Really long post without much substance. You said "we all learned". That's a big jump without much proof. Sargent scored more in a top league in less than half the minutes of Jozy. I don't even understand your points. Jozy is good because he scores against concacaf opposition? He just had 9 games to do that and he didn't. I don't get how fans like you grab 2 games and use it as proof. I'll never do that. Such a weird way to find "proof". I look at decent sample sizes. Jozy in England stunk over 60 games. Jozy in the hex more recently stunk. Sargent performed better than Jozy ever did this season in Germany. Over a full season. As a 20 year old he has 12 caps and 5 goals. Again, good samples. You take one half of a match, and a game against Canada. Again, your choice. And at least one person here will agree w you. But it's not a very strong argument objectively speaking.
If you watch the first goal Sargent was in the middle of pressuring the defender into an own goal. 1280209729663520774 is not a valid tweet id Like Pulisic drawing fouls that Willian gets free kick or PK goals for Sargent does things when he's on a cold streak that helps him teammates score more. Both he and Pulisic will get better at scoring as they get more experience and more comfortable with the levels they're at.
i disagree. It’s a 3rd CB for potentially Sargent or Jozy as we can play Morris, Reyna and pulisic together as an attacking three. the challenge we have is that of our defense. Let’s rate our defender on a 1 to 4 scale: 1: excellent 2. Pretty good 3 Passable / decent 4 sub par who’s in the top bucket? I only have Adams In the second bucket we have Weston (albeit prone to concentration lapses) and Steffen. in the third bucket, we have Brooks, Dest and ARobinson. I dont know where to put: Long, Miazga, Carter-Vickers, Palmer-Brown or MRobinson, but I guess somewhere between 2 - 3. We cannot defend well against either a good team or a decent counter attacking one with the following: Steffen Dest - CB - Brooks - ARobinson Adams - Weston at least a couple of the front four (of your Reyna/CP/Morris/Sargent) will be forced to play defense and we certainly don’t want Pulisic and Reyna to be pinned in our third consistently but that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t solidify our defense. or we’re going to give up sloppy goals to lesser teams like Canada, T&T. Honduras. Costa Rica would also be a lot more dangerous.
I don't disagree in general about Sargent, but that's a pretty generous translation of that play. He had a pretty heavy touch and got lucky. C'est la vie. If you look at the US statistics over the year, the team's biggest issue offensively was conversion on chances. They actually did pretty decent in most games in terms of creating opportunities, but the final ball or the shot ... we just didn't convert. Some of that is what you get when you play Paul Arriola a lot (sorry, Paul). But I was hoping Sargent would close more of that gap at striker. He's not there yet, though. Finishing that great late chance today would have been a good start, but c'est la vie. It's simply huge that they stayed up.
Yeah I'm very pleased with Josh's play after the restart but that play was not anything to get excited about. If it was Gyasi that made that donkey touch that resulted in the own goal it would be another Zardes meme. For the record, I'm not trying to say Josh is not a better player than Gyasi, but when that happened, I chuckled and thought to myself that is something that would happen to Zardes. That late miss Josh had was heartbreaking, he did everything right except put it in the net and it would have been a VERY slick goal in a critical situation. It would have been a signature moment for him.
That's my lineup, and I don't really have any better ideas. That team will score 3 or 4 a game in concacaf. Morris can drop back and support dest or Robinson. Who do you propose dropping, and for whom? Drop Sargent, Morris up top, and lletget or pomykal in the middle to play more d? Not a big lletget guy. Love pomykal but he still needs to ESTABLISH himself before he's ready for nat team duty. Just think, if Reyna needs 15 or 20 games for dortmund before people consider him a starter, what then does PP need in MLS? Tim Ream at lb? We have such little depth, dropping any of these guys is a pretty big drop off.
He's had so many of those "just the finish" since the restart it's bordering on the ridiculous. Real positive with all the play to get to that stage (which is why I think he's our best striker currently), but he's gonna need to finish those next year. I always thought his one real strength was finishing, so I'm hopeful he just ran into a real unlucky streak, but we shall see next season. Gonna be a big one for his career.
I’d go with steffen Long - Brooks - miazga Dest - Adams - Weston- ARobinson Reyna - Pulisic Morris Swapping Sargent/Jozy/Zardes for long/Miazga doesn’t make our offense much more potent IMO but solidifying our defense can be done by having a third CB to cover for our wingbacks and allow them more freedom to range forward without fear. It also limits the amount of space that Brooks has to cover and that’s a good thing. if the attack of Morris / Gio / Pulisic / dest / ARobinson with Weston and Adams trailing can’t score a bunch, adding Sargent/Jozy/Zardes isn’t going to get us over the hump....
I will be as happy as anyone if Sargent is ready to take the starting spot.I haven't seen enough of his play to say if he is better or not. I saw 20 minutes of him today and he looked fast and skilled.
Sargent looked like he has the tools all season.......................but at the end of the day he only scored 4 goals. He gets lots of chances, and had some really good ones yesterday. He isn't converting enough of them, though. Unlucky? Sometimes. For sure. But you make your own luck. He had that great chance in the second half yesterday. Did everything right. The goalkeeper made a really nice save to keep it out. The shot, however, was at the perfect height for the keeper to make a really nice save. Lower or higher the keeper has little chance. I'd also say that we have the typical Big Soccer reaction of "everybody is the problem but the young American." The coach is the problem. The midfield is the problem. The defense is the problem. Josh appeared in 34 games this season across all competitions, and scored 4 goals. 1800 minutes. That's not good enough. Not one of those goals, by the way, was scored against a "good" team. He scored against 15th place Augsburg, 14th placed Koln, and 2 against 10th placed Hertha Berlin. That's it. I'm not suggesting Sargent is THE problem at Bremen. However, he hasn't been the solution either. He's got a HUGE season next year to demonstrate he belongs at the Bundesliga level. He isn't a 16 year old prospect anymore. He's gotta do the business, or the business will cast him aside. I mean, Bobby Wood scored 5 goals in a Bundesliga campaign, and Hamburg fans tarred and feathered him.
In a few days we'll manage to convince ourselves that Sargent has been awesome and has been the root of Bremen's survival by "pulling away defenders" from the guys actually scoring.
Sargent showed good improvement over the course of the year and is getting better at holding the ball up, fighting, working with his teammates, keeping the ball in traffic. But, he has to start scoring at some point. He's still young and if he figures it out next year, he'll be doing very well and developing nicely. But as of right now, he isn't hitting the target and while Bremen has been poor at creating opportunities, he did get a chance or two in each of his last several games and only knocked one in during the blowout. That's not a huge problem for a first year striker getting limited minutes for most of the season, but each year that goes on, it will become a bigger and bigger issue.
If you go check the YA page, you'll see some interesting stats about how many players scored more than him at his age or younger in the BL. I think it's 3 players, and one is werner. He's right on track.
Similar to my 3-4-3 arguments, I just can't really understand the logic of going with 3 CBs when our CBs in general are very poor. Assuming we're playing a decent team, this will also turn into 5 at the back when Dest/Arob won't have the ability to go forward because we're always under pressure. And depth becomes an issue. If Robinson is injured or unavailable because Egg doesn't like him, who plays left wing back? Dest moves over, then Yedlin? People love Cannon, but seems he couldn't be on the field with this team And if one of those already average CBs is unavailable, who's up next? Tim Ream? I'd rather have Sargent or even Jozy on the field than the 3rd of Long/Miazga.
In Werder Bremen's biggest game of recent history, the manager started Sargent. He has started most games since the restart. From a USMNT perspective he is probably 90% Jozy at distribution. When the ball is played in the air, Sargent is much better than Jozy. Can anyone remember Jozy doing a flick on with his head? It is always with his feet. Sargent's last goal where he wins the aerial then gets into the box for the return pass is something Jozy can't do, never could. That is what killed him in Sunderland, Villareal, and his other stints in top leagues. He needs the ball played to his feet even though he is a big guy. Sargent is probably 90% of Zardes at pressing and getting in the box for a cross. The latter is harder to judge as WB is horrible at crossing. Even yesterday, Sargent was in position and crosses were fired 40 yards too long or out of bounds. But Sargent has started most of these critical games because he leads the press and leads it well. So, put any of the three in your Best 11. Zardes can't do any of the stuff in the first paragraph, on purpose. Jozy can't press for any length of time if he can at all anymore. No coach has asked him to, since maybe Bradley in 2010. If pressing is all you want, then Zardes. If distribution is all you want then Jozy. If you want both, then Sargent is the only option. Morris and Ferriera are not options at the #9. They don't play there or don't play there much in MLS. Morris has played there, but has been moved to a different position because he is not as good as a #9 as a #7. Morris has been tried by Berhalter in a central, tucked in role, and he wasn't good. He can't distribute as well as Sargent or Jozy. He is a run behind winger, and a good one.
well, the time for arguing his quality in the context of an awful team in the bundesliga is over. assuming there are international matches again the question now is is he better than zardes/more likely to be fit on any given day than jozy? so (snap)- just like that im bullish on sarge again.
Sargent is young and improving. He improved greatly since March at keeping concentration for 90 minutes and doing the grunt work of winning 50/50 aerials and leading the press. Giving examples from last Fall or years ago, is not that instructive. It is like dismissing Reyna's Spring because of something he did with the U17s last Fall. These players are improving. Living in small samples in the past is very popular around here and in the US soccer media. That is why people get shocked AC Milan want to buy Robinson for $10 MM. Or why people in this thread still think Robinson can't play defense. Sargent, Reyna, Pulisic, McKennie, have all taken steps forward in development since the virus shut down.
I think part of it is we need to rely on the past, since for MLS guys in particular, and USNT players, they haven't played for over a year pretty much. What I don't get is saying "we have all learned" Sargent isn't ready because he didn't score against Canada, and had an average 45 minutes against a B2 team in a relegation playoff. So disingenuous just selecting a couple matches. Completely ignores how he was their best striker since the restart, ignores that he was their best player in the 2nd half yesterday, and ignores his scoring record for the US. Takes goals against Cuba showing he can't hack it (ignoring goals against Peru and Bolivia, CONCACAF level opponents), while simultaneously saying Jozy scores against those types of opponents (even though he didn't in the last Hex when we didn't qualify). There are arguments that can be made against Sargent (creates chances, doesn't finish), and arguments for Jozy (long, strong record when healthy in MLS), but the efforts above were just cherry-picking, and simply makes the one arguing look ridiculous.
Between this and the straw man that other have that Sarge is being positioned as awesome, I'm all a little cliched out. Sargent hasn't been great. His conversion on chances hasn't been great. But he's also getting maybe one good chance a game on average, and I've seen every Bremen game on TV this year. So, yeah, maybe he should have 6 or 7 goals, but the idea that Josh Sargent should be making his own luck to double digit goals is kind of silly. The team literally gets the ball into the box in the run of play like 1-2x a game. One of his fellow forwards has never passed the ball. The team has no offensive plan. Look at the last two games against a 2. Bundi team -- no goals, and an own goal and a counter attack goal when their opponent was overcommitted. No one is saying Sargent is a star. Some people are saying he's our best striker. I'm not sure he is, but I'm not sure he's not. He hasn't finished a ton, but neither Zardes not Jozy is exactly clinical in front of goal. And Sargent has shown strong skills in the build up to the point where I'm not sure he's any kind of downgrade from Jozy there. And he's shown a ton more effort in pressing. He's still not as good as Zardes there, but he's miles ahead of him in other places. He's 20 and won't be 21 until February. He had 4g and 5a in 1712 minutes (that's a weird ass roundup you did, btw, to 1800) across all competitions. No striker on Bremen did well and no one scored more than a goal every 250 minutes with any kind of PT. Sargent will almost certainly improve, because that's what talented, hard-working players do at his age. But seriously, he's 20. Can we stop acting like every player is Kylian Mbappe? Bobby Wood? Bobby Wood was 24 when he made his Bundesliga debut. Brian McBride? McBride was 22 when he FAILED in the Bundesliga and came back to the US. The idea that he's played incredibly poorly is ridiculous. The idea that his career is teetering on an edge is silly. Yes, he needs to improve if he wants to stay at this level. But pretending that Bremen's offense isn't a disaster independent of Sargent -- when no strikers scored and no one really scored all season -- is being weirdly unnecessarily tough guy about it. This is soccer, not basketball.
Scoring on 1 of 4 good chances is actually pretty standard (or maybe even good) for an average striker. There are actually very few strikers that score substantially better than that. We'd all like Sargent to do so, but if he is scoring on half his shots, he's doing better than Robert Lewandowski. Sargent's goals per shot isn't good for the whole season, but there's an expectation here that he's got to finish everything. And most big scorers do it more on chances than conversion rate. Chances are partially him, of course, but no one was going to put up 10g in 1700 minutes for this Bremen team unless they are a superstar.
If he finished 1 in 4 chanches, it wouldn't be horrible. It would be exceedingly average. He's over 5 shots to score 1 and he isn't a guy who takes excessive shots. He seems to only shoot when he has a decent chance for the most part. I'm not down on Sargent and I think he had a solid first season and most importantly grew as a player throughout. But, his finishing was not up to snuff and that has to change or his opportunities at club level will shrink and for the US, we'll need to start seeing if we have any other options. If Weah hadn't been hurt all year, I think he may well provide some competition. His style is certainly different, but he's played up top at club level frequently. He may become an option. Sargent is doing fine, but he's still got a big hole in his game so far, which is often true of young players.
Yeah Sargent nay not be up to the level of the rest of the attack. While it would be nice to have a top quality striker, I don't think we have to have one and can still get goals. I am going 4-2-3-1 and really believe that Jmo Puli Reyna can generate some goals. The striker is supposed to do most of that, but it is what it is. So with that in mind I can live with Zardes. I don't rate him, but he does work very hard, will press his ass off and does worry the hell out of a backline. We won't win a World Cup with a striker the level of Gyasi, but he does make good things happen and does not make me want to throw my TV out the window because I we are down and he is walking to get in position for a corner. Sargent I just do not know a lot about, but if he will press like Zardes and run his ass off and occasionally cause something good just because he forced a mistake or the ball bounces off his arse and goes in goal. The harder you work the luckier you get. I don't watch much MLS, but who is the best eligibile striker? I have no problem with taking the hot hand at the moment. I think our attack can give a scare to good defenses even if we don't have a threatening striker. We have lots of speed for anybody who is going to pin us deep or try and high press. If we are playing against a bunker our striker just needs to keep making diagonal runs and keep moving, and press on turnovers to help us not get caught way up the field. Teams that sit back, we will need Chris or Gio to break them For me I am fine if JA never suits up for the Nats again. He and MB both. We are going to have talent deficits at some positions for a while. That is our pool. I would just put the one on the pitch that looked the best in camp at that time. I would most likely be calling Gyasi and Sargent and if we had an in form MLS forward I would call him up too. Gyasi is on my roster because he can provide cover to spell one of my three line in games that we have in hand or in case a guy gets a knock. Any decent coach should be able to dominate most of concacaf at home and at least split on the road. That would qualify us and maybe even win the group. Of course with our pool, loss of any of the five in the midfield is going to hurt. That is the problem with a shallow pool.
Conversion rates over twenty percent (more than 1 in 5 for the math challenged) puts a striker in pretty lofty company.
I am starting to wish he would get away from Kohlfelt. He is obviously doing what the coach wants, but what that is seems goofy at times. The system at Bremen is strange, which I'm taking from other people since I can't figure out what they are doing. I doubt they stayed with Kohlfelt all year to get rid of him now. But I'd love to get Josh under Nagelsmann or Marsch. Or even to Milan under Ranking. If Weghorst moves, Wolfsburg would be a great place too.