Who's in our Starting XI?

I'd have to wait until the end of pre-season to make a fair assessment. That said, I dont like Landon in the middle of the field.

 

yeah i will wait till after the game on the 21 see what BA idea is and if Landon is coming back but base on how we been playing cross after cross into the box i would really like to see Gordon in the field he the only guy that can score by headers

 

If it's possible I'd like to see Michael Stephens plays.I think he did well in the pre-season...

 

I don't know about Gordon. If we put Gordon in, he can do the dirty work, which would free up Buddle to be more creative. On the other hand, I think Magee is more dangerous in the box than Gordon, despite being shorter.


The OP has Birchall out wide, but so far we've not seen him there this year. Bruce has been pretty consistant so far with a diamond midfield with Juninho-Kovalenko and Stephens-Birchall as the central pairings. I too would like to see more of Stephens and Birchall. They've looked pretty good so far, but most coming in late against tired opposition.

 

This concerns me because, as you noted, Gordo is our major threat in the air (aside from set pieces). I just don't think we have the personnel to pull the style of play off. Assuming LD comes back, we have the players in place to keep it on the ground.

 

Unless Franklin is injured, he starts over AJ in my opinion. I also dont see Lewis starting, I dont think he has the legs for it anymore. Magee is a stater at this point. To begin the season, it wouldn't surprise me to see:

[LINEUP-4-4-2]Buddle, Gordon, Donovan, Birchall, Kovalenko, Magee, Dunivant, Berhalter, Omar, Franklin, Ricketts[/LINEUP-4-4-2]

Michael Stephens would be my first player off the bench. Mathis when healthy will give us another option. When Beckham gets back, he goes in a right mid, with Magee going to the left, and Donovan going up top. Although having said, I dont really rate the chances of Donovan still being here when Beckham gets back.

 

FWIW: I haven't seen Gordon and Buddle paired up front yet. Has that happened? Mostly I've seen Buddle & McGee on top - but I didn't see the closed door events.

And, based on VERY PRELIMINARY evaluation, Alex may well start ahead of Dunivant. With AJ able to provide left back cover, I would think Dunivant is prime trade bait, maybe for allocation dollars?

 

I think most of us are just presuming since they are our two best pure forwards. Starting both doesn't really suit the system, having said that I'd be willing to give it a go.

I always saw Dunivant as a 'Bruce guy'. He had him in New York, and brought him back to LA. He's dependable and decent defending and going forward from left-back. From the brief footage I've seen of Alex, it seems that he's good going forward, I'd say the only question mark surrounding him is his ability to defend/get back on time. That's crucial for an outside defender. He may be getting more pre-season minutes for further evaluation because Bruce already knows what he's got with Dunivant.

 

Gordon had minor knee surgery during the offseason so he been out just getting back that why we have not seen much of him and todd been at the cba miss last game

 

Anyone else kinda wishing we spent a little more time at the draft this year? Christ almighty.

 

No. The choice was to bring in the three young Brazilians rather than worry too much about the draft - where we didn't have many choices anyway no matter how much "time" was spent.

Given that we were low in the pecking order and had traded away a bunch of choices (remember how we got AJ for example) LAG's strategy looks pretty sound to me. All three of the Brazilians are closer to being MLS starters than the bulk of people who get drafted.

 

Really? Are you/we sure of that? And for long term growth of the team - you think keeping three brazilians on loan will be the way to go?

I don't know - it seems like there was a lot of talent out there that we were quite dismissive of. And if it was just because we had three brazilians in our pocket, I'm deeply disappointed.

 

No, Not "just because" we had three Brazilians in our pocket. Because we didn't have diddley squat in terms of draft choices so we weren't getting any of the cream of the crop anyway. So a different approach was needed.

And I am not "sure" about the quality of the Brazilians, but I have watched them twice in game situations and am pretty comfortable that they are better than most of the untested college kids I've seen playing for other teams. Time will tell how they pan out, but the same goes for all the other "talent" that you are worried that we missed out on.

 

This is going to be the grand experiment. It's often been argued that there is effectively an infinite amount of talent worldwide that is as good as a lower-half-of-the-first-round draft pick. The three Brazilians are a test of that.

So far, Juninho has beat out Stephens (17th pick in the first round) in the competition for the AMid spot. Alex has looked as good as Dunivant (1st round pick with years of experience). Leonardo is more difficult to judge since he hasn't had much playing time. He hasn't beat out Gonzalez (2nd pick in the first round) but he's ahead of Marshall.

Of course, the difference between the Brazilians and the draft picks is that they probably have higher salaries and it will cost allocation money to sign them. This is why draft picks are valuable, even if we can get foreign players of equivalent quality (in addition to the fact that foreign players can be hard to find and there is a limit to how many we can have). This is why I'm a little disappointed that two of the three Brazilians are defenders, since that is something you can usually find in the draft.

Calexico, what would you have had us do differently? Say that we traded for a second round pick - who would you have drafted and do you think he would have been a starter? Or say that instead of Stephens, we took a central defender at 17. Would they be as good as Leonardo?

 

Didn't Bruce trade Dunivant to TFC or was Todd traded after Bruce was sacked? Either way, I think Dunivant is a decent LB. He makes nice overlapping runs but his crosses from those runs leave much to be desired. I still think he starts...

 

I'm in complete agreement. Our draft positioning was really poor, we weren't going to get enough from the draft, so rather than trade away something of value to try and trade up, we got what we could at the position that we had, and then went out and tried to fill needs by signing up players who can contribute. I have no problem with this. Do I wish we had a higher draft pick? Sure, but if wishes were fishes....you know how that goes.

As long as draft picks are doled out as they are now, a really good season will always be rewarded with bad draft picks. That's all there is to it.

 

It's possible - maybe, why not?

Listen, maybe it's just the off-season, and the good half of last year (as opposed to the sucky first half) maybe didn't sink in as much as it should have.

I am not calling anyone out - I'm not trying to be difficult or TequilaJoal-esque. I just have a bad feeling whenever the Galaxy is "excited to announce a signing of a Brazilian". Every time we bring in a Brazilian, a lot of times we say "oh, well, now, we've got that position covered!". I was a fan of Saragosa, but he was gone two years later. Nagamura was just Saragosa V. 2.0 - a short decent d-mid who got carded a lot. Then there was Naldo. Then there was Alvaro Pires.

Listen, maybe these guys are nails, and one day we'll sign them all to long term contracts. But 3 Brazilians on loan doesn't mean as much to me as a couple of local prospects that A) have a little loyalty to the U.S. and MLS and B) are actually signed to the club.

Other than that those three, I feel like we've been a little light on the scouting/recruiting side. So far for 2010, we've lost a significant amount of our offensive firepower before the season even began.

• Eskandarian
  Donovan (to the WC2010)
  Beckham (to a possibly-career ending injury)
  Mathis (to another injury that at his age isn't gonna heal overnight)

I just feel like we've been a little blase about our recruitment this off-season, but then again that's nothing new to us. Yallop left half of our roster spots open, and Bruce seems to be fine with the same. Or, heck, I dunno, maybe Tristen Bowen is ready for prime-time.

 

OK, lets see if this works:

[LINEUP-4-4-2]Buddle, Gordon, Alex, Juninho, Mathis, Donovan, Dunivant, Berhalter, Omar, A.J., Ricketts[/LINEUP-4-4-2]

Here's my 2-cents for whatever its worth.

From the back, I hope Ricketts improves with crosses and corners and that Saunders pushes him for that spot. Dont get me wront, I think that Ricketts is a good keeper but (for me) stays rooted to his line too much on crosses that Josh actually comes out for and quickly diminishes the attack.

RB: AJ for me just won this position last season and based upon pre-season Franklin looks almost uninterested... I think it should be AJ's position to lose not Franklin's to be 'entitled'... and I think it would make Franklin work harder and essentially be a better player.

CB's: Omar and Berhalter are a lock. Like others, Im disappointed we couldnt have solidified some competition for these positions even though I dont think any of us have seen enough of Leonardo yet? (maybe he'll be a youthful answer, but long term committment?)

LB: This is a tough one. I dont think Dunivant is a world (or even MLS) beater at this position. There is absolutely zero menace when Dunivant runs at the right back or right midfielder, thus why you see him crossing it from the halfway line so often. LOL I would potentially have put Alex (from what I have seen so far) in this position but cannot... read on... (potentially there is a very small scenario of switching AJ to left back and slotting in Franklin on the right)

LM: Alex. I grappled with Lewis but he really doesnt have the legs, although almost Beckham-esque he does bring bag loads of experience, crosses and the odd goal. Others have commented on Alex looking decent going forward and worried about the sole defensive work which is why I slotted him in there.... with Lewis providing great cover.

CM's: I like Juninho for attacking midfielder... although he petered out the other night at Fullerton in the 2nd half, his first half was excellent. Great touches on the ball, good vision and possibly could get better with good coaching? Of course for this to work, there'd have to be good defensive cover which is where an experienced head of Mathis or Kova or even Birchall would help cover defensively for him. Lets face it we had Landon and Beckham in the middle both of which also needed a defensive midfielder so I think Juninho and one of the others would work...

RM: This is an interesting one. I think that Landon hated the pressure of being in the middle of the pitch last season! He didnt track back, he was frustrated by the lack of support and crappy through balls... not switch to (I think) his more natural position of attacking the left back like he did for Everton... his pace, his skill and scoring ability without the pressure of the middle of the pitch and one or two big men to cross to.. I think he'd relish the role...

Forwards: Ugggghhhh... where do we start guys... Buddle... (i guess) After the Dallas match last season (and his injury) he just does not look the same type of player. I truly believe that to score Buddle needs more crosses. The only thing I see him doing well is trapping the ball or knocking it on with his head. He looks lost with the ball at his feet... potentially with Landon or Alex (or Lewis) putting in more crosses, he might get his confidence back.
Gordon seems to almost be who we have left for the other one? I dont have a problem with Gordon.. scored the odd goal last year.. will he make the MLS defenders shake in their boots? We'll see... but I still like him and Buddle up front as opposed to Landon who I guarantee you will lost interest at the lack of support and good through balls...

Thats my first 11.

JACK-UK
sec 132

 

A good question would be... if we have our 1st line up, what would our second starting line up look like?

 

I'm still trying to forget Naldo. He went on to be mediocre-to-poor in the MISL. How did he ever convince Galatasaray to sign him? And then Alvaro Pires managed to make me wish we had Naldo instead of him.

I hope this is the year we break the Curse of Welton.

 

If it helps any, none of the 3 young Brazilians are fat or slow.

 

Can their gender be proven?


[that was terrible I know, but there's gotta be something wrong with this picture - like they're actually fembots or something]