I can't agree with any of this. Jozy is still effective. Wood had a bad game. It's anything but time to move on from Pulisic.
If this was BVB, two performances like that would have Pulsic on the bench. Granted that's not what I am advocating, it is time for a change in personnel and/or strategy because this is not working. Pulisic, Altidore, Wood, and Johnson all had awful games. When 4 of your 5 or 6 top guys all have poor games, you're not looking at a situation where you can chalk it up to a bad day. This is the second home game that the US has lost in this cycle of the hexagonal. At least they scored one against Mexico. In a performance where home points were needed severely, the offense didn't manage a single clear chance on goal. Not one. So, the problem is worse, not better. Dempsey needs to be on the field. Period.
Pulisic is like Obi-Wan Kenobi, our only hope. But he needs to learn to play as part of the team, not trying to be the star who scores the highlights. That may work versus Trinidad or Honduras, but when facing Mexico and Costa Rica, some humility is needed.
In reality Costa Rica has better center mids. The connection between Ruiz, Bolaños and Borges is stronger than our Bradley-Nagbe-Altidore, in other words, Arena was outcoached. The Gold Cup gave a lot of you false expectations, in reality, we beat mostly B teams. Back to reality, Mexico is above the US and Costa Rica, the Ticos are a little better than we are because of Navas and Borges, Ruiz also is a very special player. The game was winnable with a better tactic. Costa Rica was simply better prepared, did you notice that any time Pulisic had the ball, 2 or 3 Ticos came at him hard? really hard, I'm glad they didn't hurt him, they knew what they were doing. Arena needs to do his homework, know his rival better, know how to hurt them, know their weakness and strengths. He said it himself and I agree 100%, he was completely out coached. Tough one in Honduras, Honduras are dirty and physical, they have a few players that can hurt us, lets hope Bruce does his homework this time.
Wow, this post is not like your typical posts, you must be really upset at the loss. First of all we lost because we conceded, not because the attack did not produce a goal. You can still get a point if your keeper and CB's do not have a howler and concede two soft goals. I love Cameron, but I have to give him the assist on the second CR goal. Pulisic was not great but he was not gash, he did create some danger, and we just did not have our finishing boots on. Bradley failed to see any of his first half runs and at one point you could see Pulli was visibly upset as he was making a run, was open and Michael passed the ball sideways or backwards, for the umpteenth time. The real problem was the midfield of MB and DN was too static without the ball and were in too big a hurry to rotate back instead of helping the other drive the attack forward. Neither "presented" himself to other, it was almost like pass to my mate and go hide. Bradley and Nagbe had no control of the middle of the pitch, and as such we stood no chance. I know that Jones was no BS favorite, but we seldom saw the other team run roughshod over our midfield when we had him. The CB's were bad too, but I am willing to give Geoff a pass since he has never played that poorly for club or country. On rewatching I think he got frustrated and simply tried to do too much. I don't think it was as bad as is made out here, and most of the blame is on Bruce for poor tactics and personnel choices. I do not see Bradley and Nagbe being able to control a two man midfield, ever. If you cannot at least hold your own in the center of the park you are not going to win many games. Should be an easy fix if Bruce can learn from his mistakes.