So apparently Bentley's inability to succeed at arsenal or his loan spells at Birmingham, west ham or Rostov or with the England program was all Harry redknapp's fault. I got it.
Did I claim anything like this? Nope. What I did say: "Ask Dos Santos, Bentley and so on about Harry Redknapp's man management skills."
Sounds more like David Bentley needs to run into an excellent 'man manager' 'cause so far "nobody could figure [him] out."
That is a hell of a find. Well done. Not good to have players questioning his competency level. I suspect all may not be well in that locker room.
This what coaches do. He never said Altidore was lazy, but check out what Verbeek... Altidore's club coach called Altidore over at the YA forums. Lazy, not technically sound, unfit... It goes on. You're a professional athlete, get used to criticism.
Yes, it is what some coaches do. Except in this case the question wasn't 'what is your opinion of Jozy Altidore?' but 'why is he getting so little service?' To which Klinsmann replied: - in international games there is less space - it's hard to get chances - Jozy can do a lot better; he needs to work, work, work and force his luck - Jozy knows this So quite apparently in the opinion of Jurgen Klinsmann Jozy is not "work, work, working" and not "forcing his luck", and "he knows it". In other words, he's ''lazy'. And this mindset is the cause of why he is getting 'not so much service' when a team is locked in. URL to source please where Verbeek is calling Jozy "lazy". The lack of fitness claim is from back in 2011. Besides, it had nothing to so with Jozy's work rate.
Altidore will be fine. Klinsi is a great people person. He'll smooth out any problems with Altidore. I don't know if Altidore will ever fit in his system.
Being "a great people person" works only while people believe that the person is competent. It seems that honeymoon is over.
That is why you play up and comers like John and Gonzalez when you have a chance. JK put it off while he started Boca non-stop and also used Orozco. Now we only have one legitimate CB in Cameron who seems able to do the job through the hex. It is too late to blood John and Gonzalez or anyone else for that matter. We need Boca to get the job done in the qualifiers, but do we really think he will be the answer in 6 months, when it really matters. JK is staking his name on it. I don't think it is a good idea. JK has had many opportunities to call in players like John or Gonzalez, or figure out we have a massive problem here and give Williams a try. Now it is almost too late. We have a few friendlies between now and the Hex, but we need those just to get our house in order. JK should have looked at the squad. Aging Boca, Onyewu, and Goodson (really never been that good), and potential in guys like Ream and Cameron. Still, should have known that potential doesn't always pan out, and that he needed to cap and look at as many CBs as possible, like Bradley was before he got fired, because he understood the problem. For Dolo, the five million dollar answer is: Lichaj. JK is paying for the poor decisions that he made over a year ago. Not what he didn't do last spring. Moreover, he will pay for the poor decisions he is making now in 6 months time. His inexplicable ability to call in Lichaj will haunt us when Dolo gets injured.
There is no excuses for Altidore, he has sucked under Klinsmann and let the national team down by his lack of progression. 1 goal in the last year.. but lets keep defending him and absolving his play with this lack of service stuff!
Parkhurst is pretty clearly number 2 on the depth chart at right back and he's 28 so I dont understand the panic here. Not to mention Cherundolo has been Playing well and Lichaj has been inconsistent. I see no reason why you would make that change. Ditto for Bocanegra who has been playing well and showed no signs of not stopping. There's no need to play young players who aren't better than veterans in games that matter. And even when you do play young players you'll want a veteran player to help ease them in and cover for their mistakes. If you throw out a u25 team against Mexico you'll likely get annihilated and not gain any insight into how the players looked. There's a reason why when you see the January camps or that November friendly in South Africa that the coaches brought in veteran mls players. You need them in the squad. In international football you simply don't have time to give every possible player an extended look in the team. Klinsmann has called in plenty of young central defenders, Ream, Cameron, Orozco, Besler etc. just because Besler didn't play doesn't mean he doesn't get looked at in training. Omar Gonzalez never had a chance to get called in since he only returned from injury in August. George John missed the January camp due to a failed transfer. There's a reason Bocanegra and Cherundolo are still playing and it's because they are better than everybody else and continue to be.
I am not talking about now in qualifiers. We are obviously locked in. I am talking about over the course of the last year, when all we had were friendlies, and JK chose to ignore players like Gonzalez and John, till the one January camp where then he let them go to pursue offers in Europe. If Boca gets injured.... who will start next to Cameron against teams like Mexico (when it counts) and Honduras, when the WC is on the line. If JK had tried out John and Gonzalez, and some other guys last year, then maybe we have an option in at least Gonzalez who is playing well. Maybe not, but now we simply can't know. So we are sitting on Boca and Cameron, and praying that Onyewu starts to play at Malaga. Good luck with that. We needed an injection of new CBs an entire year ago. Parkhurst is ok. He is a decent back up, but he should not be our starter in big games. Meanwhile, JK has ignored a starter in the EPL, with significant successful USMNT experience, while also calling in guys with almost no professional pedigree like Morales and Boyd. Boyd ended up being a good bet, I question whether Morales will ever play first division football again. So if Boyd and Morales, why not a guy starting in the EPL, with several years of pro experience already? If you are planning on calling up Gatt and Corona just to sit them, why not Lichaj also to get a look at him as well. Never mind he has already proven he can play at this level. We are literally two injuries in two over 30 year old players away from a complete defensive disaster. Seriously, if they get injured our back line is this: Johnson Goodson Cameron Parkhurst Mexico will shred us.
When I created my "too much pressure" thread people laughed at me and were acting like I was soft but, it seems the pressure is really starting to kick in! I think we will be alright. We just can't afford to lose anymore! win all our games and we qualify 100 percent of the time!!
Personally, this combination is pretty good (would prefer Edu if he could get club time instead of Goodson) and significantly better than combinations including Eric L. (just because he sometimes starts on a bad EPL team while Parkhurst always starts on a very good Danish League team, doesn't mean he is better) and George John.
That backline is hardly a disaster. Parkhurst has played extremely well in Denmark and looked just fine against Jamaica. He simply might be better than Lichaj. Lichaj isnt even a sure fire starter. Gonzalez playing a couple of friendlies a year ago isn't going to make much of a difference anyway. He could still be called now or not and likely be just fine. Klinsmann simply doesn't seem to rate him over Goodson. Not sure that's the right call but its hardly a disaster. He may have wasted some time trying to force the issue with Orozco but again our defense has played quite well in friendlies and in real games. He used the friendlies to get the team prepped for qualifying and not for a World Cup he still had to qualify for.
If only having scored one goal since Klinsmann took over means you have "sucked", then I guess you think everybody on this team besides Dempsey sucks. I like me some Herc Gomez, but does one garbage goal against Antigua really separate his CV from Jozy's? The anemic offensive play of this national team over the last year is a horrible sample to choose to judge strikers with.
Why would we not want more depth at the RB? Sure Parkhurst might be better, but Lichaj MIGHT be better, it goes both way. But, we might never find out. Common sense seems to indicate that a guy playing in the EPL might be worth calling in. Most likely Lichaj will be our eventual starter as the RB, never mind he played very well here for us under Bradley. And what if Dolo goes down, then we have Parkhurst and who? Lichaj, so eventually it might be wise to have called him in at some point. Dolo is 33. Sure he might play the next 4 years as a top level player, it can happen, but the odds are not in his favor. Why not prepare for the inevitable, today? John proves the point. I would love to have seen him called in a long time ago. Now apparently we have to wait till maybe the Gold Cup for him to get some real action. Probably we will get to see how good that combo is, but I don't have much confidence in its ability to compete at the highest level.
This is what makes the interview so absurd. Do you think that the reasons Jozy is struggling is because he gets no service? JK: No not really, he just needs to try more and he will score more goals. It isn't my fault, he needs to create something out of nothing. Herc scored, see I know what I am talking about. Why do you play so many defensive midfielders? JK: Because our best players are defensive midfielders, and yes I know that they aren't going to create a lot of chances for us. See the contradiction?