USA-Netherlands friendly

[OumaFan]

Maurice Edu looking pretty good. I like him.

EJ and Findley have both looked awful, its just too high a level. Meh, I guess bring Freddy. He's not a forward but he can play attacking mid and apparently our forwards are gigantic suck.

Beasley's missed some open guys but I guess compared to some of the other guys he hasn't been bad really.

And an assist for Beas. Actually he's arguably been our best player.

With Charlie Davies

Jozy Davies
LD Bradley Edu Dempsey
Boca Demerit Gooch Spector
Howard

Bench: Guzan, other goalie, Hedjuk, Marshall, Geoff Cameron, Cherundolo, R. Clark, Beasley, Holden, Feilhaber, Adu, random atrocious forward.

Without Charlie

Jozy Demps
LD/Beasley Bradley Edu LD/Holden
Boca Gooch Demerit Spector

Guzan, other goalie, Hedjuk, Marshall, Cameron, Cherundolo, R. Clark, Beasley/Holden, Feilhaber, Torres, Adu, random atrocious forward.

We actually played real well for the last ten minutes and could have easily tied it. Our striker issues are depressing me. If Davies is there then 3 strikers is fine as Demps can move up there, without Davies I just include Dempsey as 1 of the 3 strikers, that's absurd of course but I can't deal with bringing more than 1 of these guys: Findley, Cunningham, Cooper, Ching, Casey, EJ. That's just a craptastic list. Please come back Charlie Davies.

[HattonTheHammer]

Maurice Edu looking pretty good. I like him.

EJ and Findley have both looked awful, its just too high a level. Meh, I guess bring Freddy. He's not a forward but he can play attacking mid and apparently our forwards are gigantic suck.

Beasley's missed some open guys but I guess compared to some of the other guys he hasn't been bad really.

And an assist for Beas. Actually he's arguably been our best player.

With Charlie Davies

Jozy Davies
LD Bradley Edu Dempsey
Boca Demerit Gooch Spector
Howard

Bench: Guzan, other goalie, Hedjuk, Marshall, Geoff Cameron, Cherundolo, R. Clark, Beasley, Holden, Feilhaber, Adu, random atrocious forward.

Without Charlie

Jozy Demps
LD/Beasley Bradley Edu LD/Holden
Boca Gooch Demerit Spector

Guzan, other goalie, Hedjuk, Marshall, Cameron, Cherundolo, R. Clark, Beasley/Holden, Feilhaber, Torres, Adu, random atrocious forward.

We actually played real well for the last ten minutes and could have easily tied it. Our striker issues are depressing me. If Davies is there then 3 strikers is fine as Demps can move up there, without Davies I just include Dempsey as 1 of the 3 strikers, that's absurd of course but I can't deal with bringing more than 1 of these guys: Findley, Cunningham, Cooper, Ching, Casey, EJ. That's just a craptastic list. Please come back Charlie Davies.

key to a good world cup for sides like the US is versatility up top. If you cant ask questions in the 1st 20-30minutes against sides like netherlands/england they`ll just take libertys with you and push up more and more.

Dempseys fine. He bothers the hell out of some of the finest defences in britain. Not a hell of a lot up to date on the rest of those guys but essentially if your gonna go with dempsey you need a ball winner up top that can bring others into the game

[El Kabong]

The goals were really 1 person's fault..... BORNSTEIN he alone damn near gave up 3!!! The PK, the uncalled hand ball, and the deflection. I have no idea what Bradley sees in him, at BEST he's a sub or a bench warmer our D is too deep to have him start. Our staring back line should be: Spector/Cherundolo on the left, Gooch and DeMerit in the middle and Bocanegra on the right and late in the match you can sub in either Spector/Dolo whichever one didn't start.

Beasley played a little hectic at first but he was our best player in the second half he really did well. Torres played pretty well, Edu was very good, and DeMerit looked like a champ out there, good hard nosed player. And we didn't get carded (besides Torres who was immediately subbed) we still got calls against us but we have to learn. I will say one of the better plays I saw was Bedoya drawing a foul right outside the box, he played great.

Jozy's backheel move was awesome, very creative play from him and if he can add that to his arsenal and if he can just get a better first touch more often then he's the most dangerous player we have. He had a great crack at goal too, unluckily the Dutch goalie was in the way.

If we can't get the ball to Donovan on the wing then he HAS to play CAM because he's too big of our attack to just vanish from play.

There are two things we need to work on....
#1 When we clear the ball we can't just kick the hell out of it and hope for the best, we create chances when we PASS (as in aim and kick it to our teammates) out of our end.

#2 Strikers...Findley and Johnson have HORRIBLE first touch/play on the ball. Findley is trying but EJ is just lost out there right now. Casey is worthless and Ching is sooo average. We need good first touch and creative play on the ball ergo I make my case (again) for Kenny Cooper and Freddy Adu! Both players have good first touch, both are creative and control possesion when they have the ball, both can finish, and Adu has played striker with Jozy with HUGE success before. Although I also hope Davies is coming back.

[El Kabong]

England had a rough go and vs Egypt


My DREAM World Cup roster for the US (providing everyone returns healthy):

GK: Howard, Guzan, Hahneman

D: Bocanegra, Onyewu, DeMerit, Cherundolo, Spector, Goodson, Castillo

M: Donovan, Dempsey, Bradley, Holden, Edu, Beasley, Torres, Clarke

F: Altidore, Davies, Cooper, Adu

and 1 more player, perhaps Jermaine Jones or someone else in midfield

[HattonTheHammer]

England had a rough go and vs Egypt


My DREAM World Cup roster for the US (providing everyone returns healthy):

GK: Howard, Guzan, Hahneman

D: Bocanegra, Onyewu, DeMerit, Cherundolo, Spector, Goodson, Castillo

M: Donovan, Dempsey, Bradley, Holden, Edu, Beasley, Torres, Clarke

F: Altidore, Davies, Cooper, Adu

and 1 more player, perhaps Jermaine Jones or someone else in midfield

some awful performances in the 1st half from our lot especially at the back

Why on gods earth capello chose to play walcott who hasnt had a run of games in years over young, milner, beckham and shaun wright is a complete mystery. As soon as madonnas child came on it was a different ball game and crouch did himself a hell of a lot of favours last night

[El Kabong]

Why you wouldn't start Crouch is beyond me, he's a quality striker and helps out a bunch with set pieces as well as with winning headers and pushing play forward.

The US COULD have a player like that in Kenny Cooper but Bob Bradley refuses to play him for some reason.

[HattonTheHammer]

Why you wouldn't start Crouch is beyond me, he's a quality striker and helps out a bunch with set pieces as well as with winning headers and pushing play forward.

The US COULD have a player like that in Kenny Cooper but Bob Bradley refuses to play him for some reason.

capello has stated endless times rooney-defoe just cant work and what does he go and do...

Completely agree about crouch he is tailor made for sides like egypt. The problem within crouchy comes into play when we get in with the big boys come quarter final time and you need both your strikers to be mixing it up in the middle of the park as well as tracking back.

Wayne rooney hasnt all of a sudden become this world class player just because he is now banging them in left, right and centre. His workload is truly immense for man utd and you often will see him covering at left back or making an important tackle inside his own area

fantastic player and one that we should wrap up in cotton wool until the summer and release him to the world and let him try and win us a world cup