Yes. I stopped watching them 3-4 matches into the season because I knew it would be horrendous for Jozy. Tried to watch again with Poyet hoping for more creative play and found them to be just more harder working, and gave up again. It took about 30 minutes for me to realize that a kid who was used to dynamic, open ended play of Holland, and the creative play and quality passing you get with the USMNT, was going to suffer horrendously with Sunderland. His agent should be fired for this move. It was poorly scouted.
Unfortunately, the agent probably would have gone through with the move even if the consequence was getting fired. Agents take some huge fees from big transfers
If I were to rank the form of 'European' guys with a shot to make the 30: 1. Bedoya - doing very well 2. Cameron - doing very well 3. Fabian - doing very well 4. Howard - still ok, highly regarded, iffy distribution 5. AJ - Not scoring, but just a brief hiatus(?) 6. DWilliams - Reading has a shot at making the EPL. he's fundamental 7. Guzan - Decent, but he's made a few mistakes 8. Boyd - Scoring left and right in a league that, beyond RB, is comparable to the MLS 9. Sacha - Anderlecht fans seem to find him boring and predictable, but he does his job 10. Gooch - doing quite well for Sheffield Wednesday 11. Ream - doing ok with eventual mistakes, for Bolton 12. Spector - a regular feature as a RB or a CM of an awful B'ham 13. Altidore - white he looks out of his depth, S'land does better with him around 14. Jones - not playing enough with Besiktas 15. Fredo Morales - playing and scoring with Ingolstadt in the 2.Bundes 16. JAB - alternating as Hertha's CB with the Georgian guy 17. Mix Diskerud - mainly a bench player this season, who knows why 18. Agudelo - reduced to a bench role for now, not really shining yet 19. Packwood - just back with barely-above-relegation B'ham, very injury prone & not getting good reviews 20. Joe Gyau - Scoring for Hoffenheim's reserves, and making the random appearance on the first team bench 21. Bobby Wood - Getting some minutes in the 2.Bundes --- 22. Lichaj - broken 23. Holden - broken 24. Chandler - broken 25. Green - broken 26. Gatt - broken 27. Shea - not playing 28. Cropper - not playing So the only forward who could displace him is Boyd, who's doing overall better for his club. Jozy's ample experience with the NT weighs more, I think, though.
What makes you say that Ream is "doing ok with eventual mistakes?" By many accounts he is a strong contender to be named Bolton's player of the year.
This has so many inaccuracys. The biggest one is Jones. How can you say he isnt playing? He has started the last 3 games and went 90 min with the last game being against the league leaders in a 1-1 draw. He was worked into the team in about 3 games and now is a solid starter. Agudelo is way to low. You say Morales is scoing goals for Inglostad and Aguedlo is struggling and not getting playing time? Morales has 1 goal all season. Agudelo has 2 since his transfer. I understand one is a DCM and the other is a ST but you make it sound like Morales is tearing the net up. Agudelo really hasnt been demoted to the bench, he has been worked into the lineup and has started about half the games he has been available for and the other half has been a sub. Sasha at 9 is a joke. Now this is a guy who is struggling for playing time. He hasnt played in quite some time now and didnt even make the 18 for their last game. I honestly could argue that based soley on form Jozy is nowhere close to JAB Jones Aguedlo and morale right now. Again based on form only.
I follow the matches on their boards. Since most Championship games are not broadcast, or there are no working streams for them, I rely what the fans of those teams are narrating in the match day threads. Must admit I trust them a lot more than the 'pundits' here who, for example, have never seen Green play, and have anointed him already better than Donovan. Yes, Jones is starting of late, we'll see how he does, he's not played enough this season. As for Agudelo, his job was to score goals. 2 goals (in the Ere back when he was starting) is not good enough. Sacha played a lot in the first half of the season. Anderlecht fans don't really dig him, because he's very workhorse-like, a guy with limited imagination. Yep, the second half of the season he's had trouble with PT. Keep in mind my assessment of the guys playing is concerned with their whole 13-14 season up to now. Not just the last four games or so.
Keep in mind my assessment of the guys playing is concerned with their whole 13-14 season up to now. Not just the last four games or so.[/quote] That's different then form. You said you were going to rank then based on form which implying how they have been playing recently not the whole season. If you wanted to make a ranking of each euro player the whole season then you should have named it that.
No problem just got confused because as I'm sure you know form fluctuates many times throughout the season so that list could have been completely flip flopped if we were doing it at a different point in the season. Not a bad list if your going off of performance based on the whole season.
They didn't though, at least according to the statements of two of them. Clint and Mike both said after signing their deals they hadn't talked to Jurgen. Clint still hadn't talked to Jurgen after he arrived in Sea. Omar, I don't know about. Maybe Berks was suggesting Clint and Mike talked to Jurgen before moving to Spurs and Roma, which makes more sense. Clint asked Jurgen to help him get to a UCL club before the Pool/Spurs situation.
I shouldn't have used the world consult in the second sentence, I should have said discuss again. Cause I didn't mean to imply they all sought his advice prior to making a decision, but rather that they discussed their club situations with him. In Omar's case, he definitely consulted with Klinsmann: "I talked to Jurgen about going abroad and he was very supportive of me staying in MLS," Gonzalez said. "I was really happy about that because I feel that MLS is a really fun and interesting league right now. It's growing tremendously, there's a lot of growth; there's new teams coming in the league and great fans. I think overall, the play is getting better as well." And in Bradley's case, he discussed it with Klinsmann prior to the deal being official: SI.com: You had a chance to speak to U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann about your move. What was that discussion that you had? Bradley: It was a good discussion. I wanted to call him at the end of last week when things were looking like they were getting finalized, just so he could hear things from me and understand what I was thinking.
Yeah, so Mike called Jurgen after making the decision and while it was being finalized. This whole conversation started over the assumption Jurgen influenced these decisions before the decisions were made. Aside from possibly Omar, I don't see how that's the case. Mike and his agent moved very quickly on the deal and Mike talked to Jurgen after making the decision.
Many were expecting an increase in the flow from MLS to Europe thanks to Klinsmann. I don't think NT managers have any influence on whom clubs hire, hence they have little to do with their moves. Calling them to inform them, "I'm going from A to B" is nice. But I don't see any player asking his NT coach which offer he should take.
Many times in other countries, if they take a jump to a 'lesser' league to get more money it can affect their NT playnig time and vice versa with a going to a club wqhere it's a higher level, but if they don't play it's just as bad. I am thinking of South America and guys going to Sauida Arabia for the oil money despite it probably killing their NT career.
Yeah, that doesn't happen. The players that do that, go to "Sauida Arabia" or China for the money, are either good enough that it doesn't matter (Gyan) or they were never in the national team picture to begin with (most Brazilians). Bradley/Dempsey improved their family and financial lives considerably, then called their coach as a courtesy.
It could also be stated that Bradley/Dempsey (and Goodson and Edu and Parkhurst) improved their playing/club situations by the transfers they made -- relative to the situation they were in, but not necessarily the situation they could have been in or found elsewhere -- in the 12 months before a World Cup.
Youd be surprised. Same goes with MLS--I know MLS has searched hard within Colombia, but many fear that coming to the US will hurt their chances with the NT. Fredy Montero too-- comes to mind.