Indeed. The traditional #10 is pretty rare on the ground these days, '10' when applied to a modern player, rarely means 'traditional 10'
One thing Pomykal isn't................is a floppy-haired playmaker hanging out in the attacking third. He usually doesn't play the kinds of balls we saw from Aaronson last night. On the offensive end he's usually driving hard into the box and wreaking havoc. Just to drive home that point, in his MLS career Paxton Pomykal only has 5 assists (regular season and playoffs). He's a little bowling ball of hate. Kid has used this down time to work on his body. It might be a good thing, as the kid has had surgery on both knees and his core. Maybe this downtime will have been good for him. He's gotta be able to stay healthy, which he hasn't been able to do so far in his career.
By the way.......................love what Philly is doing. McKenzie and Aaronson aren't the last. They've got a wave of talent coming, and they're willing to play them. By the way, Philly and FCD kicked butt in 2019 in terms of domestic minutes even though they each lost their players for significant international duty commitments. For instance Dallas lost Pomykal, Servania, and Cerrillo to the U20 World Cup team (and Cannon to the Gold Cup), Philly lost Real and McKenzie. The quality of that 2019 World Cup team can be exemplified by the fact that Aaronson didn't make it. Lost out to Alex Mendez (now at Ajax) and Ledezma (PSV). Here are the MLS teams who gave 10% or more of their minutes to domestic players* in each of the last three seasons*. FC Dallas and the Union are the only ones to appear twice.*Domestic counted as anyone American, Canadian, or on a HGP contract*2020 data only through July 16 pic.twitter.com/H5B58qHwVd— natfan9.bsky.social (@NatFan9) July 31, 2020
Aaronson primarily works the right side but has the freedom to come inside if the play dictates to do so like when he made the killer pass for the score. I see Pax more like a traditional 8 with more freedom to roam anywhere. Aaronson's game is starting to look similar to Reyna's, meaning assigned to the wing but with the freedom to roam inside.
Yup. Aaronson can definitely play either out wide or centrally. Getting lots of praise. 1289224946997055488 is not a valid tweet id
Curtin has done a good job integrating him to get eventual benefit and ROI while Philly were able to achieve sufficient success in the interim. A lot of managers, especially outside the biggest markets/spending owners, could learn from this, like you hope they could have done w/ NYRB or FCD. You hope Olsen/DC is one. Soon you'll see more copycats, w/ those clubs having to admit their previous errors. I think you'll even have to see a sexy club like LAG adjust because now they're not the only game in town.
Aaronson can come from wide positions but is typically playing off the forwards. Less often, he is closer to the dmid. Last year, he played LCM. It wouldn't really be accurate to portray him as playing wide, though. Pomykal is just a modern 8/10.
What will REALLY help the youth/development initiatives in the league is a club like Philly or FCD or RSL winning MLS Cup. Last year LAFC walked into the league and won SS without a minute of academy/homegrown play (for obvious reasons). Atlanta has done a great job winning trophies since joining the league. THey haven't done a good job developing their homegrown talent (Carleton, Goslin, Bello, etc.) We can keep going with that analysis. We're an an era in which the big spenders win MLS Cups (TFC, Seattle as well), and not the clubs with a youth/development focus. It also doesn't help that every time one of these clubs develops a prospect, everybody demands that they sell him the second he starts having an impact.
Olsen's problem is less integrating young players and more developing them once they do get playing time. Plenty of young players get time and either sink or swim on their own.
Watching him last night, where he was playing reminded my of Dempsey with the USMNT. Drop in a play midfield when needed and play off the striker in the final third. BA would, many times, form a front 2 with the striker.
He plays them early a couple times to appease people, then bails, regardless if you showed capability like Pines, or not in Yow. This is a common practice among MLS coaches. I don't have an issue w/ the way he's used Paredes or even not Nyeman so far. But follow their logical paths to yield a ROI. Give Nyeman opportunities when games are out of hand & expand if he shows well. Keep expanding from the bench oppos Paredes has gotten as he has performed. Stick w/ guys to integrate them. Start playing Pines again. He could be another Miles Robinson. Ship Birnbaum to LAG or something if that's what's required to make it happen. Too must trusting of vets and emotional attachments to club soldiers. As far as development, I can't say much about what Olsen should be doing different. The bulk of that takes place in academy or practice. I'm not privy to the points Olsen is making to them to work on weaknesses. Obviously DCU have often played a rudimentary style to not ideally hone skills of formative players, but they don't play due to talent to ultimately stagnate in the first place.
I don't think winning league should be the standard when in Europe outside big clubs they have next to no shot at triumph. Success is being in contention even. Obviously MLS is more a relative parity league, but w/ more teams, and the big markets enjoying better resources. NYRB won Supporter's Shields. Philly enjoyed big improvements over their prior strategy, finishing 3rd in the Eastern Conference. Now they're final four in this tourney. FCD makes the playoffs w/ growth potential. Weren't allowed to show it in this tourney. It would help winning a title, but that shouldn't be the criteria. More of these clubs improving their outlook should be enough. The bigger-spending clubs could also sustain or maximize success by having a youth component. How badly has LAG under-achieved the last few seasons w/out one in a hotbed?
Aside from the boost given during the Wayne Rooney years, DC's pattern of play has shown very little development or improvement over the years. Also, individual players who had arrived as youths have shown little improvement. At the other end, players who had arrived as talented, accomplished pros have regressed.
I'm hearing the current plan is for #EveryoneN to play #DTID next Friday in Frisco, the first of three matches to make up their missed #MLSisBack group stage games. More details to come.— Ben Wright (@benwright) July 30, 2020 This is a fun rumor, we may get to see all the youngsters at FCD play a few games in the real COVID Cup. He really does play high up the field. ,On Busio I only saw from the water break in the 1st half where they were down 2-0. I thought his teammates needed to pass him the ball more as he put himself in what looked like good spots to me. Maybe it's nothing but I liked how he had the same idea as Pulido and was the first guy crashing the box on what turned out to be the lone goal. I wish PV had left him on in the second half, he could have taken off Salloi who seemed to be making up the numbers.
Orlando wins in PKs. Entertaining game and I love that LAFC is going home... I can't stand the announcers slobbering all over them. At any rate, Blackmon shows again why he should be a CB rather than a RB. He really doesn't do great on the ball unless he has a head of steam and then has a hard time making a guy miss more than once. His best passes are of the thru variety and can be quite good... nice angles with touch. Defensively, he made a goal saving play in a CB part of the field... but was made to look a little silly on the edge a few times. His best games have been at CB... but it looks like RB is the only way he is going to get regular minutes as Bradley has his starting pair and appears to be sticking to it. Mueller hurt early (shoulder) and had to come off at the half. Dike and Michel were not all that good in their sub appearances... Michel was actually pretty bad IMO... He lost the ball quite a few times and didn't really penetrate.
Agree. also think that the real key to success in MLS (unless they change the rules again) will be to really go all out with youth development. Unlike other leagues without a salary cap (and all kinds of weird rules), there is no real ability to buy a whole team as is possible in EPL, La Liga etc. An oil sheik can come in and buy a team at any time but he can only use his cash effectively on a relatively small part of the roster. The best way to get the most out of the rest of the roster is through developing top young players. So far, who have been the top names on the youth heavy teams? So far the most teams have done one or the other but not both. Take some of the most productive DP's and pair them with a successful development program and see where that goes. The right DP could also do wonders for the development of some of the young players.
LAFC had signed Andy Najar, who likely would've been the starting RB, had he not been returning to full fitness after a knee injury. So there's a good chance Blackmon moves the CB. Think the biggest boost to youth dev would be the addition of a real money transfer layer. A team like FCD would be able to more reliably transfer its academy products for tidy returns. The young American players, more evenly distributed, would get more playing time. More value would thus be added to these players. Sell-on fees could be added for any inter-league transfers. Look at how Bob has LAFC playing. Sure, he has plenty of South American talent. But Kaye came from the USL. Blessing was gotten off SKC's scrap heap. And Blackmon was drafted. It'd be great if instead of having to acquire so much foreign talent, Bob could simply buy young American players from teams like Dallas. He would then be adding to value to MLS academy players.
If the USMNT is playing in a conventional 4-3-3, what position does Aaronson play and what position does Pomykal play?
Aaronson could play as the RW with a guy like Dest providing width down the flank. He could also play as the most attacking player within the midfield three. Pomykal would most likely play as either the most attacking, or second-most attacking player in the midfield three. He played a bit of wing back in the day as well and could fill in there, but he's morphing into more of an 8/10.
Aaronson plays where Pulisic would play. Midfield,shade left, with ability to move him right if dest gets pinned back or go wide left when morris shifts to the right. Aaronson is the "free 8" and smiley face is the positional (defensive) 8. . -----------morris--------cf ---------------------gio-- -----aaronson--adams---8--dest(rwb) -----lcb-------cb----------cb-----
I'd say against Concacaf teams we'd see something like this. Zardes Arriola Morris Aaronson Pomykal Yeuill Against better teams with European players and assuming they both continue progressing I don't think we play both together and instead do something like the below. Sargent Pulisic Morris/Reyna Aaronson/Pomykal Adams Mckenzie
I agree, they probably won't both be on the field together for a long time. My point is ...... all these people saying they don't play the same position. But, if you look at a conventional 4-3-3 ...... they play the same position. If anything, if we played a Jay'sBrother 4-3-3, with a single 6, I could see Pomy playing the 6, while I couldn't see Aaronson doing that. But, with his workrate, passing, ball control - if Aaronson could be a ball winner - the most important part - maybe he could be an outstandint 6. I refer back to Holden. He was very skilled offensively. But, having that ball-winner component allowed him to rise to a level pretty far above what he would have as a more attacking player.