A very good problem to have. It would be nice to have a crazy young and powerful midfield for a change. Gonzales, McKennie and the others are all an obvious evolution from the kind of midfielders we were getting before.
He should play wherever his skills and team needs lend to him being an asset to a program. Roldan is the 8/10. It's semantics. They can trap and link together. Gonzalez can intercept off their pressure and lay off. 3 bumblebees, none from BVB. I think Pulisic will be wasted centrally going fw, unless we keep playing a diamond. There is a glut of cm's and dearth of a-wings. Also you figure they press. They've already started the process for the youth and senior teams. Pulisic should be able to pick the ball up higher and have less defensive responsibility.
I'm very surprised too. At the beginning of the season they played hard but not smart, I thought they would be a middle of the pack team. Now, they may be looking at CL games next year if they continue to play like this.
I’m assuming his more offensive posture today was at the direction of Tedesco. You don’t gain the coach’s confidence if you don’t follow his instructions exactly.
Sometimes, you need to just let the chips fall where it may. I see our national team going more and more to a 4-3-3. Which will give Pulisic to play either centrally or as a forward wings. If Parks continue his skyrocket trajectory, then Parks plays below the forwards and Pulisic plays one of the forward wings. The 8's below Parks would be Mckennie and probably JG, unless someone comes and takes it away from him. Nice problem to have, don't you think?
Probably not the best thread to discuss overall national team midfield prospects, things can get derailed pretty fast.
I think it was a combination of the opponent, Hamburg suck pretty bad. And also Goretzka being out of the line up, giving McKennie more freedom to go forward.
I think coach saw his potential from our game and gave him the green light to continue to play that way. So far, so good. Looking forward to next week's game.
One of his better plays came when he recovered a Hamburg clearance wide right and played a hard low pass traffic to a teammate in the box who had options. A criticism is that there were some better options to play in on the other side of the field that he missed, instead opting to play to attackers more directly ahead of him.
Fact he is now a consistent starter for a 2nd place BL team is amazing. Our 2018 world cup team could have been pretty dangerous. This guy is our next pulisic. It doesn't matter what you're getting with on field performance right now. The fact coaches are trusting him in a regular spot for a higher end team says everything. This is why I wanted him on the Nats while everyone else said "no experience" or "let him settle in"! Where are the Jonathan spector comparisons now?
Clearly you missed two things, one is that letting him settle at Schalke obviously worked out well and the US men's forum is ------->>
Maybe a diamond with Pulisic as the support striker. ————Wood———— —Pulisic————- ————Parks———— —McKennie—Acosta— ———-Gonzalez———
McKennie does but you are correct this is NT discussion, I posted it last page before I saw the attempt to rerail the thread. Noted.
Yeah, he was laying it on pretty thick. Weston was fine, but not near excellent as Joy kept saying. But then Joy also said that there were going to be a lot of goals scored in this game - a game between two teams that combined for 24 goals in 22 BL games heading into this one.
I am seeing MOTM laurels in at least one place. To me he started and finished a little off the pace but for large periods in the middle of that match was just great in his technical quality and decisionmaking on the ball and very good off the ball in defense, following the play in the attack and providing himself as an option. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of decent to great. We can call it good. It was not perfect and he did miss some chances to play to runners dangerous positions. He also lost his footing a couple of times which could be position and trying to rush to a play he should have seen coming, bad cleats or just a wet pitch. Idk. 7.5/10 maybe an 8.
or it could be the temporary field that they have to bring into the stadium. There were several times when big chunks of sod were coming up during tackles. I recall one time when McKennie went to replace some flipped over sod. He had a new role today, so he was finding his feet. Tedesco's really brought him on well. With the team doing well, Tedesco deserves alot of credit, and given how invested he is in McKennie, it's all good right now. He's only been there 15 months!
If Pulisic was the big story last season, Wes is the big one this season. He's starting to look like the real deal. What club with money gets him will be important. Please, let it not be Wolfsburg. Or Everton.
No need for him to look to make a move anytime soon. Schalke is a big club, with consistent Euro appearances before their recent funk the past few years. Really hope they can make Champions or Europa league next year as that would open up playing opportunities for Wright and Nick T. Impressive that Weston has played this much thus far, and he's played fairly well, but he hasn't proven he's above the level or anything yet.
AGree that if he’s smart, he stays put for a few years at least. Schalke aren’t going to CL, but they also aren’t going to BL2. It’s a very good place for him. Of course, if a mega-club comes with a mega-offer, it won’t be entirely up to Wes, but I really don’t see that happening.