If Souquet can handle his corner of the field defensively it will reduce defensive responsibilities of whomever plays on the right wing. If that guy is Shaqiri it allows him to play where he seems to be most effective with minimal defense required. Whatever you lose with Sekulic's offense, you gain with the ability of your right winger to play more freely. You're not going to be pulled apart as much on counters because the CDMs & CMs don't have to cover the wing vacated by Sekulic. It appears this is the way Ezra wants to play and now he has a RB that will hold the fort.
I was hoping for a new RB who was a major upgrade and able to contribute on both offense and defense. I must confess to being disappointed. Fullbacks who can provide offense reduce the pressure on the other attackers. I am not expecting this from Souquet or Navarro. I hope I am wrong and they pleasantly surprise me.
I don’t think you’re wrong and it concerns me we’ll still play with six defenders and four attackers.
Defenders have pressure, not attackers. Again, this is the way Ezra wants to play Attackers attack, defenders defend, and midfielders link. It seems to be an effective plan to succeed in MLS. Any quality 2 way fullback is either going to be a big hit under the cap, or will be gone soon enough. Remember, Ezra played fullback in MLS 1.0/2.0 with considerable success. It should be one position he knows exactly what he wants.
You all seem to act like the projected starting XI are unable to cross the center line like Iowa 6 on 6 girls basketball from 40 years ago.
It doesn’t matter where they can go when you sign someone as a LB who can’t attack. At that point no one WANTS him to get involved in the attack. We’ll just have to wait and see what he can do. As for two-way backs, correct if successful they’d move quickly to Europe like Frankowski. I say try Torres there some games to see if we can play a few games with the foot on the gas pedal.
Save the chance Torres doesn't go for the move I like the idea of going up a gear, especially at home.
Maybe it's a great plan for MLS 1.O, but a poor one for the modern game, unless making the playoffs is the height of our ambition. Teams try to create overloads, Sekulic helped with that a ton, you can't do that with fullbacks that don't create danger. An attacking fullback forces the other teams winger to have to defend instead of attack, helping a teams defense and allowing for pressure up the field.
If our outside backs don't participate in the attack we are doing it (4-2-3-1) wrong. Then again, if our 10 stays out wide where the outside backs should attack, we have been doing it wrong. Regarding the backs, we really need a Julian Gressel, Kai Wagner...or even an end of career Daley Blind, Marcello12, etc...type signing(s)
Sekulic vs. Souquet is at worst a wash trading 60% attack for 60% defense. We play on an MLS 1.0 field for most of our home season. It's hard to expect jogo bonito at Soldier Field. I just believe it's the way Ezra wants to play
As Overlap has stated we're not using the formation correctly in that case. I don't think anyone is expecting jogo bonito.
Agree that the 4-2-3-1 is not best with fullbacks who are sub-optimal attackers. Quality aside though, I believe Ezra was happier with M. Navarro's fewer attacking foray's than Sekulic's greater number. He has said he's a defense coach first.
Ezra & Czichos presser https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1PlJQpedvDqGE Either being coy, or there is not a DP9 coming soon...he did follow it up with "hoping we can replace Duran by Mar4" Nice to hear Rafa again...reminded me we have an actual captain (again)!
March 4 would mean DP might be integrated into the team by second half of season and would be disappointing.
Yea, my guess/interpretation is the "replace Duran by Mar4" comment actually means "a new U22 striker"...and they are going to "be careful" with the $DP$ slot, dragging it out to the second transfer window. Overall it's hard to be excited for how it's playing, despite it being good business, because Duran was the only thing to be excited about for the start of the season. Seems to put a lot of expectation/hope on Kacper and Jairo being much better this year...
After the time off, Chicago Fire might be a good way to get back into things. Jesse as Coach, perhaps Chris Armas as an Assistant Coach. Might be worth considering post Ezra.
not really sure where to drop this I read this as Kacper playing deeper than Shaq on the aggregate would be interesting to see the version with Duran shows Boris as a good passer, and of course Shaq edit: hmm...maybe not; Kacper only played 1600-odd minutes (Duran played 1360), so not exactly sure how to read the minutes/lineup thing
Looks like Shaqiri and Sekulic were our best passers. Our strikers sucked at it but that’s not necessarily very important. I’m surprised at how mediocre our core four in the middle D look (CB & CDM). EDIT: I guess it’s just telling, not surprising.
I love Fede and he's probably my favorite player but passing is not his strength also, not sure this chart shows that our core four were bad passers as the color system tracks "pass value" -- no idea how it that is calculated, but looks like CBs across all teams don't rate highly on that metric presumably it's a stat that weights passes in the attacking zone higher