Pages and pages of garbage posts about Covid and EPL transfers. The first top 5 league game in months and there are three posts. I didn’t see game. I did see that FotMob Gabe him the best rating in the Shalke side. How did he do?
There was a game-day thread. Lots of people posted there. I watched the game. I didn’t think WM looked very good. Also, S04 isn’t a very talented squad and are not a joy to watch. They have very minimal attacking talent.
They've made it past the quarterfinals once in the 21st century. The post you quoted is exactly right - it's a big club that players want to go to, but it's rarely the final goal for a great player.
Bad take on McKennie's game, frankly. He completed 82% of his passes, half of those in the attacking half, won 5 of 7 50-50 challenges, had 5 interceptions, had 14 defensive recoveries, and was Schalke's highest-rated player today by a margin. Opinions on Schalke generally, 100% agree, they're a ********ing chore to watch, but McKennie was good today, even if his team got smoked.
McKennie came to play today and it showed. His teammates let not only themselves down, but also all of their supporters in the Gelsenkirchen area. Very little heart out on that field from their side today and they should be ashamed. You don't bemoan the dire financial straits of your team and then come out and play shite like that. Shambolic all around.
Agreed. He might have been the only bright spot in the entire game for Schalke. I thought he played pretty well... especially considering the lackluster performance from most of his teammates.
I thought McKennie was too sloppy at times with the ball. This happens too often with him. I also thought McKennie was the best player for Schalke in the game and busted his butt defensively. Schalke has been outscored 19-2 over the last 752 Bundesliga minutes. The team has big problems right now
Of the 40 players to get more than 10 starts in central/defensive midfield this season, only 4 are currently under age 23. McKennie is the only 21 y/o in the group. His tidiness on the ball is the only major obstacle preventing his reaching big-club level. But it potentially can be improved. Michael Bradley's touch and tidiness improved immensely during his time--before the foot injury--in Serie A.
Agree with this. He was better than the rest, but he’s still got room to grow in his game, especially on offense. Perhaps he’s trying too hard because of the lack of production around him. Dunno.
McKennie, like most of Schalke, looked a bit out of shape to me. He looked worn down by the 33rd minute, but recovered surprisingly well after that I thought.
Some posts on the game day thread, but tbh Schalke was so out of the game it's hard to say. He ran a lot, but seemed rusty to my eye. I had trouble staying interested though. Was not attractive footie, which is no surprise given the layoff and circumstances.
Been saying this for a while. Schalke are just not very good. Their position this season always flattered and it took longer for them to be found out than I expected. Hard working. Pluggers. But not upper B1 skill by any stretch.
Soccer is boring dude. Can't blame you. Wes was ok. Schalke has a serious problem in the backline, so they played with three guys there, including the 20 year old Todibo and the just-back-from-injury Salif Sané. So McKennie's role was to cover the back line from central attacks. Since Dortmund attacks mainly through the wings, they got carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. As someone remarked in one of their boards: "Unsere iv ist bereits in der Hinrunde komplett (!) ausgefallen - uns hat das aber nicht gejuckt. Weitergemacht wie zuvor. Mit McKennie in der IV. Und das erfolgreich." So with McKennie filling in when CBs are missing, or playing a cover role, little can be expected from him, except try to keep the score decent.
That's gonna leave a mark... The scoreline is in the name 😉😂Schalke 0-4 🖤💛— Axel Witsel (@axelwitsel28) May 16, 2020
Without Reyna, I found the game unbearably boring. As to McKennie, I just don't like to watch him. His game seldom interests me. Obviously, just my sense of the matter, but he seldom seems to drive the play beyond one pass or strive to work with other players in the attack. He does something nice, then backs off. I feel he has additional gears, both physical and mental, but seldom uses them and, as a result, Schalke hardly ever gets his maximum contribution. I find that disconcerting because his skill level makes me think he should be the leader on the team, pushing, pushing, pushing.
I think it's pretty obvious McKennie has been instructed to keep back offering coverage to their weak CBs and that's why he's not combining going forward.
Like @Suyuntuy noted, he'd obviously been told to stay back to protect their lousy CBs. And, even if their CBs were decent, if you're facing the Dortmund attack and you're not Bayern, damage limitation is Job # 1. He may well have additional gears, but coaches put players in positions where they contribute most to the team. Wes can play well anywhere, but the greatest need yesterday was DM so that's where he played.
I sort of view Dortmund in the same category as Atletico Madrid or Tottenham currently. Those are obviously sought after destinations for top quality players and clubs with the potential to achieve the biggest results imaginable, but they're not usually the pinnacle of top players' professional aspirations, the same way Bayern, Real, Barca, or Juve may be, or Man U and AC Milan a decade ago (maybe Man City and Liverpool nowadays, though the former is lacking any Champions League success while the latter has, at least until the end of this season, never won a Premier League title).
I know we've had this discussion here before, but after initially thinking it a bad idea, I'd be intrigued by a Serie A move for McKennie. His game is probably fine for mid-table Bundesliga or lower-table EPL. He's "all-action" (as the British commentators say), and he's not unskilled, but he's lacking that refinement in terms of positioning and knowing what pass to pick at what moment that keep him from being a top-class #8. I'd be curious to see if some experience in Italy could provide that refinement and take his game to a new level.
Schalke’s defense is pretty bad. 3 of the 4 goals were straight up the gut. Their back 4 were more like a back 2 with the wide backs pushing way up a lot of the time. This led to just the two center backs and McKennie in the 8 role running left and right to cover everything. Dortmund is just too skilled against such a porous defense.
He’d look a lot better with a little more quality around him, I think. He does so much cleanup work in the course of a game, how much of that is because S04 are constantly giving it back immediately. Nobody capable of holding the ball, nobody to create.