re: Poch has been an abject failure to this point

Love or hate Gregg anyone with a brain can admit that was his best coaching job and when he peaked. Especially when he was on the hot seat.

The problem is much bigger than Poch. USSF dug their hole and now they must lie in it.

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Having said before the game (indeed, before both games) what he was going to do with lineup rotation, Mauricio Pochettino says it did not work:

"First of all, I think it of course is our responsibility and my responsibility, the decision of the choice of the starting XI."

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I feel like Poch is looking for something among the back end of the pool... Someone with a bit of grit ad leadership not named Diego Luna or Tyler Adams.

I am not excusing his results, nor am I 100% certain he will turn it around.

Not long ago, our entire fan base was trying to force Pulisic into the armband, a role that he didn't (and still doesn't) want. When you are a player of his skill level and you say you don't want it, it is incumbent upon the coach to ensure that this player does not carry that weight.

Pulisic's personality is NOT one of a leader. Yes, he is vocal at times. Yes, our players listen to him. But he does not hold the authority that Adams does when he speaks. Adams will ream your arse if you aren't carrying your weight.

The issue at hand is that Adams is ALWAYS fricking injured, so we can't rely on him as captain heading into the WC (or even if we were bringing him to the GC). Luna is still paying his dues, despite showing passion and grit alongside his undeniable abilities.

So where does our leadership come from? Who is our "enforcer"? When we won the Nations League a while back, shite got personal on the pitch and there was physicality. Since we ripped off that win streak against Mexico, we play like we are automatically the best and nobody can stick with us. Then we turn around and have a game like that Germany friendly where Pulisic slots a GOLAZO and then we fold up our chairs and go home with a 3-1 loss.

Here is a current list of injuries/holdouts from our "A" squad:

- Balogun (Ankle in camp)
- Steffen (B-list; Knee in camp)
- Pulisic (Holdout, but rumored hip injections since winter at AC Milan)
- Dest (Knee)
- Jedi (Minor knee surgery)
- McKennie (Club WC)
- Weah (Club WC)
- Reyna (Club WC is his audition for a new club)
- Zendejas (Only included because he is obviously a B-lister on the wing; Club WC)
- Yunus Musah (Not getting minutes for his club)

So who in the world do we expect to come in and not only play to the level of all of those guys (or the ones who actually perform well)?

Cardoso? He reverts to U20 levels when in the R/W/B. Haji Wirght? He is remarkably average for us. Scally? Inconsistent and a known quality.

The Aaronsen brothers show good effort but aren't there yet. Agyemang has the touch of a fricking hammer despite having potential (shoutout Broski ).

I have a hard time putting all this on Poch. When we have full-squad availability, there is a bit more fire on the field but it is admittedly inconsistent.

I feel like Poch is looking DESPERATELY for that spark... Someone with the confidence to walk into that locker room and say "Hey MFers, I care about this team and this flag. Get on the ship or go the frick back to your club and watch us run shite on TV".

I don't think Luna is that type of guy. He definitely shows grit, but we don't really have anyone willing to crunch the shite out of an opponent just because we don't have momentum, and then stand over them to fire up our squad and show we are here to frick.

Just my take. I think this is on the players. I think our core talent that came up together (Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, etc.) feel like this is their team, and Gregg enabled that with his leadership committee bullshite. It feels like there is some gatekeeping going on with team leadership, and in my eyes that needs to be broken in one way or another.

Yes, Gregg had better results than Poch has gotten us thus far, but even that eleven that was posted a few posts back had WAY more talent and experience than the roster we rocked for the friendlies and GC this time around.

TL;DR: "Leave Britney Alone!!!" I'm sure that's how it will be taken, but I am legitimately unsure of what we expected from a roster at the average talent and experience level of a U-23 World Cup.

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You left Sargent off the list, who for whatever reason was left off for "football decisions". Which I guess could mean Poch already knows what he is or just doesn't rate him high.

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Yeah, he seems to be a known quality from what we have all seen.

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but the dude is coming of a player of the year performance in the championship, and let's not forget he was one of our best during the last world cup before his injury

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Agreed. I just don't believe we have the midfield players to get a forward like him the ball. He likes running off the shoulder at the top of the box, and we as a national team do NOT play through balls or create passing lanes in in the box/just outside of it. The reason Reyna is so good for us in the national team is because he DOES possess that ability. I can't recall a ton of times we have had Gio on the field with a legit forward up front, Sargent included. (Correct me if I am wrong on that, fellas...)

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The other player omitted from the A list would be CCV, who like Josh had a couple bad appearances for us but is still a great player for his club.

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I don't see CCV as A-List just yet. Anyone not named Richards at CB is a question mark for me at the moment. Same as anyone at LB/RB not named Jedi/Dest.

Players being hurt/not wanting to come and his subsequent roster decisions set him up for failure here. This was the most damn January camp lineup outside of January you could fricking dream of. Not one damn locked on starter in the XI last night to start that match. Both fullbacks were fricking lost. Arfsten can't defend and he doesn't offer nearly enough in attack to warrant his inclusion. He gets into good spots in the final third but no end product. We looked like a bunch of guys who had never pressed before. Counter that to throwing on Luna, Big Pat, Tillman, Ream and the energy and tenacity immediately changed.

Not saying Poch carries zero blame at all. Just saying I think we are seeing more guys right now prove why they shouldn't be near this team than we are seeing otherwise.

That XI should be playing the likes of Qatar's B team in January - not the Swiss A team gearing up for WC qualifiers

I love how the argument to fire Gregg was "he's wasting the best player pool we ever had" and now the argument to not be upset with Poch is that "he doesn't have enough talent".

Is the player pool deep or not?

For the record, it's clearly not. But if Gregg can beat Mexico with Sebastian Lletget, Poch should be able to beat Panama with Tanner Tessman.

Also go look at that XI that lost to Panama in the nations league semis, Pulisc, Adams, McKennie, Sargent, Richards and Musah all started.

Poch is a professional manager plain and simple. For whatever reason his management style clearly isn’t translating to the international game. There is a big difference between club vs country. It’s strictly getting players to gel (vibes as the youngins would say) and play a simple system effectively.

Just as an example England were known as serial underachievers before southgate came in. Under Sven, Capello, and Hodgson the England dressing room was split off with United, Chelsea, Liverpool players all despising each other. They brought in Southgate who played backwoods 11 men behind the ball, 3 man deep backline, but they finally had decent results for the first time in a while. He galvanized the dressing room really effectively.

No im not comparing USMNT to England but you can easily tell a team of players that actually enjoy playing with each other vs one that does not. We show all the tell tale signs of a squad that does not frick with each other.

So CP said this morning that he wanted to play in the friendlies but the coaching staff said no. The plot thickens.

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