Don't think he has the foot speed or mentality for LB. An outside MF at best. If we go 442 maybe but, 4231, I am not so sure. Would rather see Weah or Amon out there.
As mentioned in other threads involving YA's in Belgium, most of the major Belgian clubs were raided by the police today, RSC included. There are a number of charges being leveled against various personnel, the most egregious being match fixing. Anderlecht's former director Herman Van Holsbeeck was detained and interrogated, and is apparently considered a suspect in all of this. It's worth noting that he stepped down this March after the club was sold to Marc Coucke, but I think (and I'm really really not sure of this) that Van Holsbeeck brought in Vanhaezebrouck, who brought in Kenny. It's also worth noting that Vanhaezebrouck's (and Kenny's) former club Gent was also raided by police (apparently while they were finalizing the contract of their new manager lol). I'd guess that the fallout of this will take months of untangle, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
It's hard to put all of this together... as far as I can tell, lots of focus is being put on player agents. Kenny's agent David 'Dudu' Dahan isn't directly named in any of the major reports about this, but Mogi Bayat is at the center of it all, and it kinda appears that Mogi and Dudu have worked on deals in the past: 1026404679213830146 is not a valid tweet id I'm guessing that this is just a case of "we've worked together before" and not "we are actively in business together", but who knows. The fallout from all of this is going to be a major distraction for the players. If, for some weird reason, Vanhaezebrouck is forced out, I hope Kenny impresses the next manager. He really struggled to earn minutes after Vanhaezebrouck was fired from Gent last year.
I think the big question, especially with the match fixing accusations, is how this impacted playing time and player selection. Did Bayat's players have an edge on regular playing time?
Saief was arguably worse than Antonee Robinson defending against Colombia: Ahead of peru, a thread on our defensive woes vs colombia. We know robinson struggled but we might be overlooking how much kenny saief hurt us. He was so ineffective I'm actually less discouraged about everybody else. To the tape— ol velasquez (@away_goals) October 15, 2018 There are a bunch of videos in that thread. I know he's coming back from injury and all that, but honestly in three appearances for the US he hasn't been threatening going forward at all (too slow to beat int'l fullbacks), and the thread linked above shows that he was a severe defensive liability against Colombia, due to a lack of concentration, effort, athleticism, and whatever. I'm not impressed.
mean take: Saief isn't good enough passive-aggressive mean take: Kenny Saief is a player who cannot thrive without the coaching of Hein Vanhaezebrouck overly-nice take: Kenny is coming back from injury, has barely started this season, and isn't tasked with defending that much for his club. We did not look substantially more defensively stable after Saief left the pitch. reasonable take: This is a player who has played just 3 games in a US system of any kind. His defending was bad, but it's unreasonable to expect him to instantly click with this team on both offense and defense because he's not JJ or Fabian Johnson talented. He's now left multiple camps early with an injury, meaning he hasn't had time to gel with his new teammates either in training or in matches. However, it should be noted that since leaving Israel in 2014, he's failed to truly thrive under a manager that isn't Hein Vanhaezebrouck... he needs to prove that he's capable of playing well in new and different environments to be a truly successful player for club and country, and so far he isn't doing that. dumb take: the USMNT should switch to 3 at the back because that's what Saief's natural position is also its what Pep does now.
He is more of an attacking player, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be tasked with defending. I think the twitter thread was overly harsh, but it's not entirely wrong. What is entirely incorrect is the portion of the fanbase that assumes he should be a superb defender because he's frequently described as a "wingback"... that's not his role even if it is sometimes his position. I'd love to see him Julian Green's position / role in that 4-4-1-1, I think he'd be better utilized there.
I've seen Saief do more defensive work when he was fit. Against Colombia he was only half fit, so not running enough. Otherwise, that I consider him, who's nothing extraordinary as a player, as a candidate for winger with the NT, is only because of the lack of talent in that position we have, all over the pool. Maybe we'll be stuck using the fullbacks to provide width again, like Klinsi used to do. Our best player is the only one who can play wing decently, but he may be wasted as a pure winger.
TBF, there are other possible reasons 3 in the back for the USMNT might be a good option, including our better-than-typical depth there, our lack of depth at the attacking wing spots, and our LB problems. Even then, I wouldn't exactly pen Saief as first choice over Johnson and Robinson at the left wing spot.
I'm not quite sure what the opposition is going for here, but Kenny's tail light is mauve... Kenny Saief est mauve, il pense et vit en mauve. Même le phare arrière de son vélo est mauve... Pas réglementaire, tout ça, d'après Javier Martos et @SelimAmallah21 ! Et vous, vous en pensez quoi ? Surfez vite sur https://t.co/PO8SGUQ4lb ! #CSR #Footballplus pic.twitter.com/Bp1sXWHEXL— Royal Excel Mouscron (@ExcelMouscron) October 18, 2018
Kenny's foray into French pop culture. Next, put him in the Smokey Bear role: "seul le Saief peut prévenir les feux de forêt!"
On the bench: Hier vind je het basiselftal van coach Vanhaezebrouck! Voici le onze de base du coach Vanhaezebrouck! ⚽️ Suivez #ANDCER sur l'app Officielle! Volg de wedstrijd via de #RSCA Official-app! ▶️ https://t.co/FyLJRuSmqj #COYM pic.twitter.com/7slf3rN27c— RSC Anderlecht (@rscanderlecht) October 21, 2018
Starts: Hier vind je het basiselftal van coach Vanhaezebrouck! Voici le onze de base du coach Vanhaezebrouck! ⚽️ Suivez #ANDFEN sur l'app Officielle! Volg de wedstrijd via de #RSCA Official-app! ▶️ https://t.co/FyLJRuSmqj #UEL #COYM pic.twitter.com/I6eSQtmUcW— RSC Anderlecht (@rscanderlecht) October 25, 2018
Goes the distance in a 2-2 draw. He was lively according to match reports, won 4 free kicks, had a key pass (resulting shot was saved), and took a few shots on target himself. Ended the match with a 7.2 WhoScored rating.
A tie at home vs. Fenerbahce is not a good result though. They needed the win. Anderlecht already lost away to Trnava, and at home to the best team in the group, Zagreb. With this result, they're stuck last in their group with one point and no chance to move on.
Starts (it's a holiday in Belgium): Hier vind je het basiselftal van coach Vanhaezebrouck! Voici le onze de base du coach Vanhaezebrouck! ⚽️ Suivez #ANDLOK sur l'app officielle! Volg de wedstrijd via de #RSCA Official-app! ▶️ https://t.co/FyLJRuSmqj #COYM pic.twitter.com/tFqOSLrS70— RSC Anderlecht (@rscanderlecht) November 1, 2018
Went the distance in a 1-1 draw. This article says that, "... the American international showed no added value at any time... Saief suffered multiple turn-overs, was sloppy in his passing and could barely threaten," and then rounds up a few frustrated fan tweets. I don't think he was a standout last season, but, IIRC, he was playing well enough to become a fan favorite. So... I guess his recovery from injury isn't going well.
On the bench: Hier vind je het basiselftal van coach Vanhaezebrouck! Voici le onze de base du coach Vanhaezebrouck! ⚽️ Suivez #WBEAND sur l'app officielle! Volg de wedstrijd via de #RSCA Official-app! ▶️ https://t.co/FyLJRuSmqj #COYM pic.twitter.com/JieSiAL0d4— RSC Anderlecht (@rscanderlecht) November 4, 2018
On the bench, did not play in Anderlecht's 2-0 away loss to Fenerbahce, which eliminates them from the Europa League.