It was definitely a tale of two halves. The question I'm left with is this: Do the fantastic substitutions make up for the first half blunders, or did they just shed more light on how atrocious the blunders were to begin with? Gregg's been quite confusing as of late. I sat not too far away from where he stood in Nashville, and although I clearly yelled at him for subs, he just had to wait until the 80th. It made no sense! I appreciate his willingness to course correct, and assess tonight's mess at halftime, but it just seems so disjointed.
The team looks like they don't have a true direction at times, and they play like they don't know where the attack should come from. There's no real pivots between the lines, and taking Adams out of the middle only made that worse. Our strikers can't hold the ball up (though Pepi did well tonight), and our movement in the final third is lacking.
Optimistic take: This will be the turning point, and this big win will finally get some momentum going our way.
Pessimistic take: The second half was just an example of a more talented side taking advantage of a lesser side that was fatigued. One goal just allowed things to open up.
On a plane with wifi, but no streaming. OMG -it’s like snakes on a plane. The stress, the misery, then joy and then 1-4. I screamed as I kept refreshing the safari browser.
I though Pulisic imposed some will and determination in the second half. His dribbling style, however, clogged up plays and disrupted the attack. I thought the subs were fearless. Tactics were not going to win that game. Good ‘Ol blood and guts were needed. Those guys shined with determination.
My fear is that this gives Greg more time...he seems to have a lack of humility about him, and a chip on his shoulder. Those are both very dangerous qualities for someone in charge. Saw it with Jurgen at times too... Seems to want to mash everything into his view of how things should be rather than adapting and letting the situation dictate the terms.
Grant, do we see W Zimmerman start at home in October? With 3 games again, Brooks doesn’t need to start all of them. Maybe we see Zimmerman, Ream, Brooks in one game each? Or no need to bring in Ream if all other CBs healthy?
Berhalter messed up the opening 45 with a horrid lineup choice that couldn’t produce. The gap in the central midfield left the USA with no central possession.
But…. He ripped up plan A at halftime and went for it.
Lletget, Robinson, Aaronson and then Yedlin all came on and had an impact in own way.
Pepi is here to stay. He was everything a legit striker should be and impacted the match in every way.
Ggg needs to be fired simply for the way he has failed to identify the teams strengths and capitalize on them. Adams has been our best player this window and he puts him at RB? Antonee has been the LB we’ve been searching for since Run DMB retired and he starts Dest there? And this whole window he has been insistent on having no offensive minded midfielders. It’s just a shambles and eventually the players won’t be able to bail him out.
Adams is head and shoulders above any other US central midfielder, especially with McKennie out. It’s not even close. He covers so much ground it’s ridiculous. Berhalter has made a number of puzzling choices, but playing Adams at wingback and Sands at CM makes me wonder if Berhalter gets it. Canada basically man-marked Adams because of his centrality to everything the US tries to do in the build up. How can Berhalter not understand that. Pepi obviously came up big and has tons of potential. The header was clutch. And the rest of the game kinda doesn’t matter when you contribute like he did, but I didn’t think the rest of his play stood out at all. I thought He lost the ball a bunch and his link up play was at best, ok. People tend to forgot about the rest of the game when a player comes up with a goal.
It might have been better but I think having Adams in there as part of a who man central midfield still would have been difficult for the team. I appreciated how before they subbed on Yedlin Adams kind of took it upon himself to move the ball through the middle and Acosta went over to RB on his own.
Yeah, I was stumped on why Tyler Adams was basically directing traffic as RB. Very strange move, but at least Berhalter corrected a lot of issues at halftime. Unlike vs. Canada where the substitutes only had 10 minutes to make an impact. I think the October games should hold a lot of possible points. Overall getting 5 points while not being able to use McKennie, Reyna, Pulisic, and Steffen for all games is not terrible in my opinion. Not sure if Sargent has more than a bench role at best right now.
It was definitely a tale of two halves. The question I'm left with is this: Do the fantastic substitutions make up for the first half blunders, or did they just shed more light on how atrocious the blunders were to begin with? Gregg's been quite confusing as of late. I sat not too far away from where he stood in Nashville, and although I clearly yelled at him for subs, he just had to wait until the 80th. It made no sense! I appreciate his willingness to course correct, and assess tonight's mess at halftime, but it just seems so disjointed.
The team looks like they don't have a true direction at times, and they play like they don't know where the attack should come from. There's no real pivots between the lines, and taking Adams out of the middle only made that worse. Our strikers can't hold the ball up (though Pepi did well tonight), and our movement in the final third is lacking.
Optimistic take: This will be the turning point, and this big win will finally get some momentum going our way.
Pessimistic take: The second half was just an example of a more talented side taking advantage of a lesser side that was fatigued. One goal just allowed things to open up.
We shall see!
On one hand Berhalter made some great tactical changes that helped set the team up for success.
On the other hand those were largely to fix his horrible tactical mistakes with the starting line-up.
On a plane with wifi, but no streaming. OMG -it’s like snakes on a plane. The stress, the misery, then joy and then 1-4. I screamed as I kept refreshing the safari browser.
I though Pulisic imposed some will and determination in the second half. His dribbling style, however, clogged up plays and disrupted the attack. I thought the subs were fearless. Tactics were not going to win that game. Good ‘Ol blood and guts were needed. Those guys shined with determination.
My fear is that this gives Greg more time...he seems to have a lack of humility about him, and a chip on his shoulder. Those are both very dangerous qualities for someone in charge. Saw it with Jurgen at times too... Seems to want to mash everything into his view of how things should be rather than adapting and letting the situation dictate the terms.
Grant, do we see W Zimmerman start at home in October? With 3 games again, Brooks doesn’t need to start all of them. Maybe we see Zimmerman, Ream, Brooks in one game each? Or no need to bring in Ream if all other CBs healthy?
Berhalter messed up the opening 45 with a horrid lineup choice that couldn’t produce. The gap in the central midfield left the USA with no central possession.
But…. He ripped up plan A at halftime and went for it.
Lletget, Robinson, Aaronson and then Yedlin all came on and had an impact in own way.
Pepi is here to stay. He was everything a legit striker should be and impacted the match in every way.
Hopefully CP10 is alright.
5 points!! (Somehow)
Ggg needs to be fired simply for the way he has failed to identify the teams strengths and capitalize on them. Adams has been our best player this window and he puts him at RB? Antonee has been the LB we’ve been searching for since Run DMB retired and he starts Dest there? And this whole window he has been insistent on having no offensive minded midfielders. It’s just a shambles and eventually the players won’t be able to bail him out.
Awful first half. Terrific second half. Huge win. What a game for Pepi, and credit to the substitutes. They made the difference.
Wheres the love for the Turner goal line save in the second half.
We can all exhale a little after tonight. Thought 4: Berhalter subbed early enough to make an impact!
Adams is head and shoulders above any other US central midfielder, especially with McKennie out. It’s not even close. He covers so much ground it’s ridiculous. Berhalter has made a number of puzzling choices, but playing Adams at wingback and Sands at CM makes me wonder if Berhalter gets it. Canada basically man-marked Adams because of his centrality to everything the US tries to do in the build up. How can Berhalter not understand that. Pepi obviously came up big and has tons of potential. The header was clutch. And the rest of the game kinda doesn’t matter when you contribute like he did, but I didn’t think the rest of his play stood out at all. I thought He lost the ball a bunch and his link up play was at best, ok. People tend to forgot about the rest of the game when a player comes up with a goal.
It might have been better but I think having Adams in there as part of a who man central midfield still would have been difficult for the team. I appreciated how before they subbed on Yedlin Adams kind of took it upon himself to move the ball through the middle and Acosta went over to RB on his own.
Yeah, I was stumped on why Tyler Adams was basically directing traffic as RB. Very strange move, but at least Berhalter corrected a lot of issues at halftime. Unlike vs. Canada where the substitutes only had 10 minutes to make an impact. I think the October games should hold a lot of possible points. Overall getting 5 points while not being able to use McKennie, Reyna, Pulisic, and Steffen for all games is not terrible in my opinion. Not sure if Sargent has more than a bench role at best right now.
So, I created a "Grant" table, based on your target of Win home and Draw away and sorted by +/-
Country (results home/away): Target points | Actual points | +/-
Mexico (WH, WA, DA): 5 | 7 | +2
USA (DA, DH, WA): 5 | 5 | 0
Can (DH, DA, WH): 7 | 5 | -2
Panama (DH, WA, DH): 7 | 5 | -2
Honduras (DA, DA, LH): 5 | 2 | -3
Jamaica (LA, LH, DA): 5 | 1 | -4
Costa Rica (DA, LH, DH): 7 | 2 | -5
El Salvador (DH, DH, LA): 7 | 2 | -5
Based on this table, Mexico is well on it's way to qualifying. US is in line to qualify
Canada, Panama, and Honduras have work to do.
Jamaica, Costa Rica, and El Salvador are in trouble with all the points they dropped.
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