Chalk Talk: Brian Mullan largely unsuccessful in return

MLS recently introduced a wonderful new feature called the Chalkboard, brought to you by OptaSports. After every game we will be dissecting a player or two from the Rapids using the Chalkboard from the previous game.

First, you have to understand what kind of a player Brian is supposed to be. Mullan's best attributes have always been his defensive ability, his fantastic distribution and his ability to be all over the pitch, extending from box to box and contributing to both the attack and defense all over the pitch. And even on his off days, he is almost always at the very least a neutral force on the field when he's not playing well. We saw absolutely none of that from Brian yesterday and he if anything was actually hurting the team a hell of a lot more than he was helping it.

With Brian staying on the right side for almost the entirety of his 70 or so minutes of play, you would assume that he would at least do something useful over there. You would unfortunately be wrong again. After a week of speculation about how the Zakuani incident would affect Mullan's usually strong and hard-nosed defense, Mullan unfortunately showed that the speculation may be true; throughout the entire game he only made a single tackle to win the ball along with one block – a block that was right along the byline, but a block nonetheless – all in the first half after the two goals had already been conceded.