At times last season, there would only be 1-3 teams that would have more goals than us. That is why when I am happy that they are investing in the defense because our attack is fine the way it is especially if there is no change in the group.
Yeah and there are 3 players who should be on relatively steep growth curves, so we should expect some improvement: Cade, Benji, and Niko. The other guys have hit their ceilings but not really on the downside either yet.
San Jose Earthquakes Head Coach Luchi Gonzalez on Carlos Gruezo, "He's played one 11-player practice midweek. Then here, at the end of the week, this is his first actual friendly... He had a pretty solid night of 45 minutes. We're going to take steps with him.#MLS #Quakes74 (1/3) pic.twitter.com/GgTmTOmxfv— Favian Renkel (@FavianRenkel) February 6, 2023 He's still getting fitness and form, post World Cup and two months of not being with the team in Germany, and then coming here as a new player with expectations. It's all about one day at a time, but the boys have integrated him well in a short amount of time. (2/3)— Favian Renkel (@FavianRenkel) February 6, 2023 He did some positive things for us tonight. So I'm excited for him to continue to adapt to the group, get his fitness get his form, and to be important for us in the Midfield.” (3/3) (📸 @tjvalenton)— Favian Renkel (@FavianRenkel) February 6, 2023 GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
To whom much is given, much is expected. Hope he turns out to be that game changer DP we’ve been waiting for since the dawn of the DP era.
Doyle loves him some d-mids - for the Quakes anyway. I remember a few years ago (2019) he said that Judson would have to be really good for the Quakes to be good that year. Well Judson was good that year and we had some really good moments but not quite enough. But anyway, seems like he has this theory that the Quakes just need a really good d-mid and they'll be fine. We'll see...
“10 new faces you need to know for the 2023 MLS season” (MLSsoccer.com - Wednesday, 2/22/23) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Gruezo is in the squad for Ecuador's World Cup qualifying opener vs. Argentina tonight. It will be televised on Telemundo.
The Ecuadorian Midfielder is Back 🇪🇨. @CarlosGruezo95 is ready to tackle. pic.twitter.com/0QN6XC7Rec— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) February 23, 2024 GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Ready to tackle, you sure about that? He wasn't in 2023. Being a defensive midfielder in the 28th percentile in tackles among midfielders is embarrassing. That's before you consider that he's a DP who came from the friggin Bundeliga for big money. But hopefully 2024 will be different.
Yeah, that is a pretty sad looking graphic. I posted Akapo's yesterday, and he was near 90% in a bnuch of stuff, and only below 50% in like 2 categories. Gruezo is below 50% in all but 4 categories. Blocks and clearances are two of those >50%, but you'd expect those to be high for a guy who's main job I guess is to "protect the back line". Also, Gruezo is almost average height for a midfielder (5'8") - a little short but not by much. There are a bunch of 5'8"-5'9" players. But he apparently can't win a header (14%).
If Gruezo is the only guy that Luchi has recruited to the Quakes, maybe we should be glad. (i.e. limiting the damage)
It would seem like he's the one guy that Luchi may have really lobbied for. The other signings, I'm sure CL discusses them with Luchi, but I don't think they are Luchi "finds" or anything like that.
And I'd add don't get caught out so much...for a DP D-mid he wanders a bit too much. The Dude really needs to up his game and actually be in a position to shield the back line.
Matches the eye test from last year and hopefully CL has learned his lesson about letting coaches pick DPs. Absolutely worthless acquisition so far, and considering how rarely we spend a money it is even more of a bummer that when we finally spend some on him. Smarts vs spending and all that. The worst part is Luchi considers him undroppable, even though you would have no idea he was a DP if you didnt know our roster. I would rather see Yuell play as a regista with two dynamic 8's like skahan and niko in front of him than another year of gruezo. Judson had his limitations and obviously was hurt by the end of his time here, but at his best was like diego chara-lite. Gruezo was a huge step down from prime Judson and I have zero faith he will be better this year.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it. Gruezo was serviceable at best last year, and that just doesn't cut it for your highest paid player (salary + amortized transfer fees). And we did look best last year when we pulled him out of the lineup and dropped Yueill to play deeper with a couple of 8/10's in front of him. Maybe Morales will take Gruezo's spot in the lineup at some point but so far I'm a little on the fence about him so far. Need to see more. He definitely has more attack in his game than Gruezo, maybe a little more bite in his defense(?) - wouldn't take much, but looks maybe a little slow. I would have liked to have seen us sign a young, quick, hungry dmid as a U22 or something, who could also push Gruezo for minutes.
Shots fired at Gruezo... This is San Jose's RECORD signing, miles out of position for all three LA goals. Awful awareness and shameful lack of effort.Obviously defensive issues with Pellegrino, Beason, and Rodrigues as well, but Gruezo's job is to protect them and he wasn't interested in doing that. pic.twitter.com/45wXlsFVCN— Alex Morgan (@quakes_talk) March 3, 2024 I'm SHOCKED that Luchi watched these plays and then chose to sub Skahan at '55 and let Gruezo play the full 90.IMO, Gruezo should be the player benched when the Quakes sign their new DP #10. He had issues with defensive cover and effort against Dallas as well.— Alex Morgan (@quakes_talk) March 3, 2024 The videos are WAY worse. On goals 2 + 3, he started the play side-by-side with Puig and just didn't bother to keep up.— Alex Morgan (@quakes_talk) March 3, 2024 How much of the blame goes to Gruezo himself, how much goes to Luchi for bringing in his old buddy from Dallas, and how much goes to Leitch for letting Luchi bring him in and not learning any lessons from our disastrous "Friends Of Matias" era?
Those shots are well deserved...Gruezo gets caught out a lot. Just watch a lot of the goals scored against the Quakes and you'll see Gruezo trailing the play habitually 5-7 yards behind, frantically trying to catch up, or sometimes not even trying. It's weird, because up until the goals, he was active and having a decent game, but the defensive tune outs are unforgivable for a Dmid, and a flat out dealbreaker for a DP Dmid ...as far as who's at fault it's Luchi and Gruezo. Luchi is getting paid to assess and correct the stuff that isn't working. It's all there to see, by fans and pundits. I'm glad someone is bringing this up, hopefully it will put some heat on Luchi to address the issue.
I'd have to watch the whole buildup to those goals to really assess Gruezo's level of fault. The only one I remember him really even being there was the first one I think when he got there late. I remember plays, when Judson was going good, where he'd would just steam in from midfield to try to save plays and he'd often do it. I don't see that from Gruezo too often. And then "good Judson" would win the ball for us a lot too. Gruezo rarely wins the ball. One word of caution though on Alex Morgan. He may be right or partially right on this one, and I'm generally a Gruezo detractor, but he does get on sort of "binges" and takes them "to 11", and gets stuck on them. For example, he is still pining for Matthew Hoppe after calling him the most impactful Quakes signing ever. And he was so gung-ho about Skahan at the end of last year that he was calling for giving him a 400% raise or something to $300k. So he can be a little off and I take what he says with a healthy grain of salt generally.
I don't know which of those examples is more funny. But I'm going to go with the latter as the Quakes would literally just be bidding his salary up against themselves...
Yep, although Skahan said in an interview that he didn't have anything to do with the salary "negotiations", such as they were. His agent handled it. I assume he got a raise, but there would be no reason for a 400% raise or anything remotely close to that.
We paid something like $2.7 million for Gruezo and he is guaranteed over $1.5 million per year in salary. Galaxy paid $0 for Puig and he is only guaranteed over $1.7 million per year. Why can't we find deals like that???