Please, you are judging him against MLS players.. give me a break. Raul Ruidiaz is one of the best strikers in the MLS, before he played in the MLS, he tried to play in Brazil and guess what? He had to go to a Mexico because the brazilian players were too physical for him and he did not have any success scoring goals.
I understand your point, but with the middle 3 that we had today (Musah-McKennie-Adams), if we had Pulisic instead of Konrad and Morris instead of Lletget that group could've manhandled Wales pretty well in their own stadium. All we were missing was some 1v1 shizzle in the final third and Pulisic could've had a field day doing exactly that.
It almost appeared as if some of our skill players (Dest and others) were more interested in beating a man one-on-one, than they were about actually advancing the ball downfield or creating scoring opportunities.
I'm content to consider the match an audition. It would have been nice to win, to have been set up to win. But I'll settle for the sweet fragrance of promise.
Besides Gio Reyna, who do you think is better than Morris at the present out of all the forward options that were available today? If we're talking about winning a competitive game next week and not a couple of years from now, or winning a dual-national tug-of-war.
This was the most Arsenal-like I've seen the USMNT play, and I mean that in both a positive and negative way
I m not trying to kill the guy, morris but he would be good if we bunker all day and waiting for counter...thats basically the arena ball back Ithe early 2000s.... We need someone to play with these guys... sergeant has been doing it on germany ..holding ball and getting ppl involve. Dike is interesting talent. Nothing again morris. When I say one dimensional, he's great at counter attacking soccer
That team tonight is full of “look at me” type personalities. Mckennie and Dest are prime examples. Good players individually, but not great team players.
I'm no Morris superfan, but again don't have a superior attitude and tell me what I'm judging him on. I'll match my soccer brain against yours every day of the week. I'm judging him on what I see in MLS and for the nats. And based on 45 years of playing and watching soccer. Every international player that comes to MLS talks about the athleticism of MLS - so again you had a bad take live with it
Well.... no Pulisic, no Sergeant, no Morris, Reyna playing his very first game with us ever. I'm ok with that. Reyna's a combination player. The game was begging for a dribbler, and we didn't have one in the final third. Dest was that guy for the most part. The addition of either Pulisic or Morris could've changed things.
I totally agreed with you. I like Morris, I think he is a great player but to me, this new squad is miles ahead of Morris. At this moment, Sargent is one of the best options that we have.
I say dike is interesting because he can hold off the Ball and from what I saw, he's faster than sergeant. That means we can play counter and possession soccer with him. Maybe sergeant has better soccer IQ.
No problem, if you think Morris is fast and very athletic, I respect you opinion but I do not agree. I see Morris a very smart player, he knows how to move and shield the ball. He is like "el mago Valdivia" in terms of style. El "mago Valdivia" does not need to run fast to be effective.
For me Sargent, for his age, is one step above Morris and I think he has a higher ceiling. They both know how to hold the ball but I think Sargent has a slightly better touch on the ball.
Well, Morris wasn't available today, so it is a bit of an unbalanced question to eliminate other unavailable options from the equation yet tossing him in. But, with Pulisic out I probably would start Morris as one of the wings for a game to win today. But, if Pulisic is healthy and you consider Gio a wing, than Morris either has to play up top or he'd be just outside my 11. Just outside the first 11 and still getting plenty of minutes with this injury-prone group we have, but not an all-healthy starter for me on the wing because we happen to have two extremely strong options there. I'd be much more inclined to play him as a 9 than Lletget if we need to get him on the field.
We needed a "true 9" to help break down Wales. Otherwise, for a team which had not played since February and starting a couple of 17 year olds for the first time, they did OK. I don't know why we were considered the underdogs because it seemed to me we dominated possession and were simply just lacking quality in the final third.
First half especially was very promising. Possession was maintained in a more aggressive and lively manner than what you usually see from the U.S., especially in an away situation against decent opposition. Couple that with the ease in which the ball was won back quickly and it was a controlling performance in many respects (although not where it really counts on the scoresheet). On that note quality chances were not in abundance. In fact, that front wasn't much better than those obvious plodding stinkers that make you wonder why you just spent two hours watching. Man of the match was McKennie. Excellent first half, but dropped off a bit, kind of expected given how hard he was working and how he was trying to do everything. Loved the effort, but by the time he had that play at the end where he was pulling out the stepovers I kind of accepted we wouldn't be seeing a goal tonight.
I really don't even know anymore if this McKennie hate is real or just intentionally obtuse for laughs.