Our biggest problem today is the lack of an effective midfield. The bottom line is the crossing has been poor or non-existant and the feeds through to the forwards aren't there either. End result, zero goals against Argentina. Canada doesn't count as they were just too weak to even evaluate. Jamaica will also probally be weak too. How/Who do we use to get the midfield probles straightened out.
i think the answer can be found in some of the other threads floating around here. namely: 1. convert to a 3-5-2 to give us greater flexibility in midfield. most of our midfielders are very good at playing both ways. this formation is better equipped to take advantage of that rather than have midfielders play wing back in a four man line. 2. settle the middle of the field. we need to develop some consistency in the middle of the field or else who "plays conductor" (to qupte someone in another thread). an attacking mid needs to be used to the position and the players around him need to be comfortable with him. 3. give them time. arena's experimenting right now, and i have confidence the midfield (and other positions) issues will be settled by the time qualifying starts
For some reason, our midfield played better against Canada than Argentina. The reason has to do with level of competition. We'll look much better against Jamaica. Bruce is experimenting, and we'll get better. Formation is a minor part of the answer.
I would like to see Mulrooney get some playing time. He crosses the ball well, he holds and dribbles well, and he showed in the lead-up to the WC that he can defend a bit. Use him on the wing.
Basically, I think we saw against Argentina that the only way we are going to be able to get anything out of the midfield is going to be to drop Donovan into the center. With him in the midfield we looked much better in the second half. Unless Claudio or O'Brien are healthy and available, we need Donovan to play the center sionce we just don't have that many people capable of possesing and distributing in the center. Of the MLS crowd, Donovan's pretty much it. I hear calls for Convey in the middle, and he did look good in possesion when attacking, but I have't seen him play a distributor role and he doesn't even hold down a central spot for DC United, so I personally think its a stretch to think he'd be a good choice internationally. Or, we could go woth two deep sitting central mids, say Pablo and Mulrooney or another defensive minded mid and attack down the sides with Beasley and whoever is out right pinching in when necessary. The other choice I see is to go to a five-man midfield get three players in the center of the park, something I'm in favor of.
Put Mathis at Attacking-mid (and Donovan back up top.) He did great before his injury and he's got the vision and touch needed there. He can thread the killer pass, dish it off, or blast a shot. The caveat here is that he shouldn't be saddled with too much responsibility for defending. He should save his strength for going forward...
2 d-mids and an a-mid in a 3-5-2. Take a leaf from a chess book: either control the center or make it dangerous for your opponent to go there in your absence (strong, fast wing play for devastating counters, supporting runs through the center, killer crosses with players always there to attack the posts). ... or hang on for a year-and-half till Freddie Adu joins the senior team.
I'm not convinced that the midfield needs as much fixing as Saturdays game would imply. The first half of the game we had Olsen as central midfielder. He obviously isn't an option. The only reason I can see that it was even tried was to see if Donovan and Mathis can work as a team up front. That didn't work. Once Olsen was pulled our midfield became significantly more effective. The other thing we saw on Saturday was DMB playing very poor game. My suspicion is that the contusion they spoke of on his shin, along with the bandages, didn't help him much. It seems to me that he maybe should not have been out there. If it wasn't due to injury then he had a poor game in either case. The third thing we saw on Saturday was Klein out on the the right wing. I haven't formed a strong opinion about his play, but it is yet another experiment. So on Saturday we had two midfielders getting tryouts, and a third midfielder who wasn't a 100%. Argentina has a great midfield, but we gave them a lot of help by starting Olsen, Klein, and DMB against them. The second half was a different story. A lot more has been made of this game then I think should be made. The clearest thing I see is that if we had the chance to do it over we wouldn't of maybe had a midfield more like: DMB, Donovan, Mastro, & Olsen. Maybe DMB gets switched for Convey, but having Olsen as a central midfielder was an experiment better suited for Canada then it was for Argentina.
I agree. The number 1 problem Saturday was we played an in-season young team who were clicking after two tough road games that week. We're not sharp - that was the main difference. But we were, and are, experimenting. Donovan and Mathis interchange nicely in the attacking mid/forward roles. I'm alarmed to hear Arena suggest that we might need a "maestro" or a holding midfielder like Claudio, based on Saturday (see above.) We didn't really have one against Portugal or Mexico in the World Cup, and having one didn't really help us against Poland or Korea. Qualifying play isn't soo different in this regard. A mature ballholder might be good to have while we're developing kids and experimenting, but the real problem was our sharpness. Our lack of overall competitiveness was dismaying. I hope this does not lead Bruce to think we have to have the likes of Armas, Sanneh and McBride back. We've got better talent now, our boys were just mismatched Saturday and they knew it. It was a good wake up call to the players, but it shouldn't be so for the Bruce. I wish we could play that Argentina team once a month.
The midfiel definatly does not need fixing. Perhaps tweaking but with our full team we will still have on of the better midfields in the world (hey any midfield that dominates the German midfield, goes toe-to-toe with Netherland's midfield, and makes Italy's look silly, is one of the best in the world)