+214124124 I advise all of you to tune into a FCN game. His positioning and skill on the ball is phenomenal. He is a top 3/4 talent in the USMNT pool. Re-watch the Ecuador game, he's the reason Antonio Valencia had a very quiet night and disappeared for the entire game.
And he was able to do it at LB a position he has never played in before, he also kept Franck Ribery quiet when playing against Bayern Munich.
Just ignore him he is the one who said that Matt Hedges would be a better option than Chandler at RB, a player who I didn't even know until he mentioned him.
Valencia missed the entire first month of EPL season with an ankle injury he sustained at the end of the 2010-2011 season. His first game back was at the end of Sept and we played them early Oct.
Calling somebody middling isn't bashing them. He is average. We happen to be thin at the position so we are jumping at a guy who is the second best after Dolo because Dolo is aging. We are forgetting that the guy isn't motivated to play for the USA. You guys are willing to put an unmotivated player on the field for the USA; I am not. I don't think either position is childish. I think it is a difference of opinion.
he is young. he has a lot of potential. dolo is only going to get worse from this point forward. he can never be better than he is today.
He was back for basically one month, he's a pro soccer player that plays everyday, he definitely looked near if not 100% to me live. As of right now, I'd say Chandler and Cherundolo are equal in skill, but as the poster above me said, Chandler is only going to get better while Dolo is only going to get worse. 11/10 2011 Ecuador A- USA Int W 0-1 Off 62 min 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 01/10 2011 Man Utd H- Norwich Prem W 2-0 Started 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 27/09 2011 Man Utd H- FC Basel UCL D 3-3 Started 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 24/09 2011 Man Utd A- Stoke Prem D 1-1 Started 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 20/09 2011 Man Utd A- Leeds CC W 0-3 Started 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 18/09 2011 Man Utd H- Chelsea Prem W 3-1 On 61 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 14/09 2011 Man Utd A- Benfica UCL D 1-1 Off 68 min
the main problem is dolo by 2014 will be older and probabaly well past his prime gethhe next guy, his replacement, ready, where it's lichaj or chandler cap chandler so he's an option, then pick lichj or chandler in 2014
I think you're moving the goal posts here. None of us are advocating playing a guy who isn't committed to us. What we are hoping is that Chandler decides to commit to us. Of course, whether or not he's committed to us doesn't have anything to do with his ability. I'm not going say that Chandler is "world class" (whatever the hell that means) or the "best RB in US history" but it's silly to say that he's average. Perhaps you mean he's an average for a RB starter in a top 5 league. Even by that standard, he's in the top 3 for the US. Cherundolo is getting older and while Lichaj is promising he has a lot fewer starts to his name than Chandler. Am I annoyed that he hasn't committed to us already? Absolutely. We really could have used him in the Gold Cup and in qualifiers, and he had previously said on numerous occasions he was committed to us. Better late than never I say. If he commits to the US program, then I'll be happy to have him. If he spurns us, yeah, I'll probably be annoyed but I'll get over it. But whether or not he makes the decision I want, that won't objectively change his qualities as a player. Which are certainly more than average.
Well, Kicker had TC rated at 3.75 for last season - 45th out of the 71 defenders rated. Average rating for Nuernburg Is he average? Maybe, maybe not. Some numbers from Kicker, FWIW. Kicker had him rated at 3.75 or 45th out of 71 BL1 defenders and 145th out of 211 BL1 all players rated. FCN average player rating was 3.73.
Doesn't sound like you guys are disagreeing that much. Anyway, I'm not going to easily scream good riddance to a player who at the very young age of 21 last season was already an average starting defender in the one of the top 3-4 leagues in the world. We haven't had very many (any?) players over the years, regardless of position, that you could say that about.
Average in BL is still pretty good right, better that other RB options outside Cherundolo. What was Cherundolo rating BTW?
Jones 3.23 compare (Muller 3.23) Johnson 3.63 compare (Lahm 3.10, Boateng 3.56) Dolo 3.73 Chandler 3.74 Williams 3.75
I'm not sure a sample size of 2 can even be called a sample size. What you're basically saying is that Chandler is average if you compare him with one other player. An average BL1 defender is still well above average for American defenders. Maybe that will change going forward (Fabian Johnson's addition certainly helps), but so far that's been the way it is. If you're using sports publications as your barometer, our most recent World Cup roster only had one defender (Cherundolo) who was rated around average in a top 4 league, and even he was in a slump at the time according to Kicker. The rest ranged from below average (Bocanegra at Fulham and Onyewu at Newcastle) to among the lowest rated starting defenders in the top flight (Spector at West Ham, Demerit at Watford) to not even being on the radar in a top 4 league (Bornstein and Goodson). And of course, by that time, Cherundolo was the only one left still playing in a top 4 league. And once again, Chandler was only 21 last season. At 21, Cherundolo was playing in the second division. At 23, Cherundolo started his first season in the Bundesliga and was rated by Kicker near the low end of their list of starting defenders. But, he gradually improved. I imagine Chandler will as well.
I mean I suppose it's possible that Lichaj wins a starting spot for Aston Villa next season and turns into an average or above average Premier League fullback, Cherundolo continues to play at a high level for the next couple seasons, Fabian Johnson continues to play enough fullback at the club level to remain an option for us there, and a fourth quality attacker emerges for the US. But if any of those four things fail to happen, we're probably going to want to leave the door open for Chandler
Yeah, 2 isn't a sample size that you can use for much of anything. Just found it amusing that the two US international RB's in BL1 were right next to each other out of 211 players. The numbers are just something to look at - they certainly don't tell the whole story at present or future.