I don't understand why this is such a hard concept for so,w people to understand. Me wanting Peterson back has nothing to do with his offensive numbers, nothing. It has everything to do with his movements. He makes goal scoring dangerous runs into the box that no one else on the team does. And it doesn't just give him more chances to score it opens up space for guys like Benny and Dwyer. I'll give you an example. Last year at home against Orlando Peteron came in and made a run into the box that allowed Benny to chip a ball over the defense which then led to a goal. Nobody else on the team makes that movement, everyone of our wingers would be standing out wide looking for balls to feet. If you can't see that your either blind, or more likely you can't see past petersons below average touch and shooting ability. To a casual fan who just watches the ball he's terrible. But guess what ? There's 21 other players without the ball, that's where the majority of the game is played.
You're not totally wrong, but I'd say we don't even have a large enough sample size of Gerso to know if that will be something he will consistently contribute. Even leaving him out, we still have Blessing, Salloi, and who knows what Saad will do when given another opportunity. I think there is a good possibility that these guys' actual forward pedigrees will shine through and they will prove to be actual wide attackers. By last year's pool, Jake was the only winger who would do this. Way too early to say he would still be the only one on the team to add that element this year.
Meh. It's the Buddy Biancalana test. You failed it. Just because a 0.188 hitting shortstop suddenly catches fire and has a bunch of timely, game-winning, hits in the playoffs - it doesn't make him an irreplaceable part of the championship puzzle. Jacob Peterson is about as replaceable a player as was on last year's roster. Don't get be wrong, he's not as terrible as many say, but having a front line player who scores less than a goal every five games? Well that's one reason Zusi is at right back now. And last year's production was far and away Peterson's best as a pro. MLS is full of guys just like him. The key is that we should keep looking until we find someone better. The status quo (Dwyer Island) from last year is clearly not good enough.