nevermind. i forgot about puli's bleached hair highlights. just a disaster. tuchel is totally justified in not starting him.
Their first team was out with another Covid outbreak but Tessman was Venezia’s best player and Novakovic had both of their assists. Fontana with the late game winning bike.
Hate Doyle but he’s not wrong when it comes to YOUR WC starting #9 Spoiler As per Second Spectrum’s tracking data, Vazquez: Leads the league in hold-ups per game (2.6) by a mile among center forwards. Plays forward or square to open the field off his hold-ups more often than any center forward in the league, save for Miami’s Leo Campana and D.C.’s Miguel Berry. Is 12th among center forwards in frequency receiving the ball between the lines, and… Is 3rd, behind only Brian White and Kei Kamara, in how closely center backs track him when he receives there. When between the lines he completes 86% of his passes, good for 7th in the league among No. 9s. Ok, so just a traditional target striker, right? Well… 40 percent of Vazquez’s attacking runs break the opposing backline, which is the highest rate among high-volume off-ball runners in the league. Of any position, not just 9s. So he functions as both a hold-up man and a line-runner, and those aren’t decoy runs because… 51 percent of Vazquez’s runs that challenge the backline are targeted by a pass, which is the highest rate in the league among No. 9s now that Taty’s moved on. That’s good for 9.9 times per game, which is second in the league overall behind only Hany Mukhtar (10.0). Ok whew, that’s a lot. But really, how good is he with the ball once he’s on it? Well, as per TruMedia via StatsPerform, Vazquez is: Leading the league in non-penalty xG (he also leads the league in non-penalty goals). Fifth among No. 9s (really fourth with Taty gone) in xA. Sixth overall in xGSeq – which I’ll explain in a second – and first among center forwards (again: now that Taty is gone). xGSeq is – and I’m quoting here – “The sum of xG for any sequence in which the player was involved. So if six players touched the ball in a sequence that ended with a 0.4 xG shot, each of those six players gets 0.4xGSeq.” In other words, it measures via events data the frequency with which you’re a part of valuable build-ups that lead to shots. You can get most of the way there, for most attackers, by just adding up npxG + xA, and given that Vazquez leads the league in npxG and is fourth among center forwards in xA, you’d think that there wouldn’t be much else to his xGSeq number… but of course, you’d be wrong. A quick look at the numbers shows that Vazquez is behind only Taty and Gonzalo Higuain among No. 9s in the other xGSeq stuff, the type of pass-before-the-pass stuff that turns a center forward into more than just a donkey, but an actual attacking hub. Put it all together and you’ve got a guy who, by the underlying numbers, is registering the best season by any domestic attacker since Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, respectively, back in 2014. And I’m not talking pure volume here (though he’s doing that as well), I’m talking on a per-90 basis. On top of all that he is fourth among center forwards, behind only Jesus Ferreira, Maxi Urrutiand Jeremy Ebobisse, in high presses per 90, so it’s not like he’s conserving energy out there when Cincy don’t have the ball. Anyway, 14 goals is a lot. I thought, entering this season, he could maybe end up with a dozen or so. And the charming thing is that even he’s a little shocked at, I guess, how good he’s been. “I'm ecstatic with 14,” Vazquez said after the game. “If somebody would have told me I would have scored 14 goals a season before the season started you know, I'd be bouncing off the walls.”
I think Adams getting his minutes cut last year really hurt his development. If he can play consistently for Leeds it will hopefully at least get him back to the level he was playing at 2 years ago. Even better for us if he improves on that level. I know Leeds fans haven't been excited about Adams so hopefully he can win them over. Seems like he played solid this past weekend. Question will be if he can do that against better competition.
Wolves have been a solid mid table team for a few years now I think there are more teams where you would hope for that level of performance versus where you would expect him and the team to really struggle
I thought Tyler was ok at the weekend. He ran 12 km when he could have run 10.5. Thought he left their shape and press quite a few times during the first 60 min and Wolves passed around him and into danger quite easily Thought he was better in the last 15 min of the game shutting it down.
People develop late and it's definitely not too late, but people insert DeJuan Jones into our young LB prospects convo and he's 25.
Seems like JAB chose maxing out his money over trying to win a roster spot. Considering Gregg was never going to call him in anyway, it's probably the smart move.
What about not being able to find a team until August 11th makes it seem like he had many better options?
I think if he took a significant paycut he would have had more options. If he really wanted to try to win a spot back on the national team Gregg said he was going to have to find a new team that played a system like the usmnt with a high backline. To accomplish that he was going to have to take a paycut. No MLS team was going to give him a dp deal and likely no Euro teams were willing to give him a big contract at 29 years old coming off a so so season. If he wanted equal or more money then what he was making last year, then yeah the middle east and China were probably the only options.
If Gio's healthy I think I start him over Moose, (Hard decision) and Richards over Long. Other than that, same.
Gio over Musah, Richards over along, and the Pulisic-Weah-Aaronson trio up top is our best XI I think. I do think that leaves us with relatively limited options to unlock a World Cup quality defense with a sub, and for that I wouldn’t quibble with holding Gio in reserve for after Aaronson and Musah have run the opposition into the ground.
I just don’t think you can change to Weah up top at this point. That is something that needs to have been implemented earlier if you wanted to try it Maybe it gives you the most talented XI on the field but I don’t think it equates to playing as your best XI
I think I’ve said this before, but I’d put Pulisic up there. I do think we would get the most out of him in that role while also mitigating his tendencies that can hurt us.
The reality of the situation is we all know 1-2 of our W/MF players are picking up a shitty injury right before the world cup and the decision gets made for them.