Tillman can stretch the field? Even though that doesn’t fit his style of play at all or how he has played for club our country? There’s stretching going on, but it involves shoe-horning a player into the lineup despite not really having proven it with the national team. I enjoy Tillman, but the idea that he is a reasonable option for Weah is a little silly. It was silly when people were doing it with Reyna, but at least Reyna has a track record with the national team with some decent performances.
Weah is not just there for a stylistic fit, he’s there because his performance merits it. The guy produces. He’s a key performer.
Then don't expect to score much when you have 2 (Musah, Adams) of the 3 mids being more defensive minded. The future is having a more attacking mid in front of the McKennie and Musah. If you put Adams instead of Musah, he will be a destroyer type with very little attacking skills.
The question would be, is losing the defensive cover of an in-form Johny worth putting in Tillman or Reyna. I would say it's worth it for Tillman but not Reyna because he's just not getting enough minutes for me to trust he's 90 fit and not rusty. But either way, there's no "right" answer.
I'm glad to see everyone coming around to my point from 3 years ago, when the entire board was screaming "MMA!" But let me be a bit of a contrarian. I am a big Musah fan. But if you look at the offensive metrics and results of the 2 players, I am not seeing Musah's superiority in practice. We all *think* theoretically that Musah has superior offensive talent, but it does not show in the results. And if you are getting similar offensive results with both, you take Adams because he is the clearly better defensive player. All that may be moot though, because Adams can't stay healthy.
Against BVB he was RCM in a 433: #ChampionsLeague match summary for PSV Eindhoven vs Borussia DortmundDate: 2024-02-20#PSVEindhoven #BVBFull match report: https://t.co/950j5HBjCw pic.twitter.com/zslbIjnLe5— McLachBot (@mclachbot) February 20, 2024 I don’t think he had the strongest performance and his record against Top 4 level competition is pretty spotty.
You are rewarding a player who has not shown he can perform against top level competition for being a very useful rotational piece on a dominant team in a second tier league and punishing a player who has 5k top tier minutes where his avg level is that of an above average starter who fell out with his mgr who is about to be replaced and is playing contract hard ball. Like Gio is not Paredes, he has a substantial track record.
People just grossly misuse form. If there are two similar types of players with similar track records of performance then form is the tie breaker. Even then a lot of what people talk about with form is luck or variance, so assume we are talking about the actual quality of their performances. I think a better way to make projections is to base them on the underlying class of a player (which is a combination of what their abilities are, what their performances have been, and where they are on the age curve). So in this thread we are trying to determine which players make the best XI. Does that mean this is just a ranking of which players at each spot are in the best form, no. It’s which players will produce the best collective performance (on an absolute basis). So the task is to determine the absolute level of performance quality each player is expected to produce. The main components to do that are to look at the absolute level of performances a player has already produced, what their individual qualities are, what their fitness is like, what were and are the various environmental and contextual factors, and what their form is. Form is basically a multiplier to class, which is the much more important variable.
People tend to want a set of principles that create a set of variables by which a ranking can be determined. That’s a win for utilitarianism and for statistics in society in general that we have learned to depend on those things to tell us things about the world, however in a situation this complex we can throw the Bentham out the window because it will not help us predict who will perform better given the opportunity. There is no single set of principles by which we can make predictions in this circumstance. The best we can do is use their performance with the national team as the primary predictor and then use additional considerations to support adjustments to the players opportunities. Does Tillman’s steady growth merit more opportunities? Absolutely. Does that mean that he has passed some threshold by which he unseat’s the established and accomplished starter Weah or the next in line at that position Reyna? No. That’s where you call them into camp and roll the ball out. The “class” as you say tends to speak for itself at that point.
2 assists and a drawn pk in UCL is a bit more than form. Reasonable people can disagree without resort to facile meta-analysis.
His partner (Roca) at Leeds played cb yday for Betis in conference league while Johnny played solo 6. I don't think that gets enough out of Johnny because he is really good at a) passing and b) taking up position against/(also with) ball. In possession, a solo 6 just occupies forwards and rarely is passed the ball; we'd lose the best of Johnny's passing, Also the 6 has to position himself according to where the cb's are against the ball; that doesn't use Johnnys's good positioning against the ball and relational play.
"individual qualities" can be the most important criteria by far when assembling a complete roster. I don't rate Tilman over all but he's a zone 14 "bunker buster" which is a role you see teams missing a lot these days. We have Gio, Aaronson, Tilman, Luna. If we are down a goal and looking to tie it up with little time left and the opponent jamming up the box with an extra cb for height, MMA will be of little value. I think aaronson and gio rate more as starters than Tilman (individual qualities like Aaronson's pressing, e.g.). If Luna can get to Europe, he might make WC in time if he can out-compete Tilman for that late-sub-needing-goal-vs.-bunker. I sorta a prefer Luna but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. We don't know what Luna would actually look like in an UCL game v. Dortmund. Actually, Dortmund could kinda use Luna !! Put me down as a Luna-tic for now.
MMA is a fantastic defensive midfield…probably the best single unit we have ever platooned. It has been great for the purpose of disrupting the opponent's movements and stripping possession.
The idea you don’t think club form over the recent season (7 months) doesn’t factor considerably into NT call ups and lineups is ludicrous.
how much does 4 years of nt performance factor into nt call ups and lineups? dont you think theres some degree of "proven" with the nats that should factor in? and i think "lineups" is the key here- hes never been a regular starter. hes never been in contention to be- hes been a reliable, versatile guy who can fill multiples roles for us. if theres an argument for a squad player whos been consistently better for us im not sure what it is. we all know there are multiple guys who have kept their place (starting) in the team through even worse stretches (of poor form, no production, club minutes, etc). why- all of a sudden- do these theoretical high standards apply only to aaronson? well, apparently weah is somehow a problem for us now too... but lets look past the fact that youre ignoring how things have been for 4 years in favor of some "in a perfect world" criteria, and sure- lets assume his club usage/form is as bad as anyone wants to make it out to be and outweighs his contributions to the national team; whats the case for paredes, much less sarge, or wright, or tillman as a winger/wide attacker in the way we use that position/role on the nats? this isnt about central midfielders or strikers but the next guy up after puli/weah. people lost their damn minds insisting that playing reyna centrally would be some complete overhaul of the team, while (im speculating here, who knows what this place thinks from one day to the next?) a majority recognize that the way we play- even with the inclusion of reyna- isnt a good fit for balo...yet we continue to start him anyways. look- club form matters. getting minutes with your club matters. club "production" (relative to role, team, etc) matters. it all matters- this just feels pretty arbitrary. dest essentially not playing for a calendar year, pulisics non-stop chelsea madness, wes' ever moving goalposts at juve- were you in favor of dropping of them? cause when ive even brought that topic up it routinely gets shouted down. but aaronson- whos only had a couple of seasons (1300 and 1800 minutes) in especially "good form" at a good-not-great level- is a problem now? when his nt form/production has been consistently good-very good over 4 years, independent of club play? the same goes for weah (not your argument as far as i know)- who had even less of a measurable case to be included (in the nt) in the first place. what switch flicked? why is current club form the criteria now? why is consistently proven past performance at the level in question null and void? is there some statute of limitations im not aware of?
Who are you responding to? I didn’t comment on Aaronson vs Weah nor did I say club form is the only factor determining NT call ups.
Man you guys put so much stock in national team appearances from half a year ago over current form...
i was commenting on how considerable a factor form is/should be in callups. then, you know, i said a bunch of other stuff ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry if i mis-attributed anything to you, but i disagree that current club form is even a primary factor in selecting a nt for everyone. every camp/roster doesnt start with a blank sheet of paper- especially not one for a semi/final. i applied that to our current circumstance.
what about the last nt match/window? can we go back that far? conversely, does a brace in the second week of the mls season vault someone over balo/pepi/sarge/whoever for this next window? why are we acting like the national team starts from scratch every window?
And? Current form for and against whom? Conversely, some people have the memory of a goldfish. They're prisoners of the moment. And they haven't learned from history. We frequently have players in both directions who club form has meant next nothing - Chandler, Besler, MRob, B. Aaronson, LDLT, Sargent, Pefok, Weah, etc. Weah is a prime example of a guy who, thru production struggles at his club, manages to contribute for us regardless. He's a fit for our style because we like to get up and down and we overload the other side allowing him space to make runs over the top. Some players just have more or less situational confidence, comfort, or care. The 3 c's.
I'm happy with our attacking options for the most part. Good wings, and strong wingbacks. The midfield should be sorted out, even if Adams is never as good as he was post-injury and Musah keeps looking subpar with Milan. We have guys like Tilllman, LDLT & Johnny in the pool. Wes should be a lock starter. The CB situation remains unclear. We have some guys doing ok in Europe, but they're old and won't be around in 2026: Ream, Brooks. We have the now-injured CCV, who looks solid against the weaker teams in the SPL. Then we have Richards, who has much to learn but may get there in time. Zimmerman is also getting old, as is Long, who frankly shouldn't be an option at all at this point. Then we got McKenzie who looks good with Genk but never seemed quite right with the NT. And Trusty, who can play the CB role as poorly as the fullback one. For now probably Richards-Ream is the best pair, but I'm going to wait to see who in MLS looks solid. As for keeper, for all his faults at the club level, Turner has not been terrible for the NT. So, for now, considering injuries/no match form : --------------------------Turner------------------------------ Dest---------Richards------------Ream-----------Jedi -----------------Wes------------Musah--------------------- Weah-------------------Tillman-------------------Pulisic ---------------------------Pepi------------------------------- Sarge and Balogun fit the Gregg ideas better, but I cannot force myself to write them in at this point. Balo is not looking good enough, and Sarge plays in a league I don't rate at all.