Andre Akpan, Kamani Hill’s Swansea Performances Should Give Pareja Pause

Casey and Cummings are obvious reasons why the two haven't been seeing the field as much, but the contentious name is, of course, Edu. The Brazillian seemed to be brought in by Oscar Pareja as sort of a talisman, considering the hype and the big money hit used to pick him up. Unfortunately, as we've covered before, he's been anything but a talisman. At his best, he's held the ball up decently and provided some nifty back passes. At his worst, a bag of sand thrown onto the pitch could probably do the same job.

Either way, Edu is not providing goals and not even coming close to them. For a team that has had trouble scoring goals in just about any situation and has specifically been awful when it comes to folding under pressure after other teams score goals on them, that's a big problem for a guy who has been sapping up minutes with the squad since joining up.

Oscar Pareja had an interesting quote after the Swansea game when presented with this little conundrum after a brilliant goal by Hill from 25 yards out — the sort of shot that Edu has never taken or even looked interested in taking with the Rapids so far — sparked the 'why not Hill' conversations again:

Take from that what you will. Along with Akpan's solid performance up top that saw him putting in a Conor Casey-esque header, it's going to be hard for the coach to justify giving those big minutes to Edu for much longer.