Sporting KC @ Philadelphia Union - 3/2/24 7:30PM [R]

Random thoughts following the game:

• I really wonder if our best lineup would not somehow include Pulido playing as the attacking mid, Thommy moving to the wing, and someone more direct and speedy up top to stretch the defense and make more space behind them for buildup.
  
• Pulido hasn't impacted the game much since signing his new contract and Salloi has long stints where he's invisible too.
• I don't know if we looked kinda decent for the first 30 minutes because of their squad rotation or what but despite several really good buildups we failed to make the final pass/shot which has been our trademark far too often.

 

This has to be how PV wants him to play and it does not make much sense to me. I agree that a #9 should drop back from time to time, but the number of times I have seen an good opportunity go wanting cause Pulido was 5 10 15 yds behind the play has been disheartening.

 

Watching Pulido get completely into Redoja's space was frustrating to say the least. The defenders for Philly were ok with it because they didn't have to worry about a 9 strategically lurking around the top of the box. It's really going to be fun seeing him play that way at BMO Stadium where I'm pretty sure SKC will get their asses handed to them by a frustrated LAFC side that lost 3-0 in the snow last Saturday.

 

Pulido has always played the position a little unconventionally. Almost as a false 9. Its odd in that he's a 9. A real 9 that scores goals and has most of the qualities you want in a 9. To me he plays a bit like Thomas Mueller. High praise.

2024 Pulido looks slower and not in sync with the wings. Because of how he plays, we rarely build through the middle, but rather out wide. You can't build through the middle if the 9 is playing along side the 6 to pick up the ball. Makes for a weird attacking approach. Versus Philly, all the attack was down the right. It should never be your 9 dropping to get the ball from CBs. It should always be your 6 and 8 demanding the ball from the CBs and then advancing to the attacking players.

Maybe the mids aren't demanding the ball, I don't know, but its not a great playing style. Regardless, you could make a "how not to" video demonstrating possession without chance generation by watching film of SKC over the past 5 plus. Really since Benny retired.

How to fix? I'd like to see Agada on sooner. Vermes has said several times that, unlike last year, he has more faith in the bench this year. Put in practice this weekend, he subbed two at the 80th and one at the 89th. Those are not "my bench is so good" subs.

As for the amazing bench, an injured Shelton scores as many goals as a fully fit Shelton. Afrifa is apparently color blind and not sure what team he is on. Tzionis might as well be in Cyrpus. There is only one attacking "change the game" sub on this roster and that is Agada.

Put Agada on around the 60th. Or start him, let me beat on the CBs, and then bring on slow Pulido.

 

Goddammit Luke, be less right so I can argue more.

Pulido is definitely not a false 9, but his balance is way off. One of his primary tactical goals, best as I can tell, has been to disrupt the backline, right? Pull away from the center backs and create space. Use that "gravity" that center forwards have to drag CBs out of position to create opportunities for Salloi, Thommy, and Russell to dribble in or nab a quick one-two to get into the box. Only they don't seem hugely concerned, so he's pushing and pulling a lot with little opening to show for it. And the follow-up issue is that he's not the athlete he used to be... so now he's stepping away from a relatively unconcerned backline and then he's behind the play because he can't make that ground up faster than anyone else.

Pulido from just a couple years ago would be excellent at this. Pulido from last year was occasionally excellent at this. I don't know what to expect this year. But I too wish Vermes would stop telling him to pull into the midfield so much and just restore a better ratio of striker to wanderer.

In the post-Benny years, the bulk of our chance creation has been from the wings. Salloi and Russell primarily, though others have certainly pitched in. The problem is Salloi, while a reliable player on most of the pitch, is very streaky when it's time to shoot or pass into the box. Russell is just lagging behind the play a bit more himself, so instead of being the aggressive main point of our attack, he's just not present enough. That can be managed with good decisions from management about minutes over the season... We'll see.

Vermes has some really good ideas about turning possession into good attacks. He really does. And he honestly has three, maybe four attacking players ideally suited for what he needs. The unfortunate side of that is it took too long to get it together, and now half those players are diminishing. Injuries are just the worst.

 

Agree 100 percent.

I really need to think about this more, but I see some parallels in Pulido and Mueller as they have aged. Mueller with the German national team, where they have no real 9.

 

Good point on Mueller. He's always been described as a 9.5 here, or a player without a true position, and that's Pulido. They think their way through the game a high level. They use their movement well to create mismatches and space.
But it's always questionable to play Mueller as a straight 9. It's not his game. At best he's emergency relief there. He scores just about every 230 minutes in league play, a smidge less in CL.
But he always has a strong influence on play and can unbalance teams.
Our problem in seeing Pulido this way is that while he's an ideal second striker, we only play with him up top. He can play the 9, but it isn't him, so he moseys, like Mueller.
i kind of would love to see Pulido dropped into a 10 role, with walter and Radoja as a double pivot, with Agada up top and thommy and Salloi on the wings, but I'm not sure he has the pace for that. Bmunch would do that with Mueller, on occasion, though, and he was good in that role.

 

I see a 10 being quick and good on the ball. Neither of those qualities fit Pulido. He gets knocked off the ball more than anyone on the team. I would rather see him sit up high as possible so he can do what he does best, shoot the ball. Pulido doesn't have the skill, vision, nor drive to even put him in the same conversation with a world class pedigreed player like Mueller.

 

I think Pulido is good on the ball. He works in a lot of tight spaces, so he does lose the ball, but he's in the toughest spot on the field to hold onto it. And we've seen him work really well in those spaces. His distribution can be quite excellent.
Do 10s have to be quick? Lodero? Valderama? Zidane? Lothar? Baggio? They all had Pulido-esque quickness. None were jitterbugs. they are/were all really smart, though.
All this said, he's not a 10. He's a second striker, in an ideal setup. We do no use a second striker, so we use him as a 9. He is not a natural target man, or a natural front runner. Agada is.
I'm not saying Agada is better than Pulido, just that Pulido is a natural second striker, which is as close to a 10 as a 9.
IMO, he can change a game, and we don't have a lot of that on the roster. I worry that JFR is losing that ability, maybe a quarter step slower makes the difference? Maybe he's not in game shape yet?
What I would really love to see would be us pull a Real Madrid Zidane experiment. When they moved him from the traditional 10 to the wing. He had space to cook out there, drifted like Pulido, and into great positions, and was unplayable for several years. The wing was not at all Zidane's position, but he redefined what a wing could do, a false 7. To be fair, when he retired they replaced him with another spectacular wing in CRon, who had all the speed in the world.

 

In past posts we have covered how Thommy is not a 10 and likes to drift to his natural LW spot. This was well documented last year, showing that he and Salloi tended to occupy the same space.

Piggybacking onto that concept and the Pulido discussion above, an alternate way to play would be Pulido as the 10, Agada as the 9 and either Salloi or Thommy at LW. Now, PV will never bench Salloi (one of Tzone's first issues with PV), so that means Thommy off the bench. I don't dislike that idea given his speed and willingness to drive at defenders 1 v 1. He would be a great impact sub.

A way to approach the game differently, within the confines of reality, (this roster has 13 MLS quality players and we all know the team will never play with 4 mids) if the attack gets stale and we need to try something, I would love to see a Pulido 10 and Agada 9 experiment.

 

I'm not sure I take Thommy off the field from the start. I am getting really nervous about JFR. Agada 9, Pulido 10 in a dual pivot, Salloi and Thommy wide? Is that insane? I mean, yeah, to think it might happen, but ...

 

I'd really have to see Pulido actually play the 10 behind Agada to believe that he would be effective. But, we know this is not going to happen because PV has stone feet when it comes to changing his position. Let's see how a midfield wandering Pulido fares against LAFC this weekend.

 

It is kind of sad this discussion is starting to talk of rearranging existing players when new players rarely challenge for, or are even given a real chance to it seems, those existing players for their spots.

 

Bedoya absolutely clattered him, so I'm not hugely surprised.

 

Just rewatched, many times, their final goal, and how it should not have happened and the ball came off them and went out of bounds, and it was our throw in, etc.
And this was Miami and Fontas Whinytown SKC, all over again. Leibold, instead of running over and grabbing the ball, or fighting for the ball, turns his back on the ball and complains. If they can't get the throw off quickly, there is time for the ref to consider that the ball was 100 percent off a philly player. But they can, and by turning his back and complaining, Leibold has put himself in the worst possible position to make an impact on that play. Either go after the ball, well, someone, anyone, insisting on the throw and slowing down the play, or get the hell back into defense.