arriola battled. He was really good. Jozy held the ball up well, but shanked his chance. Morris stunk.
Arriola battling is why we looked to be on equal footing with Mexico in the first half. Morris is why we couldn’t get beyond equal footing—he sucks.
Arriola was probably my MOTM. Jozy disappeared a bit but did well in the 1st half. This game was above Morris's ability as a soccer player. He can't handle it. Zardes was Zardes.
Altidore played well, but when opportunity to bury a goal arises a forward has to take it. Would have loved to see what danger our forwards could have generated if Boyd had been on the field. He puts the ball in dangerous places. consistently.
Didn't have the easiest job in a game where your midfield got over-run and they didn't play early balls to them in space or just bypassed them period when looking right at them. But still they left something to be desired. - Zardes didn't do jack again. Couldn't even get on the ball for him to subsequently lose it. He needs to get to steppin'. - Altidore played well as a target fw, but again failed to score in a big game. And he had the opportunities. Think the transition to Sargent needs to be made soon. - Morris' natural position is as a striker. Gets in behind on diagonal runs and comes up big in limited opportunities. Unlucky to not score that goal and had a couple key passes again. But barely visible otherwise in the role he was deployed at. Top speed fw option ala Wood was last cycle, otherwise utility player/super sub.
morris was invisible. no impact at all. jozy was ok- im sure everyones gonna have a field day on missing a chance he created out of nothing. arriola was a little soft early but def got better. boyd must have accidently said "crickey! whoy is moychael bradley a stahta?" in practice or something.
Zardes and Morris tried their best. Unfortunately our coach is one of the few people on the planet that think their best is remotely good enough.
We got what you expect from this bunch, mostly. Altidore was decent in his time, but he missed a clear chance and that's a big black mark on a performance for a forward in my eyes. Arriola once again showed a great ability ti rn around a lot and never make anything of it in the end. I barely knew Morris was playing and replacing him with Roldan was fairly worthless. When you're hoping for Zardes to light a fire off the bench, you're in trouble. The forward line is where we are really going to struggle this cycle until some of the younger players step up. Boyd would have had to be pretty awful to be worse than anyone run out there, but he's no savior.
I would be happy for any forward to at least replace Zardes. Like it or not, there is a big gap between our #1 forward and the rest of the field, so for the foreseeable future, it is Altidore.