As a group I fully expect them to sailor dive into the shallow end of a pool holding plugged in toasters after a loss. Their ideal midfield consists of the the 3 best, in form midfielders in Europe not playing for Juventus.
Just finished the first half against Sassulo. Outside of one pass, McKennie was very good. He combined very well with teammates. The problem this team has is that they don't have a stone cold goal scorer.
The Eurosport Italia guys are mad. They hate McKennie* and today he scored. LOL. https://www.eurosport.it/calcio/ser...o.-nella-juve-si-salva_sto8605018/story.shtml Weston MCKENNIE 6 – Lo salva il gol, altrimenti sarebbe ben sotto questa soglia. [The goal saved him, otherwise he'd be well below average.] Other more balanced sites had this to say: https://www.juventusnews24.com/pagelle-juve-sassuolo-voti-protagonisti-match-serie-a-2021-22/ McKennie 6.5 – Wide on the right he made good moves, and Sassuolo struggled to read his runs. However, he is too technically imprecise, and he often misses the last pass. In the second half, however, he scored the equalizer. https://www.repubblica.it/sport/cal.../27/news/pagelle_juventus_sassuolo-324028151/ 6.5 McKennie Went up the field to sign the tie. The best of the lot. https://www.stadionews.it/juventus-sassuolo-1-2-pagelle-voti-fantacalcio-serie-a-27-ottobre-2021/ Juventus (4-4-2): Perin 6,5; Danilo 5,5 (dal 35′ s.t. Kulusevski s.v.), Bonucci 5,5, De Ligt 4,5, De Sciglio s.v. (dal 13′ p.t. Alex Sandro 4); Chiesa 5,5, McKennie 6,5, Locatelli 5 (dal 35′ s.t. Arthur s.v.), Rabiot 5 (dal 1′ s.t. Cuadrado 6); Dybala 6,5, Morata 3 (dal 18′ s.t. Kaio Jorge 6,5). https://www.corriere.it/sport/calci...ci-778192ae-3750-11ec-9f13-f50cf5ef89b5.shtml 6.5 McKennie He has a flair for making runs and changing timing, although not always the control that they would require. However, from the end line he offered a good chance to Rabiot; and in the second half, he found the tie with a header ---- * Actually, they hate YsA in general.
Yeah McKennie is the scape goat, no matter what he does it’s bad. The narrative is so damn hollow but no sense screaming into the void over there. This is the third or 4th really good game in a row. Is he a bit sloppy? Yes. Does the turn over the ball sometimes. Yes. Is he worth it for everything else he does. Absolutely. No way you can convince Juve fans of it though.
I feel them re: his impreciseness. Was listening to scuffed the other day and they mentioned his "clean up ability" (or something along those lines) and it's true -- part of the reason why I think he's so good at his kind of chaos ball is so often his touch is unreliable. He's *excellent* at recovering from a bad touch, but too often the recovery result is not as good as what the clean result would've led to. He misses a lot of passes, assists, goals, because his touch is off. For me, this is the one weakness in his game. Other than that, he'll fight, he'll run all day, he'll find clever passes, he'll blow up the opposition in the open field, he'll win crucial headers. If he can just clean up his feet a bit...
Except if you watch just his highlights, you can see he wasn't really struggling with sloppiness there. The highlights didn't include a really nice steal he had - covering lots of ground to anticipate a pass that was almost in on goal. My issue with him isn't sloppiness as much as reading the game, being more efficient in positioning and being better in the tackle. He's going to get better. Now that I see the last goal again, he was left alone on an island and I see why he tried to hedge his positioning since he had two guys to cover. The coach was going all out for the win, and Sideshow Cuadrado's errant cross didn't do the team any favors. Not sure why I don't feel this way all the time since I read the USA Men forum, but this is one group of fans that I'm not going to sweat how they feel about our player - especially fans on Twitter. McKennie definitely needs to get better, but I thought he had a really good game.
This paragraph is spot on. This is a fan base that berates everyone. There are no sacred cows. I would be concerned if he looked like he didn't belonged. That is not the case. He is getting a masters class in tactics like he's never had before. That takes time for it all the soak in. If he's still there 2 or three years from now, playing on a regular basis, he's going to be one heck of a player.
That was Wes' best game of the year. I thought he played very well. Not sure why a CM is the only player in his own half at the end of the game on the counter. He was right in the middle of the field. Were fans expecting him to cover that guy? Blaming Wes for the loss is laughable at best.
He certainly would be appreciated more. I wouldn't have a problem with him going to England as long as he was going to a team that had real aspirations of competing for Champions League. Although, if he stops getting playing time then all bets are off.
Yeah, I have been anti-Wes since Nashville, but he was a bright spot yesterday and deserves no blame whatsoever for that team performance.
Was also one of the best players on the pitch against Inter. Wes' ceiling is below World Class but it's high enough that he'd be an asset to pretty much any team in the world, when he's on form
The challenge that Wes presents to any coach is that he brings a lot of assets to the table in terms of what coaches want, but his game doesn't fit a lot of the currently in use archetypes. He's not a luxury player, but he's a bit of tweener, and so can be hard to fit in a lineup if you don't have some of those archetypes already filled. For example, when someone like Artur is playing really well on Juve, and is filling that distributor / metronome / shuttler role well, then Wes is free to be the chaotic offensive and defensive demon he is. But when the rest of the midfield is struggling, suddenly people are wondering why we're using a midfielder in that sort of Mezzala role when we can't even control possession.
If you could put Dest feet on McKennie's pysique and add, maybe, Gio R's or Tyler Adam's read of the game... That would be the next American Hero.
When did Wes start with the orange bit of dye in his hair? That seems to have been some sort of turning point!
I was one of the folks that thought McKennie's technical and tactical issues might bite him at Juvie/Serie A, but I think 2 years of playing there and getting on the field regularly has improved and will keep improving those aspects of his game if/when he goes to England for the Pounds he'll be a more well-rounded player to my eye.
That is a full-grown Gio Reyna The loose touch thing is interesting to me...a player driving forward on the dribble and advancing the ball 20-30 yards is very likely to lose it, but we seem to forgive players like Dybala, Chiesa, even Messi, who are dispossesed trying to score, but not forgiving of a player who loses it looking for passing options. Mostly it is interesting though because WM is elite at winning the ball and turning that action into a progressive play - he doesn't just win the ball but the ball winning touch is a pass to a teammate, often upfield. Over and over again, I can think of very few players I've seen who consistently do this. Weston would be an absolute monster on a good high-pressing team, creating attacking options off turnovers.
I'm interested in what you define as world class, if Weston's ceiling is below that when he's already been/is currently a starter on a top-20 (?) team in the world.