In a nutshell, this article nicely sums up the forward problems but does not really mention our lack of creative talent in the central midfield. The two are related. If the forwards have no idea where to run the midfielders won't either. As it turns out, off the ball skills are crucial at this level if you didn't know this already. The stats toward the bottom make for some particularly grim reading. "Of the 1,560 minutes the US have played since January of 2010, they’ve held the lead for a grand total of 159 minutes. They’ve trailed for 558." "Take out the Australia game and the US have led for only 85 minutes of the 1,470 for which they’ve turned out. For comparison’s sake, Mexico led for 83 of the 90 minutes against Paraguay last Saturday." http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/armchair-analyst-no-9-and-other-damning-stats Yep, if you don't score first soccer is a real uphill battle. As the team is currently playing, can you see this team beating Mexico?
Edson Buddle. Best striker we currently have. He thrives with quality players around him. He can hold the ball up very well and bring the wingers (our best players) into the attack. Buddle should be a starter
i agree. buddle should be playing. it makes no sense that he is not. also, a bigger problem is we have no one at the moment in CM to link the defense to forwards. we don't have the talent at forward to have them come back into midfield to make something happen, ala messi, rooney.
yes this is certainly a problem for us - and one I don't see being solved quickly. hate to say it, but Guiseppe Rossi could have solved A LOT of our problems. subotic sure would be nice, too. but we don't have those guys. good news is we can feel good about a lot of our positions. chandler/lichaj looks great at RB, and Tim Ream is a stud on the ball with good defending from CB. Michael Bradley is another guy who has progressed a lot, but he plays too deep to solve our attacking problems. He'll fit better with Stu than with Jones, imo.
I think one of the reasons we go down early and often is our backline. Honestly, this is one of the weakest back lines we've fielded in years. They're very experienced, however the smallest mental mistakes are magnified by a lack of speed. Most apparent with this group is poor ball skills and thus poor distribution. Gooch, Bocanegra, Demerit, and (perhaps at some point) Cherundolo need to be replaced. Unfortunately, we don't have a plethora of defenders playing abroad. Thus our best options going forward may have to come from MLS. For WC qualifying, I want to see Cherundolo/Chandler, Goodson, Ream, and Bocanegra. Hopefully, Bocanegra and Cherunodlo can be slowly phased out during the cycle.
Congratulations on misreading the entire article. You go into a rant about defense but in the last 44 games we have scored twice inside of ten minutes.
Couldn't disagree more... I thought he was a handful. Definitely should have scored on at least one of his chances though. Still think he should get a few more looks before we dump him to the wayside. 29 is not that old and were gonna need a CF for the GC.
I don't know if he is our best striker, but I am really upset with the so called writers and commentators who did not question Buddle's abrupt return to his team as well has no playing time vs Argentina. I know that some may say that he needed to be back in order to help his club team, I say b.s. .
As I posted, he started today for Ingolstadt, as they fight for their survival. Let me, for once, support Bob for letting Edson go back to his club and be ready for an important match. Of course, Bob could have played him vs. the Argies.
Yeah, both Jozy and Agudelo don't make very good runs and don't know how to hold the ball/make good passes. More often than not they would get the ball and just run straight at the defenders. The midfielders are also lacking in this department. How many times did you see Bradley or Dempsey receiving the ball and everybody else just starts running away from the player with the ball and then they lose the ball.
I'm fairly certain that it used to be the consensus on BigSoccer that the problem with the US was that they insisted on playing a center forward. A player like Brian Ching or Conor Casey would have been useful against Paraguay, who would systematically foul any midfielder who got himself any space towards goal. If you can't get past their hacks, then bypass them. I'm not sure how useful those guys would have been against Argentina though.
I think Buddle should have gotten more minutes at the World Cup. I think he's a decent forward option and I would have liked to see him get some time with the US recently. BUT, he would not have played Friday for his club if he hadn't been sent home early by the US. Had he stayed for the Paraguay match, he'd have flown out on Wednesday and arrived tired and jet lagged on Thursday. He might not even have made the game day roster on Friday. Firming up his club role has some value, and his club is in a relegation battle. He started Friday thanks to his early return, so clearly his club wanted him back. And for all we know, Buddle asked to go back early. Plus, Buddle may simply not be good enough for the international game, and at age 29 now he's not likely to be a serious option for 2014. His BL2 performances are a mixed bag. Conor Casey was a more effective BL2 forward, and nobody is screaming for him to start for the USMNT. His MLS scoring exploits rank him up there with guys like Twellman, Cunningham, Razov, Casey, Ching, Lassiter, Kreis, etc., which means diddly as far as international play. I think it is pretty obvious that BB has decided to take a chance on the kid strikers. They have 3 more years to develop and mature. Their natural gifts are very intruiging. I really cannot fault that choice; its a worthy gamble.
This. Gold Cup or no Gold Cup, the national team is still on a four-year World Cup cycle, and this is the very beginning of that cycle. For strikers perhaps more than any other position you throw them all against the wall and see who sticks, and there's still a lot of throwing to do before the next World Cup.
Your point about him leaving after the Argentina game makes some sense, however, him not getting any minutes is suspect to me. Bradley has this pattern of not giving certain players minutes, while giving others-who doesn't deserve it- extensive playing time. Think back to the wc, how many minutes did Holden get?
Yes. Despite struggling to score (and having goals taken away at the WC), we are playing overall well. There's no reason we couldn't beat Mexico with this team. If we continue to struggle to score first against worse teams like Canada, (and to a greater extent), Cuba, and Guadeloupe then we've got a real big problem. If you are asking who is more likely to win a given game between us and Mexico right now, I'd have to say Mexico. Ask me again in June when it matters though. We could be in much better form by then, particularly on the scoring front.
IMO this is exactly right. Including your take on the Paraguay and Argentina match. I'm still hoping that one of these days we can finally develop an all-around stud of a super-striker who can finish, win 50/50 balls, draw defenders, AND create some of his own chances. Then again, EVERYBODY wants a guy like that. Even the sides that have them never have enough of them.
People talk about our lack of scoring but seem to forget we scored 5 goals in 4 games at the WC which isn't terrible, and we actually led all of WC qualifying in goals scored. I understand our strikers don't score often, but to say we don't score much in general is false over the past 4 years or so. We score plenty of goals.
This may be true but he does have that brace against Australia running up to the WC... so he can score on Int'l D. The problem is Bob has given him like a total of 1 full match minutes-wise to prove that he can lead the line for us this summer. You really can't gauge much from that small amount of time... but other than Agudelo... Budson is our most inform striker at the moment.
Striker is a problem. I wouldn't say it's the biggest problem however. The team has been giving up quite a few goals going back to late in the '06 cycle when even Brian McBrideand Brian Ching were in the team. In '06 6 goals were yielded in 3 world cup games. 14 goals were surrendered on 13 game schedule that included Jamaica, Venezuela, Latvia, Canada, and Guatemala.