re: United States of F#ck Yeah v. Poutine | The Oct | 7pm CT (FS1)

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I don’t think we’re creating enough chances to pretend this is just a #9 issue.

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We are unable to create a lot of those chances because the lack of a threatening #9 allows opposing teams to choke us off on the wings when on defense.

And it's not as simple as moving Pulisic or Reyna centrally (while I think there is still value in playing them in the middle at times) because they still need someone to run off of. We desperately need a striker that can hold the ball with his back to the goal and be a threat to score.

A healthy Jozy really would be perfect for this (flawed) system, but that's just never going to happen. Pefok's hold up play leaves a lot to be desired for how big of a dude he is. Dike needs to watch nothing but Lukaku videos and move to a club in Europe that actually plays proper football and not Barnsley ball.

It's why Zardes unfortunately is our best #9 option right now, he can hold up the ball a little bit, make dangerous runs to draw defenders off our wingers (our most dangerous players) and every now and then his good positional awareness will luck him into a goal with his face.


As for other future potential options, Pepi is in fine scoring form right now, but he's still kind of raw and his body isn't really built for hold up play yet. Would really like to see Hoppe in that spot at the #9. He wasn't a hold up #9 at Schalke, but he is a big body who is confident and has quality with the ball at his feet so it wouldn't be a total square peg in round hole scenario.

Gregg mentioned postgame today that they will be calling a new player in to replace Reyna for Honduras, hopefully it's Hoppe, but that means he'd probably play on the wing.

If we can't find a true #9 we honestly may have to look at false 9 scenarios with Weah or Ferreira as well.

I don’t disagree with your takes Broski, but to me the biggest issue with us this game was not who was the #9 but rather no connection to the #9.

All we did to attack most of the game was hopeful diagonals from Brooks or occasionally Adams and have Pulisic drop 30-40 yards away from goal to carry it forward.

I remember 3 good chances in the game. 2 of those chances, the goal and CP hitting the post, involved Acosta and Lletget getting forward into the attack to force Canada’s 3 center backs to actually come out a bit.

Other than that no one did anything to trouble Canada in center of the field. We can say Pefok needs to drop into those spaces, but I don’t think relying on wingers running off a striker troubles a bunkered back five much.

We made so little effort to have runners centrally going beyond Adams that by the second half Aaronson and Pulisic were playing more as #10s than wingers.

It looked like a 4-3-2-1, so unless the fullbacks got involved we were attacking with only 3 against a back five. Canada is a team that relies so much on one winger that this a game where we definitely don’t want to be relying exclusively on fullbacks for width.

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Gregg mentioned postgame today that they will be calling a new player in to replace Reyna for Honduras, hopefully it's Hoppe, but that means he'd probably play on the wing.

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Yeah Hoppe turns it over a lot, but you’re right we need him. Or at least we need someone willing to create in the center of the field behind the striker.

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Right now we have guys like Acosta and Lletget playing the 8/10 role but who suck at incisive passing and moving the ball forward.

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You can tell Pulisic and Aaronson feel the same way because as the game went on you saw them more and more try to occupy this role.

Hell Aaronson and Lletget practically ran over each other on several occasions.

Acosta isn’t an 8 at this level. He needs to remain as the Adams insurance because he’s good at recovering and being physical, but he, like Adams, don’t really have the vision to make dangerous line breaking passes.