Okay, look at all of last season for Herbers, or the past two season. In 42 games in 2021-2022 (consisting of over 2,900 minutes), he managed to score 1 goal, despite taking 56 shots over those two years. He never really makes an impact. This season, in three games, he has 1 shot, 1 SOT and 1 goal. People on this board were screaming for Herbers to be dropped from the team, as he seemed to bring almost nothing. I think the general refrain was "Here comes Herbers, we are playing for the loss/draw." I actually tried to defend him last season, bringing up that he was decent in 2019-2020. Also, from a "larger sample size," look at their relative careers, since each entered the league. There is simply no comparison between the careers of the two players, Kacper has been a better player in all aspects of the game since 2019. Herbers was decent for the Fire in 2019-2020, but has shuffled around on the bench, in various midfield positions and has never made an impact on the field. Herbers 2021 Chicago Fire FC 27 22 1833 0 4 35 7 81.2 1 33 28 7 0 Herbers 2022 Chicago Fire FC 25 10 1070 1 1 21 6 75.7 4 15 21 5 0 Kacper 2022 Chicago Fire FC 25 18 1606 5 1 46 15 74.2 16 23 28 3 0 So, in 2021 Herbers played more games, more starts, more minutes, but scored 0 goals on 35 shots (only 7 on target) than Kacper did in 2022. In 2022, Kacper scored 5 goals on 46 shots (15 on target). Your "larger sample size" actually demonstrates the opposite of what you claim. My initial point was the I would prefer we had 11 players better than Kacper on the team. The fact is, at this point, we do not. Again, Herbers is a decent addition to the team, a true "squad" player, and those player are helpful.
I have said this consistently, but Fabian Herbers is just the temperature of the room wherever he goes. He could be on the Fire, Sporks, or LAFC and play the same exact role. One of the first guys off the bench and a spot starter when needed. If you say that he's one of our best players, first of all I think your wrong, and second of all that's a problem. If you remember my exact wording from back when I said "Collier is our most statistically important player," I almost always followed it up with "and that's a big problem considering what the rest of the team is supposed to be." Herbers should be coming in off the bench late, not starting. So why is he starting? How should we be fixing the hole that's in front of him that shouldn't be there. Because we should not be promoting him.
I agree that Herbers being ‘in the discussion for best XI of this roster’ indicates Heitz hasn’t provided a ‘strong roster’. Again, this tangent thread in a thread started with what formation gets your best XI on the pitch…and there was no (stated) view of best XI. I attempted to get us to define who are we trying to get on the pitch by proposing my view. Instead of countering with different views of XI the responses are ‘seriously’, ‘ludicrous’, ‘you might not understand this sport’, and ‘you presume you are right’…and after posting repeatedly about formations the position becomes ‘indifferent on some of the middling pieces and formations’. Folks should stop attacking the poster and challenge the content of the post with something more constructive than snark.
In an ideal world: Mueller is first off the bench and can also start ahead of Aceves if needed (he's done well defensively recently). Maren could do the same for Dean, but Mueller could also come on for Shaqiri or Koutsias. Souquet is our first defender off the bench and only for one of the CBs, since that's clearly what he thinks his role is with how much width he provides. Kamara is your 70th minute sub to close a game out and get a goal. With the currently available roster (I think Gaston is injured Shaqiri is supposed to be back Saturday):
Przybylko is clearly better than Herbers. As far as best XI and formation, assuming everyone is healthy, I’ll put my brain on it.
I’m not claiming Herbers > Kacper, but saying he’s not either just stating that 1. Kacper was bad at his job last year and 2. it’s very hard to compare and contrast between their respective roles and to assign value to Herbers’ multi-positionality versus Kacper’s need for a very specific set of conditions to succeed
Herbers was bad at his job last year, as well. Herbers played MORE than Kacper and produced less (both from an individual level and contribution to the team). To be fair, just about everyone on the Fire was bad at his job last year.
I wish I could feel as strongly about Aceves as you do but so far I have barely seen him play. I hope he quickly develops the great potential he apparently has.
Well, in Jiggs' "ideal world," he has a player not even on the team yet (Koutsias) as our starting striker, a player that almost none of us have actually seen play professionally. I have always appreciated his optimism! I hope Koutsias is great. I hope Aceves is great. I hope Dean continues to improve. I hope Bradley shows the excellence several have bestowed upon him.
Currently our hottest players offensively are : Mueller Przybylko Gutierrez I would stick with them until they cool down. BTW, Sofascore is not impressed with Guti while Fotmob is this season.
Little early to call any of them ‘hot’, but it is nice to see multiple guys with G+A-PK/90 exceeding xG+xA/90…by a lot. And the G/SOT is interesting with regard to ‘finishing your chances’ Kacper & Chris will certainly start against DC…Guti…we’ll…he should, but if Shaq is back it is highly likely he’ll start at the 10, and it’s anybody’s guess if Guti starts at RW or is ‘saved’ to relieve Shaq when he ‘feels tightness’.
Presser about to start LIVE: Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson and Winger Maren Haile-Selassie hold pre-#CHIvDC video conference. #cf97 https://t.co/a7YHmj1Pt5— Chicago Fire FC (@ChicagoFire) March 29, 2023
No such thing as perfect The "news" of the presser was Ezra (for the first time) did not give a "hard no" when asked about Shaq at RW!
If Bastian can be wrongly used as a defender (not that he wasn't good at it), then why can't the club put Shaq in a position where he'd do really well and optimize his help to the club? I know, I know, take that to the "Logical" thread.
In the press conference, did Ezra Hendrickson discuss his "formation" or his "tactics" in light of the team that he has help build?
A tad...he mentioned the challenge balancing the attack and defense, but spent more time on their approach to continuing to developing the team and their mentality. The best example of their "coaching tactics and developing players" was him describing an example of the "post mortem" video review they do with players. It felt like the specific example may have been chosen to temper the excitement about Guti's performance (multiple interviews raved and/or asked about how it would impact using Shaqiri). The example was 3 key CAM distribution mistakes Guti made in the Cincinnati game, how they discussed the expected/appropriate decisions AND how Guti responded to the feedback by making the correct decisions (in the same type situations) in the Miami game. He also shared frustrations with the clear mistakes (referring to 3) on defense and how they were "the difference" in close games. I find it interesting how much banter there is about 'Ezra sucks at tactics' and whatever. We are only 4games in this season, against "top team", and he's had to adapt with the loss of 2+ key players, 2 red cards, and no DPs...using used 3+ formations...and the team is battling. The 3 game home stretch is going to meaningfully influence the conversation, and things will remain "volatile" while we work Shaqiri, Jairo, Fede, Georgiois, Aceves, and a DP9 into the fold. So much still to do... Ezra deserves more room/time before calling for his head.
He sure as shit didn’t show any tactical acumen last season. If he’s willing to [now], great. But that doesn’t negate the calls for his head from when he was publicly inept.
I agree..Ezra has been much better so far this season...but last season I felt he was...not good. I am happy he is showing better now.
Harsh on both accounts. Ezra was by no means "error free", show me a coach that is, but as a first time coach he jumped into a dumpster fire 17player reboot...staff reboot, short preseason, weak DP contributions, flop TAM striker, having to play 5+ immature teenagers at times, depth consisting of teenagers getting their first MLS minutes, and yet churned out 12 clean sheets & 9 draws. Don't even know where you could be coming from regarding "publicly inept"...from my view he's been professional, positive, realistic and engaging.
During the upcoming 3 match home stand, it is likely we will see only minimal play from Jairo, Fede, Georgios and Aceves and none at all from DP9. Accordingly, their team integration will be minimal. I am more concerned that we see enough of Dean at FB and Guti at CAM to meaningfully gauge their capabilities and value to team.
To be clear, the information coming out of the technical side last year was pretty terrible and lacking. Ezra is the publicly facing person responsible so the silence falls on him. I made the comment because of today’s presser and how open and awesome he was compared to last year. Today was a huge step forward. Last year I tried to be very clear that without hearing from him we had to make our own decisions about who was responsible for the on field failures and that ultimately led to Ezra himself. Had he been as talkative last season as he was today we all would have had a better season and probably been able to accept the unfortunate end to the season. Instead, the lack of detail from Ezra last year means he has to eat the entire shit sandwich basically himself since he never shared the wealth and blame.