Altidore's target play is improving, but is a different type of target play to McBride... Altidore needs balls to feet or, at the highest, his chest... he has not shown that he can be a target on high balls... Dempsey is even better at that than Altidore...
Or Ching.....unless someone else comes out of the woodwork in the next few months. Altidore is still a work in progress, but its seems clear that at the present time, he is more of a face-the-goal type striker. With the ball at his feet, he is just a physical hand full for any defender because of his size, strength, speed and relatively soft touch on the dribble. He may never be a target or have a soft first touch. Frankly, if we had a deep enough striker pool with a couple other players who exhibited these abilities on the international level, we wouldn't be putting every one of Jozy's skills under the microscope every game. We'd be pretty satisfied with his growth as dangerous player in the best league in the world.
I agree with this. For such a big strong kid his headers almost seem timid even when trying to score from them. His body can make the space but his force and direction are weak. A part of his game he must improve as it could be such a big asset to him.
I can't decide whether its timing, footwork, or vision, or a combination, but he doesn't seem to have the ability to get his body in good position to hold off the defender while getting off the header. Sometimes it looks like he just misjudges the flight of the ball. A classic example was early in the game on Saturday when a cross came in from the left. He was well marked but his legs just kind of buckled as the ball came across and it eventually went over his head. This is skill that definitely can be worked on, however and given how good his foot work seems otherwise, I am confident he can improve on it, if he desires to.
Agreed. He hasn't shown it much with Hull yet, partly because of a severe lack of service, but we know he has great heading ability. Probably about a dozen headed goals for NYRB, goal against Mexico in 2008, goal against El Salvador in September, etc. We know he can head the ball, but there is something about getting in position against a defender for a long ball that he hasn't figured out yet.
Not true. Altidore got his head on a lot of balls against Chelsea. True he may not be in McBride's class in this area, but he compensates with the ability to beat people off the dribble. Anyway, McBride is not in the pool so the "McBride" standard is not relevant. What is relevant is whether Altidore surpasses the Casey or Ching standard, which is a no-brainer. The only way Altidore plays with Casey or Ching is if these two outperform the other forward options,
McBride was world-class in the air- I think most observers would agree. He had other shortcomings, so he was no world class player, but he was excellent with his head. Compairing Jozy to Bake in this area is a very high standard for Jozy. Jozy is an interesting player in that he plays well working with different kinds of forwards. For the USA, he has played very well paired up top with Davies, Ching and even (in the U-20 WC) Adu-- all three very different kinds of forwards. As such, I'm not surprised to see him play well in tandem with VoH - Jozy is adept at using the space created by his strike partners and he seems to like the close-range service he gets from them.
He can do it. His goal against Mexico off the Spector cross proves it. He just needs to become more consistant.