USA vs England Friendly

We just need somebody in the central midfield, it's glaringly obvious and painful to watch. We need somebody who can create plays, anybody! Sadly I think we'll have to wait several years until Michael Bradley can begin to consistently create plays for others. Even if we'd had Donovan, we'd probably have placed him up front and he would still have struggled because he would have had no creative force behind him in the midfield.

Beasley and Eddie Lewis seemed like the closest to that, and that is not Beasley's game. His best plays were when he would implement his blazing speed to get around defenders and give the poor forwards something a decent service with which they would consequently fumble and botch.

Our defense looked alright, especially Heath Pierce. I thought he played great, I was very pleasantly surprised. He looked good when he'd come up the wing on the attack as well.

I still have yet to see any semblance of the Michael Bradley that broke the scoring record for an American player in Europe. I think he too, needs to feed off some sort of creativity, just like Landon Donovan, and as I've said before we just did not have that today.

We need somebody to step up into that role, be it Edu, Bradley, or Adu. Right now it looks like Eddie Lewis might be able to do that, and I certainly think Adu has potential but he was just off today. All of his services on free kicks were terrible, but none the less he looks like he's got the ability to make things happen out there.

Overall it was difficult to watch the horrible lack of creativity and play making. All I know is that the change that needs to happen first is putting two new forwards up there. I don't know about you all, but I think, despite the lack of height, a Donovan/Adu pairing would give us the most creativity and chances on goal. They both have so much speed and energy it'd be great to see what would happen and how opposing defenses would deal with it.

 

I understand we're far from being among the Englands, Spains, or Argentinas of the world. But I feel that most Americans, myself included, would love to see us take the step into the next tier of world soccer; consistently cracking the top 20 of the FIFA world rankings. I think that is a possibility, we've got so much potential, especially in strikers and defense.

I just feel that to crack that hump requires somebody in the middle, and as I said before, it was no more obvious that that was the case than today. I feel we also brought most of our big time guys to the match.

Look at some of our biggest names missing, Altidore, Spector, Convey, Donovan, Kljestan, and Mastroeni. Only Donovan and Kljestan ever play in the middle, and I think Bradley is more capable than Kljestan at this point. We didn't need Spector or Mastroeni, our defense wasn't the problem, and Convey and Altidore would have made little difference.

Which means our only true missing piece that was vastly important was Donovan, and I feel like he feed so much better off a facilitator than having to do it all himself, and right now we just don't have that facilitator.

But then again taking a step back, you have many valid points and I'm most surely over analyzing. They were playing in Wembley, they did just all come off experience filled EPL seasons, giving them ultimate match fitness, and our guys are rusty and tired.

I just hope that we can find some creativity sometime soon.

 

My thought is that we were not necessarily expected to beat England at Wembley, but it would have been nice to show up. We did not even threaten their defense. I thought that we looked like a joke. England was doing whatever they wanted because it appeared as though our guys gave up.

This team is made up of primarily European based players, so we expect more out of this team. This seemed like an extension of the Toulon experiment - Crap play. As far as I am concerned, this was unacceptable. Maybe I have to watch it again to see if there are some positives other than Eddie Lewis. Eddie Lewis?

I feel horrible with the way our team played. I hope Bob is sick to his stomach with this effort. We might as well have put an MLS team out there to play England. Maybe they would have fought for the ball. I am just pissed.

I still cannot get over the use of Clark either. He just does not belong on this field. How do you continue to put this guy in that position? Is there any other national team in the world that has a player similar to Clark in that same position? Arrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

 

All I know is that if there are not better chances to score and better midfield play in the next two friendlys against Spain and Argentina, then the USMNT is toast....

 

Wow, did we suck. I hate to be overly negative unless it's necessary but this time, it's necessary. Yeah, it's a friendly, yeah it's not our full squad, etc, etc. But excuses aside, we were terrible and we have to get better if we stand any chance of doing well in South Africa.

 

I see what you are saying HatterDon... Losing 2-0 is one thing, but losing the way they did shows that not only did we lose 2-0, but that we had no real chance of scoring and we failed in so many little ways. That is what is the killer. I dont care if you are first team or what - if you are in the player pool - you better have some concept of how to attack... Or for Pete's sake be able to serve up a decent ball from a restart - that was pathetic!

 

the colors the team wore today summed up their effort: drab.

it wasn't a horrible display where the USMNT were played off the park. the two goals england scored were total softies from bad defense.

the main problem on the day was that the whole team just didn't show up. only hedjuk(sp) and lewis had any degree of creativity. bradley pulled a steven davis [disappearing], and clark pulled a murphy [directly passing to opponents;of old, mind you].

i wasn't angry as it seems most of you were. just bummed that they didn't seem to care.

oh, and landycakes better have actually injured himself because a)he needs to stop being a wuss and step up big time and b)who the hell is wolffe and why does he continually get selected?

 

Solid points of perspective from Don, but I also agree with follow ups. I don't expect us to run over England, Spain, and Argentina. But I do expect us to give a shit and look like we at least belong on the same pitch.

 

We didn't have our best forwards, Altidore and Donovan in the game.

We didn't have our best holding midfielder, Feilhaber, in the game.

Boca and EJ haven't played a game in what, 6 weeks? I don't think 'dolo and Pearce are regular starters either. Clark is an MLSer. Adu hasn't played since Olympic qualifying.

We had Dempsey, who scored 6 goals for a team that missed relegation on goal differential, and Bradley, who did well in the 2nd tier Dutch league. Oh, and Gooch who's a star for a Standard Liege team that would lose to DC United.

9 of England's 11 starters are regular starters for the "Big Four."

...and we were playing at Wembley against those players in end-of-season form.

Exactly what did we expect? As "poor" as our performance was, we were 6" away from losing 2-1.

 

Then again, it could have easily been 5-0. I like most expected to lose, but hell if we didn't look like the Faroe Islands last night. Yes it wasn't our best squad, but it was pretty damn close. It's obvious if we don't score off set pieces against a good team we are clueless and have as much chance at scoring as a nerd at a beauty contest.

Gooch; He got pushed around at Newcastle and to see him get bumped and sent flying by Rooney (twice!!) made me sick.

Wolff; This guy is a bench warmer on a Budesliga 2 team. Yes he is experienced, but he stinks, the end.

Boca; We're all in agreement, he's a great guy, but he left Terry acres of space and was 50% at fault for the 1st goal (Clark gets the other half for the stupid foul).

 

Donovan is always a no show or literally doesn't show in a "big game" in Europe so I can't say I was surprised to find out he wasn't able to go. Hope he proves me wrong but I suspect there will be some reason he won't be on the field in Spain either. And in any case he'll be coming off an injury right, built in excuse when he plays like crap.

I feel like our whole program is plateauing or possibly taking a dip. We don't have the players to take us to a next level. We'll be lucky to maintain the status quo in my opinion.

Bradley needs to do better in the midfield.

 

Donovan isn't playing against Spain - he has Galaxy commitments (i.e., he was never going to play in the Spain game, even before the injury).

 

OK, after digesting the loss for a day and reading the comments, my opinion falls somewhere b/w 'not to worry, '10's a long way off' and 'we're shite.'

The US was outclassed at every position, and we knew this going in, however, it then becomes the responsiblity of the manager to give the squad a fighting chance going in - and I'm not sure what the US game plan was, b/c whether it was hoofing balls to Brighton or trying to pass through the middle, the US did indeed look like shite. That said, the brightest spots came from the two "old" guys - Hejduk and Lewis - they at least appeared like they wanted to take on the English and not pass back 30 yards when they received the ball.

If Coach Bradley was just going through the motions to evaluate talent, then why not open it up and attack if the result is unimportant? Or use more subs? I realize the US bench wasn't as deep as England, but Capello almost used his entire squad. Did Wolfe and EJ really need to play 80 minutes for Bradley to confirm they're shite? Why does EJ always drift out wide and try to cross to non-existent players in the box? Why not see what Adu can-do against top flight opposition and physical play? The Olympics are a long way off and I would think that he needs to play against better competition.

And what's with the spate of (bad) tackling just outside the penalty area by everybody? Becks was slightly off on some deliveries, and the US was lucky Hargreaves or Lampard didn't try to take some of those kicks or a couple more goals could've been posted.

As others have said - the set piece service was atrocious, and since that was the only way the US was going to score yesterday, there was no chance. I don't care what others think, 'Cakes was badly missed yesterday as oppositions have to actually pay attention to his presence, which made it easy for England b/c he was absent (again).

Other bright spots...umm, it was only 2-0!! And, thank goodness for CONCACAF!!!!

 

...oh yeah, can somebody for the USMNT develop a quality first touch? Constantly running around like chickens trying to recover from poor first touches ain't no kinda fun.

 

Despite disliking Landycakes strongly (which sucks considering he's probably our most skilled player) I have a hard time with the suggestions that he feigned injury to get out of a big match. That said, if it ever turns out to be true, US Soccer should switch over to the women's team and let him rot in exile at the end of the bench with Hope Solo.

 

Dempsey was very disappointing for me in this match and my opinion of him lately has been dropping. First, he did not have his hand over his heart during the national anthem - it looked intentional to me. I thought he was proud to wear the red, white, and blue but maybe not.

I blame him for a lot of the ineffective midfield play. Several times the other players were attacking and Demps passed it back or slowed up. He also tried a couple of shots from way out - something he has never shown he is capable of from what I've seen, and was doing lots of flashy step-over crap. It felt like he was showing off and not taking the match seriously.

I thought Beasley, Adu, Lewis, and Bradley all did fine. I was hoping for more from Bradley considering how good he looked vs Brasil (and of course his results for Heerenveen) and because I wanted him to impress any EPL teams looking at him. He didnt embarass himself though. I love Beasley and it was really good to see him play again after his injury!!!!!!!

Contrary to what many others have posted, I thought Cherundolo looked very good and Hejduk not so much. However, Hejduk at least was playing with an obvious passion that seemed lacking from several of the players.

Also contrary to others, I didnt think Johnson was a waste. He had one very good shot on goal and a couple of decent crosses. I thought he looked better than he typically does for the RW&B and I credit that to Woy and Fulham.

It was disappointing yes, but there was no way we were ever winning this game. England needed to win and we didnt, and as we all know, England has the goods to do it. I still think things are looking good for us in the future. This is a team that will make us all proud someday.

 

I thought anytime one of our players tried to do the step over/scissors move, the defenders were too far away anyway.