Posted this in the wrong thread, so I’ll repost here.
So are we really a McKennie injury/card away from being completely ass in the midfield? Was Musah just gassed from the previous game or maybe a little rattled against Jamaica with it being a road game? Was the pitch really that bad that it took us completely out of our game?
I thought Busio was ok, but he definitely didn’t boss the middle like McKennie. Musah didn’t have any explosive runs or even much in the way of hold up play to help the attack build. Very quiet game for him. Adams was non existent, but with Antonio lurking it’s understandable that he was cheating to our box.
Robinson had a horrible game. Plenty of runs down the flank but his service was abysmal. I think Jamaica made the decision to give him those runs because of how poor he was finishing them. Outside of Weah’s hot start to the game he was relatively quiet as well. It seemed like we got locked into running the left side through Robinson and took him completely out of the game. Again, that may have been by design from Jamaica, and that sucks that we couldn’t figure that out.
Aaronson was his usual energetic self but offensively he couldn’t make that final pass. Pepi was quiet but he had no service to work with all night. CP seemed to make the same run most of the night (check to the line, square cut and get fouled) and overall there wasn’t a ton of creativity or interchange up top. Again, not sure if they were spent from the Mexico game or just that weak mentally after Antonio’s goal.
We sorely missed McKennie, but I think even having Dest or Reyna as subs for this game would have made a difference. I’m wondering long term if we should stagger McKinnie and Musah to ensure at least one is fresh on the field. Maybe start WM and Busio and sub Musah for Busio at the half. Next game give Musah 90 and swap Busio and WM at the half. They need to figure out how to keep that energy from the Mexico game up formore than one game a cycle because the WC schedule won’t be any easier to navigate.