Particularly if we're serious about the 5-3-2/3-5-2/3-4-3 formation. You can give up a little defense with the wingbacks if they can get up and down the field. The problem is, what do we do with Alessandrini?
That would work, although pretty much only in that version. The rest rely on more defense from the outside players.
Of course, our midfield might get totally overrun in that formation... ---oLA--------zLAtan-----Alessandrini Cole-----Kitchen---JDS------Lletget -----Skjelvek---Ciani---Romney ----------------Bingham Although with that particular formation, Carrasco might be the better fit than Kitchen...
I think it would work, but our midfield would have to be disciplined. Lletget and Cole on the wings makes me feel decently confident both offensively and defensively. Lletget may not be a natural wing back, but he has a good work ethic. If Moses for Chelsea can be converted to that spot, then so can Lletget. The CMs is the most important part. You need a true DM like Chelsea have in Kante, and then someone who can pass and play defense. I think we actually are in a good spot with that. Kitchen is basically a defender anyway, and JDS is a great box to box mid.
If we think about the formation this way: --------------X-----------X--------------------- --------------------X----------------------- --------------X------------X---------------- -X------------------------------------X-- -----------X-------X-------X---------------- you can call it a number of different things depending on which lines you put in the midfield. For me, it comes down to who do we want to be in their natural positions. The back 7 are basically defensive positions (or two-way positions) and so we have five players who naturally fit in the top 3: Zlatan, Kamara, Lletget, Alessandrini and G. Dos Santos. Right now, I would play ------Kamara------Zlatan--------- ---------------Lletget--------------- Dos Santos would be the backup to Lletget and Alessandrini the backup to Zlatan. But we're not going to leave that much money on the bench. For next year, and we should be thinking about next year, the question is whether Zlatan is coming back. If he is, then I think we have to play something like this, just to get a reasonable defense. If not, then our original plan for a 4-5-1 is probably the better way to go.
@GalaxyPodcast According to Swedish media, the Galaxy are looking to sign Hammarby midfielder Jiloan Hamad at the end of this season. He’s been one of the very best players in the Swedish league this year. https://t.co/crbXUIREWU— Johan Dykhoff (@JohanDykhoff34) June 21, 2018
I think it will happen only because it's in a spot we don't need and that sounds exactly like a move our FO would do.
They said that about Skjelvi vis a vis the Norwegian league. Notably, Sweden has a substantially better league. Perhaps we can scratch Norway off the list of leagues to shop for potential MLS players.
I think it's lletget or boateng. Lletget is due for a pay raise if I remember correctly, and I doubt we are willing to give him want he wants considering all his injuries these past year and a half.
Unless Lletget's form picks up this season I doubt he will get any significant $ offers elsewhere. He's probably fairly priced at his current 240k. We might have to put him on waivers to avoid an automatic raise but no way we should be paying him 300k+ unless he starts creating goals again. And Boateng is the biggest bargain on the team (although Romney is in the competition) since he is being paid 15th-20th player wages. Remember simply getting Husidic and Pedro off the books will free up almost 400k in salary! PS - Has our FO forgotten about the amazingly large and talented player pool in Central and South America? Why do we keep picking up overpriced "pretty good for a Scandinavian league" players? PPS- Crap like this reminds me of how poor Klein is at his job. Forget about having a long-term well thought out blueprint for rebuilding a team over time. We can't even get sensible short-term thinking from the clowns in our FO.
I agree with pretty much all of this, but don't underestimate how stupid some MLS teams are. I bet Lletget can get near $400k at another club as long as he can do something this season. If he is injured all year, then I don't think so, but if he can stay fit and have himself even an average season, I bet there will be a few clubs willing to pay him.
Doesn't AEG still own Hammarby? Seems like this could be a case of either Swedish media assuming AEG can just move him to another league or LAG is the only MLS team they know because of the connection
I'm late to the game on this, but I'm pretty sure he had legal issues which Sigi wanted to wait on the result of before pulling the trigger on signing him. I do think he's been training with us for some time now and whatever the court related issues were resolved themselves the same week he was signed. This info was on a Corner of the Galaxy podcast from last week so the info probably came from Kevin Baxter, but I don't have the specific source.
I think we're being lazy. I doubt it's a coincidence that we happen to be getting a number of players from a region in Europe where AEG owns another football club.
I noticed in the PIP thread for the 6/30 game against San Jose a post about Lletget's high ankle sprain. I don't know anything about this type of injury in soccer, but in American football players seldom come back a full strength for months (or sometimes the season). Is it likely that he could be out until September?
That could also be why we have been linked with that winger in Sweden. As much as I like Lletget, he is injured a lot, and he hasn't been that great this season.
Even before his recent spate of injuries he never managed to recapture the form he had when he first arrived in 2015. Might not be his fault, look at Gyasi, similarly brilliant in 2015, then terrible until he moved to a more functional team.
Lleget was great for the final 3rd of the 2016 season when Bruce moved him into a box to box role. I want to say he had something 7 of his 8 assists that year in the final 2-3 months of the season when he was playing centrally. That's what earned him a call up to the national team. In 2015 he scored 7 goals right off the start because we were playing well, but once the team started to lose momentum his production slowed down. My concern is the foot injury is going to stop him from progressing into the player we all thought he was going to be. The biggest problem the Galaxy has that effects pretty much all of our players, is we don't have a system, and none of our players fit into a single system. We have arguably 2 of the top 5 #9s in MLS, and a DP who plays best as a 2nd striker and don't have the pieces to put all 3 on the field in a formation that makes sense. We can keep going with this narrative, but it's nothing new. Ultimately we aren't getting the best out of our players by trying to force "talent" onto the field and hope that overcomes all of the deficiencies that our team has.