Haji scores. The Internet: "bringing him was a mistake." Josh doesn't score. The Internet: "he's our best striker."
One year ago, he was far from the NT. He deserved a lot of praise for getting himself in the position to be considered and then took his chances. Plus there's always a bit of luck!
Haji's not good. Maybe he was the best actual striker, maybe not. But he's not good and that goal was not exactly a masterpiece of finishing. But he got there, so kudos. I was less impressed than most with Josh. I think he got a very, very limited job to do and executed that job well. But the job was so limited it's hard to give him a great grade. And I don't think he was really capable of being a well-rounded striker at the World Cup level yet.
He's not Haaland or Mbappe, so he's not good? I mean most strikers would love to have his strike record in a top 10-15 league. It seems to most on this forum a good striker is only a guy who only scores 15-20 goals regularly for a top 10ish side in a top 5 league. There are probably less than 20 of those guys world wide.
I never made anything close to that argument. Are we arguing semantics over the word "good"? I'll define it -- someone who is an average striker at a 32 team World Cup level. So yes, Haji's a really good soccer player in a broader sense, but he's not good at the World Cup level. Moreover, I don't think Haji translates well from his record in Turkey to higher levels. This isn't just a level thing; it's a style thing. For one, he's simply way too inactive and not nearly good enough to do that. He's slow to react on defense and doesn't work. Haji's not going to be one of the two best offensive players on a World Cup roster or a Top 5 league; he can't be a defensive drag even at striker. On offense, he simply doesn't make smart enough runs and doesn't make up for it enough with volume. This is something he can learn -- the former -- but a lot of a CFs role is finding spaces OR occupying defenders to open up spaces for others. If he can score 20 goals, he can stay out there without doing that but if he's not scoring 20 goals, I don't think he's bringing extra value. A lot of his goals are the same goal -- he gets hit on the break, he uses his size and strength and decent speed to outmuscle someone and finishes against a keeper one on one. It's at least a third of his goals but probably closer to half. I just don't think those translate at all to higher levels with bigger, stronger, faster CBs and better organized defenses. I could be wrong. He's tall, he's not unskilled, he has a decent shot. But he's not doing anything scoring wise that Jesus Ferreira and Brandon Vazquez are doing, and I have concerns about both of those players translating as well. He reminds me a little of a player from a decade ago in college basketball who just dunked everything in high school. He had an incredible amount of hype ... but I was never sold because no one just dunks everything in college. Even Shaq couldn't dunk everything, and this dude was no Shaq. So unless we think Haji has Mbappe level speed and strength, I'd be concerned about him be able to score those transition goals in the Bundesliga.
Haji Wright is one year behind Pefok on his development curve. Pefok won leading scorer in Swiss league then moving to Bundesliga. Wright needs to challenge the Turkish league title then moves on. If he moves to PL or Séria A, then prove there.
In the England match, does Haji deserve any credit with helping midfielders outperform their counterparts? Did he use his large frame to reduce the passing lanes; forcing Maguire and Stone to be patient and eventually make the safe pass to the outside? The other difference in the England match was midfielders and other starters didn't suffer a performance drop by tiring way before the opponent.
I am not so sure I wouldn't start Haji on the wing in place of Weah. He didn't do much at all last night.
Haji on the left and Pulisic on the right make us look a lot more goal dangerous. And with Antonee bombing down the left we can still get that width we need when we possess for a stretch. When Pulisic has to drop back to help the midfield and Weah isn't particularly goal dangerous and Balogun in on an island starved of service, that's not an effective attack.
Haji is not going to beat a fullback off the drible, Weah can. Haji's strength is coming in from left to right against CBs.
I don't disagree with that statement in general. I just haven't seen much positive effect from the current setup and how often does Weah really beat his man and create something? I feel like most of his positives come from his ability to combine with others. It would be nice to have options and I think an option that gets more people into the box would be something good to see. I like Weah, but having some more guys who are threats to score goals would make us a more difficult proposition in some ways. I think just rotating a few different strikers in basically the same setup doing the same things isn't likely to yield any real improvements. We have Pulisic who scores but also drops back a lot. We have Weah who rarely scores and we have spotty production from the central striker no matter who it is. At some point you have to attack the goal.
Neither Weah nor Haji are strong on the dribble. But Wright has almost exclusively played at striker or on the left. Weah almost exclusive plays on the right with Juventus.
Yup. If folks want to start Wright, it should probably be on left wing. Move Pulisic over to the right. He plays so much on the right for Milan, that he's listed as a right winger on transfermarkt. I don't know. Mexico is a very different type of opponent than that Jamaica team we saw last night. So..................
Pretty ironic he was saved by the guy he didn't even call in initially. BTW, that looked more like the Residence program Haji than what we have been seeing from him before. Good to see it and hope he continues in this form.
Mexico's new coach has been taking them in the direction of being a more counter attacking team. They are different to Jamaica but won't try to control possession. Wright could start either at striker or on the left. For the US, he has been pretty adept at striker. I would mind seeing Balogun given a run out on the left.
The thing I’ve been thinking about with Wright is just the resiliency he showed to really stick it out in Europe when things were going poorly. And now he’s been successful in three successive stops in three different leagues as he steadily moves up the ladder.
Haji is an unspectacular grind-it-out goal scorer. Nothing wrong with that but he won't score any show-stopper goals.