looked like this was perhaps a game for Lilley in which they were in ‘must not lose’ mode rather than playing to win given they weren’t at full strength, although that wasn't how he saw it: 

"Detroit's a tough team to break down, it's not what we were after, but we'll take the point and try to get three on the weekend at home." 

It’s still a slight disappointment that given his recent comments about not having a lot of ‘leeway’ to work with in their playoff push, they didn’t put up more of an effort to push for more, but perhaps this is ultimately a case of the team looking to draw the battle so that they can eventually win the war.