I don't know much about Convey, but I continually see him described as a shoe in for the WC here on BigSoccer. I'd appreciate a discussion of his game? Strengths/weaknesses? Does he have pace?? How is he doing at Reading....star, starter, or bench?
You can learn a lot about Bobby over in the Yanks Abroad forum but in a nutshell, Bobby went to England last year and had a horrible time settling in and played poorly. Somehow he found himself in pre-season this year and has had a breakout season for a breakout team (Reading are now undefeated in something like 31 league games, a league record...they haven't lost since opening day). Convey has played all over the midfield for the US Youth sides and DC United but now he has found himself a home as a left-sided midfielder with tons of pace and a pretty mean cross. He's also not afraid to run at folks given the opportunity. His game this season for Reading has been to run himself silly for 65-70 minutes and then be subsituted. Reading utilize their wingers better than just about any team in England and Bobby has been a real role player in their run to almost certain promotion to the Premiership. I think he's netted 5 goals now and probably has at least that many assists if not more. Of course, with Eddie Lewis and DeMarcus Beasley also naturally left-sided midfielders, we're overflowing at that position for Germany. I wouldn't be surprised to see all three of them on the pitch simultanteously in a game before it's all over.
From several points of view this is about the strongest left side for a 4-3-3 that we could put on the field. All three are VERY comfortable going forward. (With Beas the best at that) All three are VERY comfortable defending like a left back, in fact all have played that position to some extent. All three pass well and have great speed. My one problem with this is that calling Beas a forward will not make him one. In fact Convey is a little more forwardish that either of the other two. Convey has even played decently as a holding mid and attacks fairly well out of that. One possibility if we really need attack would be a "defensive" midfield of Reyna with Convey, Lewis and Beas as a tripple on the left side with no one as a "forward", "Defender" or "midfielder" and all free to interchange as needed. (They all have enough experience to be given this freedom) McHead as the "true" Forward with Donovan withdrawn and a right side of Dolo, Dempsey (If his form continues) and EJ Then pick the central defender. No, I am not saying this is the best lineup - just an interesting one. I believe that Convey is a true lock for the roster for the same reason Dolo is for the right side. He can play several positions and be productive out of those positions. Besides he has been well blasted on BS and THAT makes him a favorite. The kiss of death for a player would to be loved on BS by most everyone. That would be sure to cause a drop of form or an injury.
He's primarily a left midfielder. Has played some a-mid with Reading and at the youth NT level. He has excellent speed and lateral movement. Crosses extremely well. Has excellent workrate. Doesn't place the ball on frame from open play as often as one would like. His performances at Reading this season and with the U-20s are the highpoints of his career. His role with the WC team will be primarily as Beasley's backup and a situational starter imo.
Thanks for all the input! It's great to hear that he's come along so well. I remember watching him step on for DC United as the youngest ever MLS player....what was he? 15?
One thing to remember.... Some Convey supporters are VERY fanatical about their guy. Some Convey detractors are OVERLY critical about him. To take the superlatives and the criticisms and use them as a guide... but don't believe everything you read about him as there is a lot of hyperbole and a lot of legend about him. Convey has good speed, a good work rate, and a good pass. Yes he takes a lot of corners and free kicks - this is for 2 reasons --- he's a good crosser of hte ball, and he's also small meaning he's not a good target in the box. He has 4 or 5 goals this year for Reading, but historically he's been very poor shooting on goal (I'm hoping the bad shooting days are over). He doesn't beat players often by dribbling, but rather plays more of a passing game. Convey did indeed play central midfield in the mold of Claudio Reyna for the youth national teams, but as a pro he's pretty much been moved to the left side. Hey may have played centrally for Reading 1 or 2 times, but make no mistake - at this point for Reading he is a winger. He and Little are a great wing pairing for a manager who knows about wing play.
I would like to see him on the field some place. He is a left side player who moves very well without the ball inside the field. He might be able to play left back against smaller fast players. Arena loves to see his players make long crossing ball from a left back position when supporting. In my oppionion he does not have the leg to make those kind of long early crosses. He can and does take corners from the left side. I don't think he is a great crosser from the byline. Then again I have not seen him play in a while. He can score goals when he moves inside the field from a flank. He is not a big score when he doe that but he can score. His problems star twhen he trys to dribble with the ball too fast. He can and did lose control of his body. At those times he does nopt pass the ball as good as he could and is off on his shots. So he needs to slow it down a little to still stay in control of his body. Again I have not seen him lately, but that is the main reason he will be in Germany. He is not a bad tackler but against a big player he needs his body to win the ball. It is a bad matchup with him defending a bigger fast player. He works well with Beasilty if he is the left wing mid. They interchange positions very well. One last thing he is usually up when the ball is up which is a good thing. He moves without the ball great.
He is legally blind in his left eye, which is one reason he's better on the left than the right. Some have postulated moving him to RM, given our lack of quality there and depth at LM, but I doubt he'd be a good fit there.
Any time I come across an interesting post I save it concerning our game. You might find this interesting. It is even more interesting to me now then before now that diabetis complication seems to be killing me off. Retina eye problems concerning me kind of like the poster. This also might help you really understand what Convey is going through trying to play. Any way check this out. -------------------------------- Subject: Dominant Eye I have some experience in both goal keeping, having done it for thirty years, and with how your eyes work in conjunction with your hands. The later needs a full description before some wag offers cute comments. About two years ago I had a blood clot in the artery that feeds the central part of my left retina. The clot caused pressure to build up and the artery ruptured. The blood caused the central part of the retina to detach. The result is I am basically blind in my left eye. I have decent peripheral vision, but the best way I can describe the vision in my left eye is to say I can see light but no images. It is like looking through a pane of glass that someone has poured heavy oil over. The resulting two years have seen six laser surgeries on my eye to stem the blood leaking into the gelatinous fluid in my eye ball and to stop the growth of blood vessels into the drains that regulate the pressure inside my eye. The result of this has been a lot of study on my part and frequent visits to the ophthalmologist. Here is a little of what I have learned. First, eye dominance and how vision works. Most people have a dominant eye, but it is in truth a dominant part of your brain that process information from your eyes. Most brains are set up to give preference to information from one eye. That being said, the eyes work much more in combination that in preference to each other. This is especially true in judging depth. Your brain uses many "tricks" to judge size, depth and movement. Often we do not "see" what we think we do. Rather our brain processes the information and assembles a pattern that we discern as size, depth and movement. We can fool our brains in a number of ways. One way to fool the brain I have become all too familiar with. You brain will retain an image of what you see and will fill in missing information. This is why you do not see a black spot or a hole where your blind spot is - the place where your optic nerve connects to the back of the retina. For me this has become very real for in my left eye I have what amounts to a blind spot that encompasses 80% of the field of vision. But, I do not see it unless I close my right eye. The brain uses the information from my right eye to fill in what is missing from my left eye, adds what is stored from looking in particular directions that is stored in my short term memory and fills in colors and patterns based on adjacent colors, much like Photoshop would in editing a photograph. The result is I cannot see many things I think I am looking at. My wallet, glasses, cell phone, keys and other similarly sized items can be laying in the open, but I do not see them. I think I looked at where they are, but my brain has fooled my into thinking I looked at an area, when I did not "see" the area. The result of how I "see" is I have significantly impaired depth perception. Large items I can see fairly well as they approach. For example, cars. In this case the brain uses the trick of perceived change in size as corresponding to distance. You know, the further something is from you the smaller it looks. The relative change in size your brain interprets as a change in distance, not as something growing. For smaller items that move quickly the brain uses different tricks and relies heavily on binocular vision. Assume a game of table tennis. I used to love playing it. I cannot now. I lose the ball in flight. A soccer ball is close to being in between these two for me. It is just small enough that I misjudge the balls arrival by a fraction of a second. This makes catching very difficult, unless my body is behind the ball. If creates problems with how I make my first touch on the ball, as well. For years I developed the habit on stepping down on a ball and brushing it as it arrives. This puts back spin in the ball and holds it against my leg. I do not step on the ball and pin, rather I step down directly behind the ball as it arrives. I have great difficulty judging this now and the ball will sometimes roll under my foot when I never had that problem before. The net result is that how I react, and from what I have learned in dealing with training goalies, is that most people react to the arrival of the ball with the sense of vision, not touch. The final micro second of the balls arrival and our contact with the ball is governed by what we see. The dominant eye is not what matters in this final micro second, but what both eyes see - our binocular vision. You can train to catch by touch, I am learning, but it is hard. I used to be able to snag any small tossed item. Now more often than not they bounce from my hand before I grasp them. The same is true for grasping a soccer ball. This, in short, means that wearing an eye patch is self defeating. It is not the dominant eye but the interaction of the information from both eyes that assists hand eye coordination. Second, wearing an eye patch does not aid in determining eye dominance. You are blanking out an eye and the brain will simply use the other eye. The way to test for eye dominance is to use an interference pattern on both eyes at the same time. This is done by placing a shield between the eyes and showing a different picture to each eye, usually a pattern of diagonal lines slanting down to the left for the left eye, and slanting down to the right for the right eye. The less dominant one eye is the more the brain will construct a pattern of broken lines, rather than the solid diagonal lines each eye sees. The more dominant one eye the more the pattern the brain perceives will resemble the pattern or slant one eye is looking at. Third, as I wrote, if the purpose is eye dominance, the drill is utterly stupid. If, however, the training is design to aid the keeper to learn to catch by touch as well as by sight it has some merit. Keep in mind what I wrote about how I am having to relearn how to catch. It is a slow process. I can see value in teaching players to catch using touch and sight, for those times when sight might be impaired by rain or dust in the eyes. I hope this long answer helps. There is more that I can provide. But I trust you now "see" what I mean.
IIRC, he sent in a pin-point long pass from 50 yards out (from left back position) to Lita for his first assist this season. From what little I've seen so far this season (2-3 full matches and highlights of a few games), he's making improvements in this area. He's scored five for Reading so far. There's a link to the video of his most recent goal against Norwich on the YA forum. I'd say that's a typical Convey goal (for Reading) - making early runs into the open space from his own half, beating the defenders, and pulling the shots at the edge of the box. He would have missed 99 out of 100 in the past. But now he's making enough of them to be a threat. Noticed the same thing, too. Funny thing is, it often looks like he's about to lose balance and fall down when you watch him run on TV. But in person, it doesn't look so. I've seen Reading fans praising his "good balance." Maybe he's finally grown into his body and gained better control of it? Can't really judge unless I manage to see him in person again. A few years ago, Arena said in an interview that Convey has very good vision and great read of the game and that's what set him apart from other good (youth) players. I'd say this is his best attribute. He has amazing ability to find and move into open space. Now that he's a better shooter and his teammates are able to find him, he's making assists and goals on a regular basis. On the USMNT, he also combines quite nicely with both Donovan and Reyna.
Since DMB has the left-mid locked down I'd like to see Convey in a JOB or Donovan type role. Right now, I think he's probably our only player with the skills to play the Donovan A-mid role if Donovan needs to be subbed or is moved to a different position at some point in the game. I also think he could step in for JOB if he isn't fully recovered by World Cup time. I'm not completely sold on the idea but I think it's worth Arena giving it a shot in the pre-World Cup friendlies. I also think Dempsey and Adu have the potential to be the Donovan type A-mid, but their games aren't near that level yet.
Good post man. I was a left back and my forte was the long very early cross to the far flank a lot further then 50 yards. 50 yards get's the ball to the far side flank mid which is a good ball but it is not really a ball to a far side striker like Agoss was able to do. That ball has to cover a lot of the field.
I ask this in all sincerity... How often have you seen him play to have this opinion? I ask because I see this kind of comment a lot, and now believe Convey's mystique has overtaken the Keller mystique of 10 years ago. Let me start with - I think Convey's good - and having a very good year. But I've only been able to see a couple games from Reading this year and other than that all I have are National team games over recent times. In these games he's been fine, but nothing to suggest he's extraordinary.
I offered my analysis based on seeing him in some games with DC United, USMNT, and mostly the U-20 tournament. In the U-20 tournament he was the engine of that team. He moved into attack well and was able to move the ball around pretty fluidly. I do worry about his finishing ability, but he seems to be improving in that part of his game. He has a good soccer mind and that extra gear, like Donovan, to make great runs that can cut through the opposing team's midfield and defense. I'm also basing this on the depth chart. I think he's the only player in our pool that can come close to replicating what Donovan does for our team. Beyond him I see JOB who doesn't produce those Donovan type runs, Dempsey who seems a little outclassed in international competition at this stage of his career, Martino who's totally inconsistent, and Adu who's much too young. Am I missing somebody who can step in and play the A-mid role right now?
Just thinking about a lineup that could contain all three left sided players... ------------Keller------------- ------Gooch------Berhalter--- Cherundolo---------------Lewis -----------Mastroeni------------- -------Reyna------Convey------- -Donovan----------------Beasley- ------------McBride-------------
I think Convey could move into the JOB slot quite well. JOB is a starter on a lot of peoples "wish list" but we may have to bump him or atleast assume that he will not be close to 100% fitness.
I think if Johnson isn't 100%, you might see something like this. You know Beasley is going to give you better defense out of this alignment than Donovan will, but there are some advantages. (It's one of our more creative lineups.) I do think Dolo and possibly Lewis launching long crosses to McBride will be some part of our game. (For that aspect, Convey is probably a lot better than a year or two ago, but I would still rate Lewis ahead.)