In-Season Player Rumors & Movement 2012

Next year:
1. Pay some $ for a two proven goal scorers- stop with the youth nonsense. Spend some money.
2. I know people on this board love Jack Mac but frankly don't see it. There are 10 college forwards as good. Ask yourself- what is his skill set really? Great dribbler? Speed quickness? Out of this world technique? No to all. He's a decent sub nothing more right now.
3. Adu is gone next year- book it.
4. Cruz is not a starter in this league, all effort and hustle, that's about it. As a player he's not very good. Another sub.
5. Back line has played pretty well especiall the two CB's. The lB Farfan is suspect.
6. Keep Carrol, he brings stability.
7. McMath needs to improve, he's gotten a free pass this year.
8. Hackworth should stop with the complaining after every loss about how well they possessed the ball but can't find the net. First off the possession is decent not great, I mean no one thinks they're Barcelona. And 2nd, they really don't create many chances off the possession. Listening to Hack you would think they're creating chance after chance.

 

Soccer IQ

 

He is a player that isn't being used how he should be used (shocking on this team, right?). If you look at how he is being used he is either deployed as the point in a 4-3-3 or on his own in a 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1. He is 5'10" and 150 pounds, he is not going to be effective as a player in any of those systems because he just isn't big enough. He does well enough considering he gives up 20 to 50 pounds and 2 to 6 inches on all the center defenders he matches up against. But the style of play just is not conductive for him to succeed in this system.

In the last 10 games he has played 9 of them (red carded in the MTL game so he missed the ). In those games he has 12 shots. Total. And of those shots 6 of them were headers. When he takes a shot he is good at putting them on target (8 of those 12 are on target). The problem is he just doesn't get the space to take the shots. The problem is our offense has huge problems getting the ball into good positions inside the 18, which is where a point player should be getting his shots. If you look at the numbers the team has taken 71 shots in the past 5 games and Jack has attributed for only 8 of those. And of those 71 shots only 33 of those were taken in the 18 yard box (46.48%). You just aren't going to get the best out of your striker when most of the shots come from outside the 18 (and most are likely from your midfielders).

What Jack is good at is passing most games. He is at a 77.78% pass completion rate (154 out of 198) in the last 9 games, which is really good for a forward player. If you look at other forwards you will find that he probably is a more efficient passer than pretty much all of them. I honestly think if you played him as a deeper lying forward with another striker that plays as an advanced forward that he could be effective. He strikes a nice ball from distance and he is good at passing. He is also good at sneaking in late to poach goals, which you can't do if you are supposed to be the point striker. I think he can be an effective striker in this league but not the way he is being played right now (unless you find a way to make him the size of Peter Crouch in the off-season).

 

The discussion about Jack is interesting. I don't see his passing as historically being particularly good, despite his completion rate, although it's certainly improved drastically over the past few games. This is mostly because Jack has had to drop deep to receive service, and he's almost playing as a withdrawn forward or an attacking midfielder. Considering his size, his aerial ability is actually not too bad. He'll be one of the very few players this year to score on a header. Jack is a poacher, kind of like Wondolowski at SJ, although obviously he's not as good as Wondo (yet). If he was able to play off of a target forward type of player (Kenny Cooper anyone?), he would score a ton of garbage goals.

 

Great post, though I personally want to see Jack Mac as an out and out poacher playing off a target man. While I know this board frowns upon anything related to Soccer IQ, I feel as though Jack makes up for his lack of size and speed with a very savvy, smart striker. He is great at finding pockets of space, a skill that being this team's target squanders.

 

For a target Mac spends an awful lot of time on the left side with the ball. Every time I see him over there I wonder who he's supposed to be getting the ball to.

 

Is that the first known picture of Al O'Cation?

 

either that, or Lopez got a haircut............

 

The sad part is he's tied for 10th-leading scorer on our current roster.

 

Just behind "Own Goal," who leads the team with big chances!

 

Speaking of Gabriel, he just wrote a fluff piece on Josue Martinez. Does this mean Martinez gets cut during the off season?

http://www.philadelphiaunion.com/news/2012/09/little-black-memory

 

Josue, we hardly even knew you...sorry bud.....

 

Damn Josue, we hardly knew ya. too bad I liked the kid too. This is one of the fluffiest fluff pieces ever so no doubt he gets traded/sold.

Waiting for the Gomez one later in the week.

 

Maybe Kerith will have the opposite effect and Josue will go on to greatness.

 

I thought about that too. How about if MLS soccer has an article/blurb too. is that better or worse?
http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...amily-chat-unions-martinez-happy-open-account

 

Oh he is ********ed

 

I liked what I saw this weekend. Everything was there for him except the finishing. If he finds his shooting boots, he would be a guaranteed starter on this team. The garbage goal was a consolation prize of sorts.

 

At least three instances he was sloppy on the ball and seemed surprised that the defenders quickly poked it away. Hope he learned his lesson.