If you are going to attempt to have a meaningful conversation at least try to base it on a facts. 2011: Edu, Beckerman, and Kljestan tried as competitors to Jones and Bradley 2012: Jones, Edu, Beckerman, and Williams 2013: Jones, Beckerman, Bedoya, and Mix. Edu and Williams had injury issues 2014: Jones, Beckerman, Bedoya, Mix. Kljestan gets a last look before WC and Morales joins after. Jones phased out to transition to CB. 2015: Beckerman, Bedoya(hurt), Williams(hurt), Mix, and Corona, Morales 2016: Jones, Beckerman, Bedoya, Kljestan back 2017: Jones, Acosta, Corona, Dax. Where is Kljestan, Williams, Morales
Who, pray tell, were the wunderkids that should have had the chance to challenge Bradley between 2010 and now? Have you had the opportunity to watch your lord and savior McKennie yet?
Forgot Nagbe: 2015: Beckerman, Bedoya(hurt), Williams(hurt), Mix, and Corona, Morales, Nagbe 2016: Jones, Beckerman, Bedoya, Nagbe, Kljestan back 2017: Jones, Nagbe, Acosta, Corona, Dax. Where is {Kljestan, Williams, Morales}?
How many times did any of these guys get a chance to play together without Bradley? Ermmmm. Just mentioning other midfielders doesn't mean they were allowed to compete for his spot. They competed to be the best fit with him. How'd that work out? Not sure, but someone told me recently the US missed the world cup. Guys, enough. Your favorite captain led his team to the worst failure in us soccer history. What else is there? The most important piece in the most important spot on the field, never questioned. Captain. Failure. This couldn't be more amusing. It's like arguing with my seven year old cousin that the world is round. Do you guys think the earth is flat? I don't need to offer anything. I don't need to watch McKennie. I don't need to prove anything, because Bradley's failure is the only proof needed. If the US slumped into the world cup, and were bounced in the group phase? Then we can argue. I'd say the same thing (and no surprise, would still be right), but at least I'd listen to a more rational argument on the other side. Now it's useless. It's like hitting a tennis ball against the wall. The US failed. Literally any other midfield partnership would have done better (unless you somehow believe the USA could have finished below Trinidad).
You have zero means to prove that. This is similar to the bashing Claudio Reyna got for many years.He sucks,he sucks he sucks....without ever considering that the most damning point against the argument was that even though CR was not the world class player it was suggested he was,he was nevertheless our best midfielder because our pool was poor. Eleven years on ,our pool of MLS mids is as bad as ever.
So you think our players are worse than 4 concacaf teams. I don't. And most people would agree with me on that. This is a team that was coddled, played worse than their talent showed, had terrible management. That was due to klinsy, Bruce, and Bradley. The other players obviously contributed. But those three are most at fault. The first two have rightly paid the price. But you dunces think it was only them, and the other players (and MB) not being good enough. Maybe that's where we all disagree. I say our talent is better than everyone except Mexico and maybe cr depending on the day, and that it was a failure of leadership. You guys think Panama and Honduras have better talent. OK then. At least that makes sense. Of course I'm still right, but at least it is some kind of argument I can half heartedly respect.
No,the main issue was the idiotic decision to not play Cameron and Bradley as a twin dmid in a game where we only needed a clean sheet. I have already stated that the team appeared to be displaying poor morale in any setting where they went behind in a game,and that's on a captain as well as other senior players. Our player pool was good enough this time to get out of CONCACAF and go three and out in Russia.Our failure was in management and team cohesion.
So we get a clean sheet in T&T, and everything is fine? Nope. The team sucked for the last two years. The last game was just a microcosm of a much larger issue. Nobody is arguing it's ALL on Bradley. There were many issues. But the issues bigger than Bradley (Klinsy, and then Arena) are both out. That's not enough for such a ridiculous failure. Management and team cohesion. Mgmt is gone (outside of Gulati, who should be gone). The person most responsible for team cohesion is the captain. He will lose the armband, and should never be called into the team again. This goes for many more players than simply Bradley. But for some reason, he elicits much more support from fans than Beasley, Omar, Howard, Guzan, etc. I actually see Howard as just about the same. Too old, too slow, not good anymore, but kept in the team due to poor team selection and refusal to introduce new, younger talent (omg, i haven't seen Horvath play either!!! and since I haven't seen him, there is ZERO chance he's better than Howard.) And nobody outside of smart fans (myself included, most of you, not), saw the problem with that as well. Howard is gone, and he wasn't even captain. The captain takes more blame. Thus, he's gone too. Sorray!
If I presented the number of times they played together without Bradley would it really matter? There is a simple conclusion to all of this; Bradley is currently the best CM we have available but the best we have is just not good enough.
Horvath got the start and went 90 v Cuba while Yarbrough and Bingham each got a half vs The All Whites in last fall's friendlies
Not sure who you're arguing with here.I already said burn it down and build around Puli and the U-xx squads.
He'd argue that his bedroom wall loves Michael Bradley and pat himself on the back for being aware that the US didn't make the WC if only the wall had the gall to speak a word.
I'm inclined to agree that MB is among our best 10 field players but this may be the perfect example of the Patrick Ewing theory in practice.
But surely it's absurd to suggest Danny Williams should be playing over Michael Bradley!!!! [Watches Huddersfield v MU] Oh...
First you should have suggested that DWill be brought in. Bruce Arena seems to have been on a mission to remove anyone not born in the US from the national team. On DWill Arena famously said "There are players in MLS who play his position"
Arena definitely seemed to have a thing against the Germericans. I mean Timmy chandler I understand but Williams seemed all in for the team. Same with Jones when he was healthy.
Williams was a menace today. Big part in holding Man U to a single goal. Bradley helped allow T&T hand two on us. Yet one goes 90 every single time for the NT and the other deemed not NT quality by Arena.
It's the good old boys club. It wasn't just Arena. It was MLS/USSF/SUM who wanted to prove we could make the WC and do better than Jurgen did without using them damn foreigners. Turned out well.
Eh, swap Williams for Bradley* and T&T is still scoring two goals, but agendas gotta agenda... * Of course that almost certainly wouldn't have been possible because of the foot injury Williams suffered in mid/late September.