Marlon Fossey looks like he could skin a Swisher Sweet in under a minute.— Jared DuBois (@Jrodius) September 10, 2024
Well if we ever needed a world class coach to figure some stiff out nows the time. I think and hope we will look back on this summers performances as point where we finally understood what the job actually was.
Musah has plateaued. At club level he has been getting by on 'potential' and 'flashes', rather than any kind of growing consistency. Morris and Torre have looked better during this window.
Oh yea? I thought Musah was absolutely ASS. What is wrong with him? He’s been really bad for a while now.
No plan. No urgency. No effort. Pochettino has his work cut out for himself. I want this to go well so bad. Hopefully a new voice resets the course of the sinking ship that is the USMNT.
The one thing that used to impress me the most about Musah was how hard it was for opponents to strip him of possession. His ability to ride or evade tackles stood out as truly elite from a young age. Unfortunately, that aspect of his game seems to have regressed a good deal. I guess I'd have to rewatch these games to be sure (spoiler: I'm not going to) but I think there was a good deal more than just a single play where that simply wasn't working for him at all.
Fossey and Morris did fine, if we're looking for silver linings. They still should not be near a healthy US first 11, but I don't mind either of them as potential subs. Tillman, Wright, Aaronson have not been at all convincing as real potential attacking contributors with their opportunity this window, and overall it was a very bad window. But it's just a thing to move on from IMO... I think it's going to look completely different when Poch is in there -- I'm expecting a 4-2-3-1 that can defend as a 4-5-1, and I don't think we will (or should) ever again see all of Balo, Pepi, and Wright on the pitch at the same time. If Poch even attempts a 3 at the back with these CBs or a 2-striker system with these strikers... I'll eat my hat. Honestly, can't wait to see Weah & CP on the wings again after this.
Meh, we have Nation's League in Nov. A competitive match under a good coach will tell the tale of the character of the team. I hope to see Morris get the start.
When I hear terms like "leadership council", I just want to punch Berhalter in the face. He didn't build a national team. He built a "weakness brigade".
Fossey is Frankie Hedjuk 2.0. The hair, the run, the energy. Aidan Morris did have a bad miss (should pull the guy down for a yellow), almost gave up a goal. Balogun improved his back to goal holding. He assisted Puli for one goal but before that he also did one for Medford Messi who missed the goal.
looking at this window as a whole, the only player who impressed/showed better than i previously expected from them is schulte, who i wasnt impressed with at all in the olympics. morris was as expected for me, which was very good but dependent on our other cms in a way. i think people are getting way ahead of themselves with fossey- who was fine-good- but i cant evaluate a fb in a match they arent needed to defend more than a handful of times. i think this team need serious, substantial change and a real simple way of doing that is taking a few pieces out of the equation. - balo shouldnt be in this team, period. everything you can say that is wrong with this team (entitled, complacent, zero intensity, not playing for the team, etc) applies to him. he has done nothing to earn or maintain his place in the team. - turner and ream should be out too. we have to stop rationalizing about someone beating them out- we know for damn sure they are serious problems for us. thats all that needs to be addressed. - musah needs to be out for now (say through spring). its painfully obvious how far hes regressed, but even more informative that that hasnt been the case at the club level. its nt specific. all due respect to @porkrind but no- he didnt carry the ball forward last night. that part of his game has been mia. hes never been able to pass worth a damn. we dont press as a team so thats off the table. his ball security is nowhere to be found. he looked like a poor mans michael bradley last night with his first, and seemingly only thought when receiving the ball from the backline was to immediately play it back to them. and the defensive effort/effect he showed signs of a couple of years ago are- like his marauding runs forward carrying two and three defenders on his back- is completely missing. i single him out (from the next grouping) because his ability is so overwhelming. but hes just not right with us, for us, because of us...something. and it needs to be made clear that its just a break but hes a shadow of him former self in the nt. and only in the nt. - johnny, tillman and arguably richards. i get that it takes time, that sometimes it takes a while to scale up (or even down, as the case may be) for some guys, that club form/performance and that with the national team dont always match up- but we cant just throw cap after cap at these guys. "one of the best cms in la liga over the second half of the season" doesnt mean a damn thing if you get absolutely worked not only by canada, not only in a friendly, but by canadas central midfield in a friendly. it wasnt davies making him look like a youth player out there... no that this window should carry a ton of weight, but it took morris five matches to show as much, if not more than, johnny has in 15 (including a lot of meaningless friendlies himself). marlon fossey showed as much offensively as malik has at this level, of tillmans level of deference is extremely troubling to me. - and the obvious big question (in a lot of ways the inverse of those guys) of gio, luca, wes. i get the logic of "club form gets you into the national team, national team form there keeps you there". it seems a little arbitrary to reset that formula due to a new manager but thats just the way it is sometimes. while obviously we all want these guys playing and performing regularly with their clubs, but do gio and wes really need 3 or 4 matches in a row at dortmund or juve to get a callup, where they will show exactly what we all know- that theyre probably our second and third best players period? tottenham saying theyll pay $30 mil for johnny is super, but it doesnt make him even a consistently mediocre player for the nats. forest not giving gio a sniff doesnt change the fact that hes 3 times the player malik is (for the nats, though i dont think thats a necessary distinction)? so in conclusion this window was exactly the waste of time it was always going to be. we finally signed our manager. we need to make foundational changes to the team. those are facts. i think balo, turner and ream are pretty imperative changes we need to make now, immediately, before the next window. tell them before they head back home. poch cant advocate any change in what its going to take to be in the team if he keeps those guys. i really think musah needs a timeout, and poch can sort out the rest- i just wanted to make sure he had my opinion available .
The energy was better, I’m glad we tried some new ideas, but at the end of the day, Poch has a lot of work to do in the next 2 years.
Agree that Weston will be dumped if "overweight or whatever," especially if he cannot get his work rate up to Poch's level of satisfaction and keep it there.
Man I clearly missed something lol I'm going to.watch again and count the number of times Musah broke through the midfield as well as how many giveaways he had.
At least one time, Musah made a good run and put a powerful shot on goal. Balogun got fouled going for the rebound, but no call. Musah was awful at the start of the match though, being dispossessed several times in our own end. I wasn’t as critical as most people of the general performance, since it was a group that had never played together before, and many were getting their first real chance with the USMNT. Most played hard and showed flashes of potential. Fossey and Lund both looked like they could belong as backups, and I really didn’t see any lack of effort from any player. Aaronson and Musah were the two worst as far I could tell. Musah coughed up the ball in bad places and didn’t link up with the rest of the midfield. I hardly saw Aaronson at all, even though you would expect a #10 to have a lot of influence. Balogun was active and did assist on the goal. Tillman had a nice through pass and will have to get more aggressive. The score really didn’t matter here, except that it would have been good for our forwards confidence to rack up a few. Pepi had a good goal called back. All in all, a much more useful outing than the Canada game. We blooded some new players and it’s not realistic to think that they should have gelled as a team.
Thank God he's gone now. He stinks. USA needs to clean house. This group is 90% useless. Im tired of watching them knock it around and no shots. Balogun and Pepi are USELESS. Give up on them. They do not score. Give Sarge a chance
Outlandish comparison alert: the slowest hockey player I ever saw was Mario Lemieux. Of course he wasn't actually slow, but he was so good that he made complex actions look languid where other players would flail their way into seeming faster or more effortful.
After more than 2 years in the US jersey, I think it’s fair to expect that Musah would start to take a leadership role.