Colorado’s offensive abilities more varied than last year

Caleb Folan's skillset when he showed up from Hull were pretty transparent just looking at his size. Large target forward with the ability to get big in the box and force goals in, basically the Irish Conor Casey, if you will. After seeing two games of his work it appears that moving from the Championship to MLS was just what the doctor ordered for him, as we're seeing finesse that is uncharactaristic from big guys like him and nothing showed that more than his beautiful individual effort yesterday for the first goal of the game.

I wrote a while ago that Jamie Smith's season was going to be a key part of the Rapids offense. With only a singular goal to go with his batch of assists last year, he was close to being a big part of the offense but was just a bit short on a lot of his chances, running very hot and cold all season long. He has looked like a new man this year, with two goals already in three games to go with his usual assisting abilities.

Colorado's offense has been a beautiful thing to watch this year, as they have outscored their opposition 8-2 so far with 3-1, 1-0 and 4-1 wins. With everyone on the pitch showing abilities together that we never saw last year, it looks very likely that this team will outscore their 2010 counterparts and more importantly that they won't need to lean incredibly heavily on the backs of Casey and Cummings in order to do it. Combined with a defense that has looked plenty formidable this year – one of their two goals given up was just on a botched free kick defense after all – and we might be looking at a Supporters Shield contender.