Feilhaber showed some nice class in the middle. Regardless of his situation at Derby and HSV, he was the best centrally tonight. Bobby and Landon, on the outsides, not so much. Couple nice touches from Donovan in the first half, but really, he was anonymous. Not Bradley's best performance, but he was solid... showed his skill a few times. Clark's showing today just won't cut it.
I'll focus on the Central Midfield. The thing with Bradley and Clark is that they both look to make quick passes. Neither one of them is going to be the player that settles the ball and calmly distributes it. And that is precisely the reason you cannot play both at the same time. They looked horrible together, even though if graded individually neither one of them made any ghastly mistakes. The Feilhaber and Edu pairing was much better, mostly because Benny settled the ball down and looked around. Edu didn't have much of an impact, but the pairing looked a lot better, IMO.
Except for Donovan, the midfield was poor; Donovan needed more midfielders and defenders who can ball handle to maximize his impact. Convey is 10-15% below where he was last year. He's not USMNT material right now, IMHO. Same with Lewis. Clark ran around too much. I want to blame him for the disrupted central midfield effort while Bradley was in the game, but Bradley didn't play well either. Collectively, all the central midfielders gave away the ball too often, whether through poor passes or poor decision making. Edu needed to come on earlier for Clark. However, I suspect it was pre-planned to take MBradley off first. This game required a compact, focused central midfield designed to stop ball movement through the middle and it didn't happen.
what was so great about landon today? he never really got involved in the play except for a few 5 minute spells.
Agree, you cant really start Clark and Bradley at the same time, rather of had an Edu, or Feilhaber. Donovan has a real good first half, but second half didnt have any spark. Bradley played decent, but too many poor give aways, and Clark was just running after the ball. Convey, needs to regain some form, he was abysmal, and has been for a while.
I dont know how anyone can say Bradley did ok. He was horrible. He turned the ball over more times than he completed passes. Clark and Bradley should not be on at the same time.
and that ladies and gentlemen......is why you need a midfielder like benny feilhaber in the middle. we can put the Rico-Bradley combo to rest now. Clark, Bradley, Edu are too much the same type of midfielder. Feilhaber gives you something different; initiative on offense. Game got alot more fluid for the US offensive effort oncee he kame on. Convey....you are very much on the bubble. Holden,Rogers, Alvarez, and Zizzo loom.
Absolutely. Night and day once Benny hit the pitch in terms of dictating the pace, controlling play, changing the field, etc.... We've got solid depth at the d-mid slot, but we just saw that Michael Bradley isn't ready to be a holding midfielder. At this point, Feilhaber should just head to MLS and play. I'd love to see him play once his form is 100%. Convey.....nothing dangerous, nothing disasterous. I'm not sure how much he felt he had to cover for Corrales behind him, but he was ineffective. Landon disappeared after that Salcido tackle. That's his reputation in big game and he needs to play through it. Some good, some bad, but Benny's stock rises big-time after this game......
Convey did almost nothing good. He did alot of bad. It was shocking to me. To me, he's gone from adequate+ to awful in a couple of years. Sad. Bullseye. The US was playing downright frantically. A big part of that was the "passing" from the defenders to the midfield. But a bigger part was the central midfield. No inclination to dribble. Well, Landon forced Mexico to sub off his mark, not to mention he had the assist on Gooch's goal.
We were overrun in MF in the first half. Landon was good...for about 10 minutes total. Part of the reason our marking backs - especially Corrales - looked bad in the first half was because the Mexican central MF had all day to lay the ball out wide OR over the top. Convey is done unfortunately. Bradley stock went way down. Clark looked like he didn't know what his role was. Starting to look like an either/or proposition between Bradley and Clark in the MF...and both may not be as good as Edu come 2010.
Landon was a nothing player today... Bradley was bad also... as was Clark... why o why is Bradley playing the destroyer? makes no sense to me... Papa Bradley was the reason for the inept performance
I would take Rogers and Alvarez as a leftsided player over Convey any day of the week, even with their lack of national team experience. Convey at this moment brings nothing positive to the table. The only reason he's on the bubble is because he is already in the system, and it's hard to remove guys who are already fixtures in the system. Bradley needs to put that to rest until Convey shows that he should be with this team thru his play with his club. Overall, the chemistry of the entire midfield SUCKED though. Clark and Bradley were terrible as a team. Neither of them were horrible tonight, although I think that Bradley had a couple of really dangerous turnovers, but the pairing itself just didn't do enough. No spacing, no teamwork. It was just sad. Although the defense was at fault for the set piece goals (Moor, i'm looking at you), the MIDFIELD was the reason that the run of play looked to be so decisively in Mexico's favor. They MUST improve.
Clark doesn't play quickly enough to keep possession in the midfield. It was a problem against Argentina in Copa America and it was a problem again tonight. That said, this past summer showed that he can be effective against Mexico, so I'm not going to write him off completely.
Hard to blame Donovan tonight. He did well when he had the ball, but when our central midfield falls apart, he gets stuck out on the right without service. Bradley really had a shocker tonight. I usually defend him, but tonight he just sucked. The whole point of playing he and Clark together is to lock down the central midfield, but Mexico was running right down the middle all night.
Knowing how weak we'd be defensively on the flanks, Bob Bradley should've started Eddie Lewis ahead of Bobby Convey at left wing, because Lewis brings much more of a defensive effort/commitment than Convey. That would've helped out the inept Ramiro Corrales much more. Michael Bradley and Ricardo Clark were solid individually tonight, but lacked cohesion. Bradley also had several giveaways. If I had to pick which of these two had a better game, I'd give my vote to Clark. He really was pretty solid. Both were a bit shaky at times defensively though. Benny Feilhaber, despite conceivably being out of form due to a lack of club play, came in and immediately stabilized the midfield and provided some vision and ability to spray the ball around. I liked what I saw from him. But he doesn't cover as much ground as Clark, Edu or Bradley.
For a while I've been wondering if maybe I was missing something with Ricardo Clark, like how sometimes it just takes you a few months to realize what exactly is so great about that band that everyone raves about (see: Television). But after tonight I feel confident in saying that the guy just isn't smart enough to play at this level. He chases when he should hold his position, he holds his position when he should be tracking back or closing down, he doesn't settle the ball quickly enough and he almost always plays the easiest/simplest option without taking in the rest of the field. I almost never see him either create space or exploit it in the attack. To be fair he covers ground well and can make his presence felt in the tackle, but without a well-defined role and excellent support on all sides he just seems out of his depth... Of course, it may be that I just haven't understood yet and folks are welcome to disagree.
I thought our biggest problem in midfield was the lack of communication between Bradley and Clark. I saw each of them pass the ball behind the other quite a few times, and some of Mexico's best opportunities happened because both of our central midfielders made identical decisions instead of covering for one another. At one point, Clark was forced to foul in a dangerous position because both he and Bradley had gone into tackles on the same player, leaving no one to cover the space behind them.
The midfield is going to continue to be dysfunctional as long as two of Bradley, Clark and Edu are trotted out there in central mid. Feilhaber gives you more of an offensive spark and some fluidity. But I would like someone who covers enough ground. My candidate would be Landon Donovan with one of Clark/Bradley/Edu. We need to get rid of the empty bucket.
Agreement. Feilhaber's the only one that's shown the ability to distribute under pressure and in traffic, though. I've seen Mike deliver some delicious balls... when he has space. Mike finds the ball well, under control. Clark finds the ball well, running all over the place. That's good in certain games and bad in certain games. Not good in this game, with Torrado applying all sorts of pressure until subbed off when he got gassed. Overall, Torrado and Pardo won the midfield battle tonight. Landon looked good until he had to drift back to cover for Moor in the second half. The later the game, the more withdrawn he began each attack. I'm also curious if maybe he wasn't nursing a little knock from that dirty Salcido foul, a foul that my gut tells me was an attempt to injure. He did play a bit more tentatively after that. Re: Convey, the less said, the better.
BTW, am I the only one who suspects that Clark was instructed to dump the ball off after winning it? I don't remember ever seeing him look up the field. He'd simply check straight off to Bradley, or if covered, to Moor or Onyewu.
What would Edu do that Clark can't when paired with Bradley?? I see it this way...we have three decent def. midfielders....Bradley, Clark and Edu. They all have more potential than any of the Armas, Mastro, ABMOD's we've trotted out in recent years....but you can't pair any of them together and expect to have a decent midfield against a good team. There's a reason the team plays better with Benny in the middle of the field. He may not be better than any of the three players I just mentioned but he controls the midfield in a way they can't. I don't care which of the Bradley/ Clark/Edu's we put out there with Benny but Benny needs to be there if we're playing Donovan on the Wing and Adu as a forward.
I think it's time to accept that while we have a lot of potential talent in the middle of the midfield it is an area of concern. There's no one getting playing time in a top league as a CM now that Reyna is gone and I can't help but feel that right now we'll be outclassed by most top teams in that part of the pitch. Bradley needs to do some quick growing up and perhaps even change to a league where he can get used to actually having to make decisions under defensive pressure. He's still probably the best option in the middle, but he's not there yet. I don't think Clark will ever be more than a good option for second-tier teams. He's reckless on defense, fires passes that are impossible for other midfielders to control, and doesn't seem to have the vision to advance the attack without a ton of space for him to work in. Edu I still need more info on. He could be an answer there, but I'm not sure yet. Feilhaber needs to get some !@$%#^! playing time. He's the closest thing to a holding midfielder we have and he's not developing in his situation right now. My other hope is actually Adu. He has the vision and showed with the U21 that he can control the pace and run an offense. He's already much improved in his ability to hold the ball under pressure and lay it off to the open man. If he can develop just a little bit more defensive awareness and patience we can pair him with someone like Bradley in the middle and really control the run of play through the mid. But once again, he's not getting enough playing time, let alone playing time in the mid.