No. Nobody was "pleased." Jesus f*cking christ. We have been through this for months. Shaqiri was the best player for the Fire last season. Tops in assists, second in goals. He was NOT the problem on the team last season. We played boring, uninspiring football from the back four to the forwards. We all know that. We went through it last season. However, he did not elevate the team and inspire like Nowak did. Of course, they are different players in different eras on very, very different teams. Shaqiri's play was often less than thralling, but he was one of the very, very few bright spots for us. The others being SLONINA and Duran. I expect more from this team and more from Shaqiri. Surround him with a better team (like Nowak had every season, compared to the rest of the league) and I suspect we would see far more productivity from him. Got it, now?
Thanks for bringing positions/topics… 1) I disagree, Czichos was our best player. Wanna discuss/debate or ‘nah I’m right your wrong’ 2) yup, best in assist for the Fire, 12th in the league 3) 4th in ‘in-play goals’ behind Duran, Przybylko & Muller…and all 3 of them would likely have buried the PKs you rank ‘the same’ 4) boring, better team, everybody else sucked lol 5) bright spots…Gaga, Czichos, Guti, Duran…tad bit of Mueller, Fede and Gaston. Shaqiri did not bring joy to our season, except for once and it was the weird sprint after scoring when he ran harder than he did any time during his ‘in play mimutes’
Y’all can go off on whoever (Heitz, Ezra, ‘target of the day’) but I’m disturbed for calling out our 8mil DP that was meh. https://imgur.com/a/PZQ3lbN
Enough all of you sheesh!!! This back and forth is getting annoying. How about we just see what happens this season as he is not going anywhere. We have heard everyone's opinions for this last season. Enough. Let's all move on and Go Fire!
Repeated personal jabs will light things up... I've tried multiple times to frame this factually, statistically, tactically, based on 45yrs of experience with the game, etc....and every time the response is "made personal". You don't have to agree with me, but call me disturbed, with an agenda, "you don't get it", or what ever BS personal thing...and yea...you'll get a reaction. Run Forrest run.
The team has positional issues. Whether or not Shaq has thus far played at his pay grade is SUBJECTIVE. Whatever one thinks of his play, everyone here pretty much knows where everyone stands on the issue, and no one is likely to change their opinion. However it is not a position the Fire need to upgrade or get depth at to have solid season and get back, comfortably, to the playoffs. We got other fish to fry.
You seem to have an agenda given your laser focus on trying to get everyone to agree with you that Shaqiri is the problem on this team. When people disagree you point to stats saying "don't you expect more"? When we point to stats like "We were next to last in goals scored in the league and our DP was somehow 12th in the league in assists despite that huge handicap" you'll start bringing up hockey assists and PKs because those stats don't suit your narrative. Let's agree to disagree. Most people here don't think Shaqiri is the problem, some do, we get it. Let's move on.
On the other side of the coin, a couple of folks are super defensive when it comes to any criticism aimed at Shaqiri. "Shaqiri was the best player for the Fire last season." I don't see where praise like that is coming from. I agree that he was the best paid player on the Fire last season, but stating that Shaqiri was the best player on the team is going a bit far. He has that potential, saw bits of that last season. Looking and expecting much more from him this season.
I don’t think anyone defends him to the extent that we think he’s god or something. He is imperfect but as has been said, he’s about the last place we need to look for improvement. I would argue CDM and Shaqiri are the two spots to ignore while literally everything else could use an upgrade. We could have an interesting talk about who was “the best”, as in Czichos was best leader, Duran was best speedster, Shaqiri was best playmaker, etc., and which one was most important to the team overall. That’s totally subjective and I don’t disagree if someone thinks Mueller was most important because when he arrived the team certainly got a visible lift. Not my choice but I can see why someone might say that. Shaqiri’s my choice for that but other players certainly did their part, too.
On the upside, we don't really have someone who begs limitless mocking. Example: Manbun. (Although it is amusing....up to a point)
Did they say they hate Shaqiri or are you ‘calling them a hater’ for sharing factual data that Shaqiri doesn't rank particularly well in comparison to his peers?
The stats are wrong. Shaqiri had 11 assists. This says 6. I didn't bother to check the inaccuracy of the rest of the stats, as that one jumped out to me.
Gotcha. FWIW, I don't hate Shaqiri...just don't believe his performance was "DP good" 6 "assists" is accurate. 11 is the count with the additional 5 "assist of the assist". The link is using OPTA stats and comparing apples to apples.
I believe you did a breakdown of his assists a couple months ago when people were discussing this but I don’t know where it is. Some people say MLS is including “second assists” while OPTA does not. I don’t know which games/assists OPTA includes and which it dismisses so I can’t confirm what assist means. I thought your post dispelled the “second assist” theory but don’t really remember.