Sargent is one of 5 U21 forwards to score in the Bundesliga this season. If you go back through the past 5 seasons, the only U21 forwards to score more than Sargent's 3 in a season are: Timo Werner - 14 (2016-17) Luka Jovic - 12 (2018-19) Jean-Kevin Augustin - 9 (2017-18) Luka Jovic - 8 (2017-18) Timo Werner - 6 (2015-16) So take that Werner 2015-16 season as an example, because the comparison to Sargent 2019-20 works well. Werner turned 20 in March, Sargent turned 20 in February. Stuttgart finished in 17th and were relegated, Bremen is 17th and careening towards relegation. Here's the difference: Werner started 26 league games, played in 33, and had 2,196 minutes. Sargent has started 11 league games, played in 21, and has 1,006 minutes. So, take Sargent's 3 goals, 2 assists, 1,006 minutes, double them to get to Werner's minutes, and you match Werner's output of 6 goals and 4 assists. I'm not saying Sargent is going to be Timo Werner in 5 years, but his path is instructive - it's really hard to be a young forward on a shitty team, and it's especially difficult if you don't get the minutes you probably should.
Hell, I'd be content if he was scoring 5-7 goals a season. It looks like another cause of a McBride at Fulham type situation where top scorer of a club in relegation danger far from double digits.
FWIW: W/ Josh starting: 1.364 pts, 46 pt pace, tied for 8th W/out: .488 pts, 15 pt pace, dead last by a mile There are a lot of other variables, but most managers stick w/ what's working, and w/ Josh, it's not not been working as a team. If he's a problem, a good majority of their players are, he plays hard, occupies defenders, secures possession up field when they can actually get the ball to him, and still has shown some opportunism on a team with a horrible mf. Change around the mf, to have more ball-winners, and creators before you start messing w/ the fw spot. Kohfeldt could also play 2 fw's w/ Selke as the guy up top who gets behind the df, and Sargent in behind as the trailing finisher + back to goal outlet for the Werder mf who are usually up against it.
I thought he looked better the last game. He was more aggressive off the ball and on defense. Not all Just trotting to and fro but he actually was pressuring people. The team looked a bit more peppy. Bremen needS to actually start clicking in the final third to stay up, still a lot of wasted possessions team-wise.
Gone are the days where Europeans where shocked a Yank could score a goal. Now it's in vogue to have one or several in your academy. What do club supporters think of Josh?
Sargent got a 3,5 from Kicker, which puts him as the worst rated player in Bremen with Osako and Eggestein. Still, not bad, considering it's Kicker. https://www.kicker.de/4588905/schema/werder-bremen-4/borussia-mgladbach-15
did Kicker even watch the match? Massive grade inflation there across the board. Game didn't deserve such high grades.
Great deep dive. I think you should add that Timo had that season on the back of two seasons in where he had over 30 appearances. His goal totals for Stuttgart go 4, 3, and finally to that 6 goal season. Sargent finally got over having 30 Bundesliga appearances and has netted 5 goals across those two seasons. So basically Sargent has played in a third of the games that Werner had up to this point based on respective ages.
Josh should probably find another BL suitor if Bremen get the drop. He is proving to be competent at this level and, with slightly better service, could prove very useful. FWIW, Bremen are pretty freaking bad.
And, with Dusseldorf getting the win over Schalke, Bremen are in real trouble again. Five points behind with seven games to go and with a -8 GD to ovecome, it's squeaky bum time on the Weser.
It's not about him finding a better team, it's about a better team wanting him enough to pay for him.
This is great, thanks. I've taken Sargent's stats per 90 minutes before, but very useful to him compared to other BL youth. I think the most annoying "thing" currently going on the US BS boards (and general twitter fandom) is that Sargent is so bad, and needs to start scoring, and he's falling way down our starting #9 pecking order. His team is absolutely horrible, yet have 5 points in the last 3 games he's started (including one game he hit that left footed banger that a grand total of 0 players in our NT pool could do). I think he's doing well, and progressing pretty much at the pace that should be expected. Hopefully he grabs another start tomorrow, and keep his little mini-run of first team minutes going.
The expectations for our youth are kind of insane. Sargent needs to have 15+ goals. Uly Llanez is 19, but if he doesn't play in the next three weeks, he's a failure and should move on. I don't even think we should be writing off 23 year olds like EPB or Keaton Parks yet; we definitely shouldn't be done with 20 year olds.
I blame it on Pulisic/McKennie/Adams/Reyna. Just 3-4 years ago, a 19-20 year old with multiple goals in a top 3 league would have everyone in the clouds, and he'd be one of our top players. But we went from hardly any players in a top 3 league to quite a few, and not only that, but the new ones are performing at levels no American has ever achieved. Now a 19-20 year old getting spot minutes for a relegation squad is not only unimpressive for many, but it's somehow a negative!
I don't really care about Sargent's lack of statistical production at this age. For me, it's more about the eye test. I've said some version of this in various threads, but again: He's not slow, but he's not fast enough to create chances for himself at this level with his speed. He's not unskilled, but he's not skilled enough to consistently create chances for himself at this level with his skill. So, he's very reliant on good service, which is, admittedly, in short supply at Bremen, but his off-the-ball movement also seems to be erratic--sometimes he's running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and other times he's jogging around the 18 when he should be making some sort of decisive run to demand the ball. I think that it would help a lot to get onto a different team, where he'll get better service, with a different coach, who can work with him on his movement, but I don't see a super high upside here. I think he can become a solid striker for a mid- or lower-level Bundesliga team, but that's about his ceiling in my opinion. Of course, if he is mostly a starter for teams at that level for the next 10 years, that would arguably make him the most successful American forward ever. So, I'm not saying he's a bad player, but he's not in the same category as Pulisic, Adams, Reyna, or Dest for me.
This is relatively fair, if maybe a bit negative in my opinion. I think the illustrious eye test is basically impossible to use with this awful team. In MLS he's probably getting 10-15 goals, thus passing the eye test. Hardly anyone on werder passes the eye test, yet 6 goal rashica is subject to a big money move to the EPL. Juventus apparently has used the eye test on Sargent, and he's passed (obviously not saying he's at that level). I also think a mid-table top 3 league starter for 10 years, like you said, would be pretty great, and most fans would take that as likely the best striker we've ever had.
The problem here is that, if you scouted Sargent before Werder, his positive aspect was his finishing and nose for goal. For an American, he was skilled, sure. He's not slow, but his game has never been athleticism. What he was and is is the rare American who actually places their shots effectively. For a nation whose #1 issue is lack of scoring conversion, I was excited. His other big positive was a strong sense of tactical knowledge - he ended up in the right place, made the small little moves to get open. Bremen takes the finishing away. And there doesn't seem to be ANY tactical plan offensively. So you are right, he comes across as unremarkable. And maybe his finishing isn't much either at this level. But it's just really hard to tell. If he was someone like Davies, you'd still see the special. But you can't see enough now to tell if it is there or not.
I think this is a fair assessment. I don't agree that a CF has to have elite pace like one of the previous posts posits. It certainly helps but there are a lot of successful strikers that are not burners. But w/o it he has to have at least one well-above average skill if not three. I think he has quality with respect to his hold-up play already. Not elite, but he has promise. I too think he has potential w/ respect to his striking accuracy... but right now it is very difficult to tell whether he will ever get there because he is getting roughly 1 or 2 chances a game to actually strike the ball. Right now, Bremen and Schalke have the worst offensives to watch in the Bundesliga. Really hard to watch and that is saying a lot because they have USMNT playing for them... which admittedly makes it much-watch-tv for me.
His contract runs to the summer of 2022. Also, the "lack of service" and "his team sucks" are old excuses. Sometimes we have to come to terms that the team of our guy may suck in part because of him. Fortuna is a terrible team that provides almost nothing to their forwards either, yet Karaman has managed to score six after being injured most of the season, saving them from relegation, creating his own chances, being astute and catching anything without taking that extra second.
I agree that those are old excuses. He has been part of the problem. I've noticed that Josh does not make good runs. A good forward can create a chance for himself with an excellent run, even on a poor team. It always seems like Josh is running blindly away from the ball instead of making himself available in half-spaces.
Karaman and Sargent have similar minutes, and Karaman, 26, has 6 goals and 1 assist and Sargent, 20, has 3 and 2, with a decent portion of his minutes at winger. He's got 2 more g+a... which is better goals + assist for sure. But you know, the rest of your post seems to be quite a bit narrative. I'm not trying to posit that Sargent is great on a terrible team, but he's not terrible on a terrible team. He's 20, decent, with good potential and I haven't really wavered on my long term view of him. Why is Karaman a comparison point anyway? Why not Burgstaller? Bigger team, 1400 minutes, 2 goals. Picking a single individual to compare to isn't really a good way to evaluate anyone.