Further, I've seen plenty of people claim "well his team stinks, he must really stink to not get any minutes!" He's played what, 10 games worth of minutes? Less? And he's part of the problem? I think the first time he's started two games in a row are the last two games and they have 4 points. So yeah, that argument is just picking a narrative and finding a way "prove" it.
There are plenty of us who hype up Americans past the point of deserving. There are plenty of us who try too hard to find positives or are too forgiving. But there's also USMNT fans who seem to find a certain space in which they take pleasure in their "realism" or "credibility" by being absurdly harsh on Americans -- there's almost a jump to be the first to claim someone is overrate, sucks, done, etc. Just look at the posts at the first few weeks at Chelsea for Pulisic or when he was a backup at Dortmund. People want to prove they aren't homers to an absurd extent. There's also the instant gratification folks who need everyone to be immediately a star. Takes all kinds. I'm the type who can be too forgiving and tries to find the positives, I suppose. But even taking that into account, it's hard to be too hard on a 20 year old starting a decent amount at striker in the Bundesliga.
I don't think that people are writing him off completely, but Sargent himself has not looked very good, which is why he's been in and out of the lineup on a very bad team that can't score with or without him.
People are just recognizing that Sargent has played poorly this season. That doesn't mean he's destined to be a failure. I do however have questions about his physical tools and game intelligence that will need some answering in the near future.
Everyone at Werder looks bad though. Sargent isn't in and out of the lineup because he's been worse than other strikers, it's because he (and the club) is being mismanaged.
Everyone has been bad. But I've watched most of his minutes this year. I've seen many bad plays from Sargent that cannot be blamed on his teammates. For example, losing the ball for no reason; not putting himself in helpful positions; not being physical enough to win headers; falling down for no reason. If you want to show you are better than the rest of your bad team, you need to prove it with play on the field. I haven't seen him do that yet. Fortunately, he's still a young dude. He has a couple years to fully mature into his final form. I remain hopeful.
Thing is, I don't see any growth in Sargent as a player. Just at a time when you expect to see him rise, he's stuck and in a way, even worse than he was before.
Sargent is in many respects testing new waters for an American player. Jozy Altidore is the only striker I can think of who has been on the books of a European team so young. How's this for comparison? NOTE: Did not count cup or playoff appearances. These are just league appearances and goals. Striker A- July birthday (so everything before he turned 20) 17-18- 5 goals in 18 appearances at the League One level 18-19- 7 goals in 22 appearances at the Championship level 19-20- 0 goals in 3 appearances at the Premier League Level. 2 goals in 13 appearances at the Championship level Total- 14 goals in 56 appearances International U-17- 2 goals in 3 appearances U-19/U20- 7 goals in 17 appearances All of these were with different teams at different levels, but we can see how relative success in the Championship did not grant success at the Premier League level, and with a different team we saw diminished results. Also we can see that he had a pretty nice youth international career. Striker B November Birthday (last year player was 20 for half the last year) 16-17- 3 goals in 7 appearances at the MLS level 17-18- 9 goals in 22 appearances at the MLS level 18-19- 3 goals in 8 appearances at the MLS level 1 goal in 6 appearances at the La Liga level 19-20 1 goal in 28 appearances at the Premier League level Total- 16 goals in 65 appearances International U-17- 0 goals in 3 appearances U-20- 4 goals in 5 appearances Full International-10 goals in 32 appearances If you were judging Striker A against Striker B it all depends on how you rate the MLS to League One/Championship. I see very similar outputs here. Striker A plays for a much more competitive national team and we can see he performed well at different levels with different teams. Striker B dominated the MLS and U-20 levels and had quite a bit of full international success. Striker C February Birthday (player was 20 for a short time of the last year) 17-18- 7 goals in 12 appearances at the Regionalla Nord level 18-19- 2 goals in 10 appearances at the Bundesliga level 19-20- 3 goals in 21 appearances at the Bundesliga level Total- 12 goals in 43 appearances International U-17- 25 goals in 44 appearances U-20- 4 goals in 5 appearances Full International- 5 goals in 12 appearances We see a dominant Youth player, that quickly established that he should be playing against men in professional leagues. Has struggled to score at the Bundesliga, but dominated pretty every other level he played at. He's guilty of having over half of his goals come at the lowest level compared to all other strikers, except striker E. Performed much better than Striker D at the Regionalla Nord level. Striker D- March Birthday 17-18- 6 goals in 20 appearances at the Regionalla Nord level 18-19- 7 goals in 22 appearances at the MLS level 3 goals in 8 appearances at the Oberliga level 19-20- 7 goals in 20 appearances at the MLS level Total- 23 goals in 70 appearances International- U-17- 35 goals in 41 appearances U-20- 0 goals in 4 appearances Full International- 7 goals in 29 appearances Striker D was never tested at the higher levels at the club level like the three previous strikers. He dominated the U-17 level moreso than anyone on the list. Demonstrated he could score at the full international level. Striker E- March Birthday Before age 21- 17 goals in 62 appearances at the Collegiate Level International U-20 1 goal in 13 appearances Striker E put together very similar "club" numbers to the previous four strikers, but easily at the lowest level. Easily the weakest international career of all five strikers. Striker F- November Birthday 17-18- 0 goals in 2 appearances at the MLS level 18-19 6 goals in 29 appearances at the MLS level 19-20 3 goals in 24 appearances at the MLS level Total- 9 goals in 55 appearances International U-17 12 goals in 17 appearances U-20 2 goals in 8 appearances Full- 2 goals in 16 appearances Striker F dominated the lower youth levels and had decent success at the MLS level in his 18-19 aged season. Clearly did not repeat that success in MLS as Strikers B and D did. Strikers B, C, and D all saw better success with the full international team. Striker G February Birthday 17-18 1 goal in 11 appearances at the Primera level 18-19 11 goals in 32 appearances at the Primera level 19-20 12 goals in 23 appearances at the Primera level Total 24 goals in 66 appearances International U-17 2 goals in 6 appearances U-20 8 goals in 6 appearances Full level 2 goals in 10 appearances Out of all the strikers this is clearly the one most destined to succeed. He only performed at a high club level and did had the best scoring record out of the bunch. He also performed the best at the U-20 level, and had 10 caps for Argentina. I would imagine the lack of goals might be due to his appearances being substitute ones, but that is just a guess. Striker A- Harry Kane Striker B- Jozy Altidore Striker C- Josh Sargent Striker D- Landon Donovan Striker E- Clint Dempsey Striker F- Juan Agudelo Striker G- Carlos Tevez Now obviously Landon Donovan and Dempsey (at this point in his career) were not traditional strikers and that should matter when comparing goalscoring outputs. That being said, both were clearly focal points of their clubs attack. Sargent has oddly had the most stability out of all of them except for Dempsey playing for just USMNT teams and Werder. Harry Kane was the youngest out of all of these players and that weight should matter. But here are the big takeaways for me relative to Sargent. He NEEDS to play more. Every other striker not only played more games at the club level, but scored more goals. Where it's easy to make apple and apple comparisons Sargent has performed really well. Like Donovan he dominated the youth levels. He hasn't appeared as much at the full level as Altidore or Donovan, but there is nothing that would indicate that either of them could have performed better than Josh in the same situation. People just need to relax and let Josh continue to play. If he was the same exact age as Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore, and Landon Donovan I think he clearly slots in as the second best option behind Donovan. Just for fun here is what each striker did in their age 21 season. Harry Kane 3 goals in 10 appearances at the Premier League Level 1 goal in 2 appearances in the League Cup 0 goals in 7 appearances in the Europa League. Jozy Altidore 1 goal in 12 appearances at the Super Lig level. 3 goals in 13 appearances at the full international level Landon Donovan 12 goals in 22 appearances at the MLS level 7 goals in 15 appearances at the full international level Clint Dempsey 7 goals in 24 appearances at the MLS level 0 goals in 1 appearance at the full international level Juan Agudelo 6 goals in 20 appearances at the MLS level 0 goals in 1 appearance at the full international level Carlos Tevez 2 goals in 9 appearances at the Primera Level 20 goals in 29 appearances at the Campeonata Brasileiro Serie A level 0 goals in 9 appearances at the full international level So my point here is that I think it's pretty clear that yanksabroad clearly is suffering from cognitive bias when evaluating Josh. I've played fantasy baseball in a DEEEP keeper league for over a decade. I constantly evaluate prospects based on AGE and more importantly LEVEL. If I see an 18 year old perform decently well at high A that's a way better indicator of future performance than say a 22 year old destroying AA. One of my friends is a professional fantasy football writer and he has developed a similar ranking scale based on age for collegiate performance. The trend is undeniable if you achieve at a level where you are one of the youngest players future success is likely. It's why Harry Kane with the youngest birthday in the whole group pretty clearly ended up standing out. Josh is performing about how you would expect a 20 year old striker would perform on a bottom of the table team in the Bundesliga. If anything the whole exercise makes me mad at Bremen for not getting him as much playing time either with them or on loan, because he has the least amount of professional games out of ALL of the strikers. But the simple reality is that out of all of the players I have listed, Tevez is the only one that clearly is on a different trajectory than Josh. I think it is reasonable to assume that had Josh signed with Sporting Kansas City that he would have been in the Altidore/Donovan level of performance in MLS.
The sport itself has gone youth-crazy. You have 19 year olds left and right making millions. The public wants young idols, too. More than ever we live in a culture that idolizes youth. Having more young players playing in a Top 5 league is "breaking news" not just for us, but for many other countries. Canada, for example.
Because Karaman is playing for Dusseldorf, an equally crap team in term of creativity that is Bremen's direct competition in the relegation struggle Comparing apples to apples and all that
Sargent gets the start next to Rashica who is a real talent. These two theoretically should be a great partnership.
3️⃣ changes from midweek 🔁Our lineup for this afternoon 📋#werder #S04SVW pic.twitter.com/YV1T3UXPR4— SV Werder Bremen EN (@werderbremen_en) May 30, 2020
I took a bunch of ibuprofin and am ready to settle in watching S04 against Bremen. Bottle of Jack nearby in case the pain is still too much
Sargent has played well. But even Bremen's goal is so indicative of their complete lack of an offensive plan. They were on a break, had numbers and still took a shot from outside the box. It went in, but it was far from the best shot they could have made from that.
You'd have to say he had a solid game, even if he didn't score or assist. Werder missed a few chances to play him in. That was a big part of it. But for what he could more control, he checked back well, held up pretty efficiently, advanced a little, pressed effectively, and even made key defensive interventions in his own 3rd. Left Werder w/ another lead, so again better w/ him on the field.
He played really well in the first half, including a couple of plays that easily could have been assists. I know people think of it as an excuse, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a half where one team dominated possession as much as Bremen and got so few balls into the box ever. Just absolutely no attempt. Every midfielder on that team tries to dribble through three guys and then take a long shot.
Agreed. He seems to be growing into his role despite the lack of goals/assists. He never seems to get any service in the box and today was no different. On the Bittencourt majestic goal the correct pass from Rashica should have been out left to Sargent. It worked out but the pass was into the numbers rather than to the open advantage. Later on Bittencourt tries to grab a brace on what was a very low % angle instead of passing it to an open Sargent right next to him. I kind of feel for him. He can go games w/o a single meaningful pass to him in the 18. Despite that, his hustle and hold-up play have been very good recently and Bremen are winning... so all signs point to Sargent getting more starts down the stretch. They might actually be able to climb out of this mess.
I liked Kohfeldt's adjustment w/ the 442 diamond. Better shape to have #'s in midfield, help up top, and connect at levels of the field when they're starting deeper. W/ the 433 and not pressing they needed to pass thru the defense or it was a 451. Don't have the skill. Hope the shape remains, w/ Sargent one of the two, I'd have Selke as his partner, and Rashica underneath.
Apologies for the cross-sport reference, but Bittencourt is the Lance Stephenson of the Bundesliga. Dude is super talented but he's just a negative teammate on the field.