what is that list based on? its not club play cause hoppe has more than sarge. cant be international, weah hasnt scored post-covid. is it only forwards, cause mckennie also has more than sarge (im not picking on sarge im just going off the top of my head). is there a time frame? or is this just your personal evaluation?
I’d imagine it’s personal opinion based on ability. Jimenez is #1 and hasn’t played since November. On another note Ghost’s post made me look up stats on a lot of these guys. Jimenez has 5 more minutes in all comps than Weah but only has 3 goals to Weah’s 5 plus 1 assist. Not saying that means anything because a healthy Jimenez is clearly the best striker in CONCACAF but I found it interesting.
Woops. The March 2022 match is scheduled to be a home match since the Costa Rica and Mexico matches that month are away.
So, if the Mooseheads take care of business, they'll host us next January 30. I bet they choose BC Place or The Big O. And the game will be played on plastique. Do they / can they heat the field at BMO?
It's hard to say which is better: scoring 3 goals in the a major first division vs. season(s) with 15 goals in the second division. I went with the second division, in this case, particularly since we can't really say someone like Sargent can be that productive at that level. Lozano has 3 goals in La Liga, but he also scored only 9 goals in his most recent La Liga 2 season. That seems like a fair comparison for Sargent. But who knows, Sargent (or Weah) might score 20 in BL2.We just don't know.
He's only 25, still a solid EPL starter and has been for some time. England is not very deep with regard to true defensive midfielders - according to Transfermarkt, Hayden is #4 among English players by value who are primarily defensive midfielders (Rice, Phillips, and Winks are ahead of him). He probably figures that he is an injury or two away from sneaking into the squad for the coming Euros or Qatar, and he isn't without total justification. If both Rice and Phillips were to be unavailable for any reason, he's suddenly got a real chance to maybe earn a cap or two or sneak onto a tournament roster. If we get to 2022 and a now almost 28 year old Hayden has been leapfrogged by younger prospects and ignored by England, maybe we see him accept a place in Jamaica's player pool. Maybe. I guess? He has also come out publicly and said he was at least open to the idea of representing Jamaica, which is a nice sign. But I still do not at all expect to see him soon. He is only England's 12th most valuable CB, but several of the names ahead of him are older and you never know what a nice run of form for a club at Everton's level can do. I see him waiting until at least Qatar to see what he can do. He'll be 26 then - if Southgate doesn't offer him a spot by that time and we have room on the plane, maybe he joins up. Maybe.
I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be snide. I was genuinely curious about your reasoning. I would probably put Holgate first if I were Jamaican. There aren't a lot of high-end central defenders in CONCACAF. Pairing him with a high-end C-ship player like Hector seems like a big boost. You could also move Hector into the midfield.
Didn't get any impression that you were being snide so no worries at all, no need to apologize I get the reasoning on Holgate, and you're not wrong. But my thought is that while none of our CBs are at Holgate's level, we've got several competing at a high championship level who are very good in that tier (Liam Moore, Chey Dunkley, Mariappa, and I'll add Hector who has struggled with Fulham this year but dominated the Championship before) plus Lowe who is arguably our best CB (and should be in the Championship too tbh). Contrast this with our D-Mid situation, where our best players are Hector (not a true DM), Devon Williams (USL) and Jahshaun Anglin (also USL, first year pro). We should really try capping Joey Dezart (Orlando City) here to see what he has, but beyond him there's just not much in the way of pipeline prospects who are ready to go. If we had a commitment from a solid Championship-caliber guy like Jordan Cousins or maybe Kevin Stewart I could change my tune, but we don't. We could make do with what we have, but Hayden would be a huge boost at DM in a way i don't think Holgate would be at CB, simply because we have more solid Championship-level CBs. In any case, as noted earlier, I dont think either of these guys are ready to commit so it's a moot point. We'll probably end up having to just work with what we've got. Fortunately I think we have plenty.
Alright, so there's a lot more going on than I expected. This is coming straight from the head of the JFF: 1366982325020487681 is not a valid tweet id If we are to believe the JFF president, the following players are not just interested, but have actually started the passport process: Michail Antonio Andre Gray Kemar Roofe Liam Moore Demarai Gray Nathan Redmond Mason Holgate Isaac Hayden Ivan Toney According to the JFF, Max Aarons is the only player listed above that apparently HASN'T started the passport process. We knew about Antonio, Andre Gray, Roofe, and Moore already, but to hear that these other guys have started the passport process is a big surprise. Now, this all sounds a bit too good to be true so I'm taking it with a grain of salt. But you know the old saying: where there is smoke, there is fire. And the head of the JFF going on record confirming these players are basically on board and starting the process for a passport...that is A LOT of smoke. After the Antonio announcement (prior to that I really didn't expect him either), I would not have held my breath for Gray, Redmond, Holgate, hayden or Toney. It looks like the odds of at least a few of those guys joining are quite a bit higher than expected, and we will see some, if not all, commit and secure passports in 2021.
This is tremendous for CONCACAF and for the US. A bunch of debbies here will prolly get scurred that we won't qualify again, but the US is simply too loaded at this point to even come close to not qualifying. Thus - having another bunch of games against real competition will do nothing but help us. I hope Jamaica gets all these guys. Hell, qualifying out of CONCACAF is such a joke already (our team was also a joke in 2017), and it'll only get easier in the future with that awful WC money grab/expansion. This is exciting news. Hope it happens.
Update: Toney and Aarons now confirming they are definitely not accepting Jamaica call-ups. As expected. Both believe they can play for England. This is fine - good luck to them. I think Aarons is fairly close and may have a shot this summer with the Three Lions, Toney we'll see about next year. This report also says that Holgate has NOT responded to the most recent JFF approach, so I expect him to join Toney and Aarons in this decision. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...rons-REJECT-Jamaica-believe-play-England.html This report also adds a few new names to the list of English-Jamaican players being targeted, and claims all are starting their passport process: Kasey Palmer (he was on my wishlist from this post I made on Friday so nice to see him here) Ethan Pinnock Jamal Lowe Curtis Tilt These new guys are all uncontroversial and nowhere near England. Only Palmer has any England youth experience. So taking this report at it's word, players we're likely to see sound like: 1. Andre Gray - Watford (Passport Process started) 2. Chey Dunkley - Sheffield Wednesday (Passport Process Started) 3. Kemar Roofe - Rangers (Passport Process started) 4. Amari'i Bell - Blackburn (Passport process started) 5. Rolando Aarons - Sheffield Wednesday (Passport secured, ready to be called) 6. Djavan Anderson - Lazio (Passport Process started) 7. Blair Turgott - Ostersunds (Passport Process started) 8. Kido Taylor-Hart - Arsenal (Passport Process started) 9. Liam Moore - Reading (Passport secured) 10. Michail Antonio - West Ham (Committed, passport process not yet started) 11. Kasey Palmer - Bristol City (Passport process started) 12. Ethan Pinnock - Brentford (Passport process started) 13. Jamal Lowe - Swansea City (Passport process started) 14. Curtis Tilt - Wigan (Passport Process started) Below is the "don't hold your breath" group: 15. Isaac Hayden - Newcastle (Has started talks with the JFF) 16. Mason Holgate - Everton (JFF has reached out) 17. Demarai Gray - Leverkusen (JFF has reached out) 18. Nathan Redmond - Southampton (JFF has reached out) And, finally, the "definitely not happening/Committed to England" group: 19. Ivan Toney - Brentford 20. Max Aarons - Norwich
So here's a question: What happens if the European clubs don't release their players for this round of games? Does that hurt the minnows more, because they can't access the Nahki Wellses of the world and are down to their domestics, or the powers, because they have a lot of places dropping a level? I assume it hurts the ringer-heavy Caribbean teams the most.
My guess is the smaller teams struggle most. Mexico and the USA and even Canada can exclude players outside of North America and still field a squad consisting entirely of fully professional players, thanks to their domestic leagues. The central American teams, who have domestic leagues that at a bare minimum include at least several clubs who are fully professional, can also get by - they'll just call their domestic fully pro guys and supplement with whomever they have in MLS or the USL. The Caribbeans are mostly screwed because there are no fully professional leagues in the Caribbean. The best leagues (Jamaica, T&T) pay only enough to amount to a part time job. Training and other standards at the best Caribbean clubs are a tier below even the top Central American clubs, nevermind MLS, LigaMX, etc. Jamaica (which won't have to worry about this since they dont play until the final round) would be able get around this because it has so many players in the USL, MLS, CPL and Central America - combine those and they can call up almost a full squad, enough to overpower the smaller Caribbean nations and get by until the Euro-based players are available. Haiti and Trinidad can maybe call up 5-7 of those guys, maybe enough to get by. But Curacao? Antigua? Suriname? Guyana? St. Kitts? They're in trouble. They don't have a big pool competing in any of the North American leagues and they have no professional league to rely on. They now have to depend almost entirely on local semi-pros. That's no-mans land.
https://www.ad.nl/nederlands-voetba...nders-voor-wk-kwalificatie-suriname~a02bc446/ Dean Gorré. © Pim Ras Fotografie Gorré selecteert elf Nederlanders voor WK-kwalificatie Suriname Bondscoach Dean Gorré van het Surinaamse nationale voetbalteam heeft elf Nederlandse spelers met Surinaamse roots geselecteerd voor de komende WK-kwalificatiewedstrijden. Onder heb zijn Anderlecht-doelman Warner Hahn, Damil Dankerlui (FC Groningen), Ryan Donk (Galatasaray), Shaquille Pinas (ADO Den Haag) en Ramon Leeuwin (AZ). Sportredactie 15-03-21, 23:46 Laatste update: 09:11
So in news for Jamaica today, another player on my wishlist from the exchange below that I had a few weeks back in this thread has committed: Jordan Cousins has started his passport process. As I noted above, I think he is a great add for the player pool. He's not as much of a defensive midfield specialist as Hayden or Kevin Stewart but he has played at a high level for some time and should bring some quality in that role if asked. Meanwhile, Jamaica announced their squad for the USA game in a week: Ravel Morrison dropped out, and Jamal Lowe of Swansea dropped in. As you can see, quite a few English-born recruits have made this side. I've already mentioned Andre Gray and Liam Moore, as well as Bell, Tilt and Pinnock. Wesley Harding is a defender (RB or CB) who came up at Birmingham City, became a regular and is now a starter for relegation strugglers Rotherham United in the Championship. He seems like a solid Championship-caliber player, albeit not elite at that level, and should help improve Jamaica's defensive depth substantially. He is also only 24, which bodes well for 2026. Jamal Lowe is a 26 year old forward/winger at Swansea who has worked his way up from non-league football and become a top contributor on a promotion-playoff contender. He is an immediate enhancement of our depth in the attacking midfield and should get plenty of caps. He is going to be by far the most talented attacker in our midfield this game, so this is a real chance for him to make an impression. There's also a commitment from Kayden Jackson, a strike at Ipswich Town in League One. If most of our guys are healthy, he is unlikely to break into our squads at present but is a decent additional depth piece. Jamaica's football federation is in a dispute with the players over match pay - the two sides are about $1000 apart. Andre Blake, Damion Lowe, Kemar Lawrence, and a few other core players are absent because of this. Needless to say, the resolution of this dispute is essential to our success. All of these new recruits are great but we cannot hope to reach our potential without our core stars. If Andre Blake isn't leading this team, we're not seriously going anywhere imo. I'm hopeful both sides see sense before the Gold Cup. Updated Jamaica list: Available in 2021: 1. Andre Gray - Watford (To Debut against USA) 2. Chey Dunkley - Sheffield Wednesday (Passport Process Started) 3. Kemar Roofe - Rangers (Passport Process started) 4. Amari'i Bell - Blackburn (To debut against USA) 5. Rolando Aarons - Sheffield Wednesday (Passport secured, ready to be called) 6. Djavan Anderson - Lazio (Passport Process started) 7. Blair Turgott - Ostersunds (Passport Process started) 8. Kido Taylor-Hart - Arsenal (Passport Process started) 9. Liam Moore - Reading (To debut against USA) 10. Michail Antonio - West Ham (Committed, passport process not yet started) 11. Kasey Palmer - Bristol City (Passport process started) 12. Ethan Pinnock - Brentford (To debut against USA) 13. Jamal Lowe - Swansea City (To debut against USA) 14. Curtis Tilt - Wigan (To debut against USA) 15. Jordan Cousins - Stoke City (Passport process started) 16. Kayden Jackson - Ipswich Town (Passport process started) Below is the "don't hold your breath" group: 17. Isaac Hayden - Newcastle (Has started talks with the JFF) 18. Mason Holgate - Everton (JFF has reached out) 19. Demarai Gray - Leverkusen (JFF has reached out) 20. Nathan Redmond - Southampton (JFF has reached out) And, finally, the "most likely not happening/Committed to England" group: 21. Ivan Toney - Brentford 22. Max Aarons - Norwich
Man, Jamaica and Surinam rally looking like they may be able to really step thins up this cycle. Add in a much improved Canada and this isn't going to be easy by any stretch.