One of the next steps the USMNT needs to take is being able to possess when trying to protect a result. We're up 1-0 at half-time in Guatemala. It will be interesting to see how good a job we do making them chase the game.
This... Guatemala is pressuring high and we cannot keep the ball. Frantic counter-attacking has been our only possession. Hopefully we can sneak another against the run of play.
Well, competent options in CM or wide on the bench would help us keep possession late. Their fresher legs in MF in the 2nd half made a difference. For the 100th time, our roster was not well balanced. We had reserve forwards, and reserve backs, but no one decent on the wings, and only Beckerman in midfield with Torres out. A Feilhaber/Kljestan type CM and Beasley on the wings would help, then you could move Dempsey up top/in the hole late, instead of the dreadful Altidore, who still doesn't know how to play.
For anybody interested, MLSsoccer.com stats has US possession at 63% for the match, it was 65% at the end of the first half.
There's your answer. We played for 1-0 and got 1-1, just like I said would happen. There was never any real push to take control and go for the 2-0 or 3-0 result that our talent dictates should happen against an opponent of such low caliber, regardless of venue.
Generally poor job. Donovan and Dempsey get it and had the skills to settle things down a bit. But the two of them alone were not enough. Johnson also did fairly well maintaining possession. Jones made some poor decisions regarding when to push and when to pull back and keep the ball. Bradley was a bit off with his passing all night. We needed more from Jones and Bradley especially. But those two have never been especially good possession players. Which points out a limitation when you play them along with Edu. This match really was an interesting laboratory to see where we are and how far we have to go. I have to say that the progress in this department under JK is quite slow so far. He has made some tactical and personnel choices (some to be sure dictated by injuries and form) that have taken the team a bit away from the ethos he has been preaching. I understand that progress is not always three steps forward and am willing to withhold judgment for a while.
Jones always makes shaky choices and I didn't think Edu looked bad at all tonight--but yeah, possession w/ him/Bradley/Jones all together was going to be shaky. Something that I think would help a bit would be to play Donovan more centrally when you're looking for possession in the second half. Bring him a bit closer to Bradley to shorten up the passes a bit. Would have preferred to see a shift from a 4-3-2-1 to a 4-2-3-1 to give a bit more positive linkage to the holding mids: Donovan above, Dempsey on one side and someone else on the other. Johnson and Dolo overlapping as the situation calls for it. Lack of winger options sitting on the bench probably makes this idea tough to pull off though. It just frustrates the hell out of me to see us trying to play possession with these 25 yard passess all the time.
Yes. That would help. Although as you pointed out we need another wide player to replace Donovan to make this work. I'd love to see Shea, Adu and maybe Gatt brought in for that role. One of Bob Bradley's better ideas last cycle was bringing in Feilhaber off the bench and moving Dempsey to second forward. Something similar involving Donovan or Dempsey still looks to be a good idea to me.
This thread has nothing to do with what happened 4 years ago. The mod just had to delete a bunch of this same crap. I hope he does so again so that we can discuss the team that played today.
Agree, Edu's first touch is horrible which leads to him losing the ball. If we keep playing this formation, I'd like to see what Williams can do in that position. However, I really wish we'd try a 4-2-3-1........ Someday in the near future.......... -------------------------Dempsey----------------------- Johnson---------------Donovan---------------------Bedoya --------------Williams-----------Bradley------------- Lichaj---------Cameron--------Ream--------Chandler -----------------------Howard------------------------ Johson and Bedoya doing what they do best, running at players and taking them on. Lichaj and Chandler (If he decides to play for us) assisting the wing play. Bradley making those late runs while Williams sits deep with Cameron and Ream. Donovan creating and Dempsey Poaching. Sounds good here, no F******* idea how this would pan out on the field. All in all wishful thinking.....
Totally read my mind. I simply cannot fathom why Kljestan keeps being overlooked. We need a CM that is a little bit more of an east-west type of player to open up some space while we're in possesion
Agree. For all the griping about him, he does two things: 1. He closes defensively much better than Bradley. 2. He distributes much better than Edu. He's not a perfect player, but he's better suited to the 6 role than the options.
The lack of wing options and the need to basically play three holding midfielders as a result is why I'm okay with a draw here. We could have won, but all things considered, it's not an awful result. Our spacing was just really messed up due to personnel at hand. In the first half, we seemed to be able to play 20 yard balls up the middle to guys with relative ease. Once Guat figured out that Edu-Bradley-Jones wasn't going to hurt them on the outside, that all went away. Dempsey cheating into the middle to get the ball was a natural consequence of that, as was Donovan's quiet game when he stayed wide. The three DM lineup also hindered Dolo and Johnson's ability to overlap, although maybe this was by design w/ Johnson coming off injury and Dolo looking a bit slower out there (whether due to injury, age, or just an off game, I don't know).
I agree 100% here, and this is frustrating because JK is at fault for the poor personnel choices. As has been stated by many others, some of his player choices are simply baffling, and he is to blame for the lack of options.
Can't do it without decent defending, sorry. Possession has never been a USA strength. The strength has been the physical, fast, never-tiring counter. The best players are those who can take part in that. Defending has often been a patch job. Can't ask them to defend like Inter does when they lack the personnel for it.
Yeah, that was me. If you go back and read the post (not sure if it made the transfer), we were in a trend where we were scoring a disproportionate amount of goals from set pieces. The argument was never that set pieces goals somehow count for less, but that we need balance from the run of play as well.
The last time, the US had something like 735 passes completed, as Bob was going through his "we can play it short like Barcelona" stage. It was a bad stage and this was a far superior, disciplined and better coached Guatemala team than four years ago. However, a legitimate question for the US is whether it will be a better team by playing more skilled players in less advanced positions - i.e., "10's" as "8's" and "8's" as "6's". Klinsmann went that route with Mikey in a previous scheme. For last night's match, the possession had to be maintained by the midfield trio of Bradley, Jones and Donovan. It didn't work because Donovan gave up the ball all too willingly, as he is apt to do anyway. Jones is simply not an attacking/ball possessing midfielder and Bradley couldn't get on the same page with the rest often enough. Existing options would have been to use fullbacks for that and, in 4-4-2 that the US played last night, it was indeed attempted. However, Jones doesn't create much space behind himself, Donovan is afraid of even a three-touch dribble and is more content with a one-touch lump into traffic and Mikey's not as effective under the tight marking as he is in the low-pressure Italian league. The ideas made sense but the expectations that the players tasked with these ideas would perform them adequately were a tad too optimistic. Which is quickly becoming a Jürgen Klinsmann signature approach. And you don't get too many places with a "pie in the sky".
Both Ever Hugo Almeida and Tom Curtis have done an exceptional job of marshalling their forces to play a superior opponent.. I was impressed with each of them.
Yep. Folks, we're beginning to see the "if this was Bob, you guys would be..." meme trending toward "nepotism" proportions. I see no reason for multiple threads to be retooled so that habitual combatants can be habitual combatants. The OP poses some interesting questions, so let's address them on their own merits, please.
I do remember that most of our scoring was from set pieces back then. These days, we don't seem to be as much of a threat on set pieces but can't say I have looked at the numbers. We didn't threaten last night from set pieces.