Take it with a grain of salt I guess:
http://www.espnfc.com/major-league-s...in-player-poll
Diskerud voted most overrated; Altidore 2nd; Bradley 6th
Take it with a grain of salt I guess:
http://www.espnfc.com/major-league-s...in-player-poll
The guys making the big bucks will always be the most polarized.Originally Posted by QBall
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
Totally. Look at the names on that list and their pay. That's what it's all about except for Diskerud. He is legit shit.
I agree that Jozy is overrated. I hoped all offseason that he would be traded to the Red Bulls.
I can't say I disagree. For the amount of money they earn, they have played nowhere near that level for us.
That being said, I still think they are both worthy of DP slots, in terms of being worth more than their salary cap hits.
Jozy looked out of shape last season and largely in effective later on in the season. It was said in the pre season interviews that he was in much better shape. In the short sub in SKC he looked useful. He's overpaid and slightly over rated I think. If he stays healthy and puts in a good performance in the next match I think it would do a world of good for his confidence. He needs a good start to this season or I can see his career taking a major downwards turn...
No more lazy off sides, silly fouls. Get in a good position early when the ball is in the air so you don't have to foul the defender. Knock it on to Seba or hold it up without falling over / taking a foul. That's literally all I'm asking of Jozy this season. That and knock in 10 goals of course.
We'll find out how his season is going to unfold in the next 5-10 matches.
For the player of his caliber and skill ceiling I think TFC are going to be pleasantly surprised.
What do people expect from Bradley that he's not already doing? what else is there for him to do?
Doesn't surprise me at all to see Jozy and Bradley on this list.
Accumulate stats. Most plebs in NA can't translate skill unless there's some stat in their fantasy pool to back it up.
Bradley has played much better this season. With that being said, he was nowhere near his worth last season. He was middle of the road/average midfielder who made way too many mistakes for a player making his salary.
In a league like this, you bring in a guy on his salary - you expect him to control the midfield and be the conduit between the backline and the forwards. He did neither of those thing very well last year.
he deserves to be on this list.
No, Collen Warner was a middle of the road midfielder. Bradley was demonstrably better than that last season.
And the job you describe wasn't his role in the diamond, so I don't know why you would expect him to perform it. These are the unreasonable expectations and misrepresentations of Bradley's play since he got here that drives me up the wall. People want him to perform every single midfield duty, regardless of what every one else on the field is doing or what his job actually is in the lineup. He still has the highest usage rate of any player in the league, and people get mad at him because he occasionally makes a mistake. It's the equivalent of getting intensely upset when Steph Curry misses a shot, not taking note of the fact he made the previous 5.
Yep...altidore making that much just to bounce between the USMNT, getting injured with the USMNT, returning to Toronto for rehab, then heading back to Jurgen while still recovering, tweaking his injury, coming back to Toronto to recover then running back to the USMNT before fully recovering. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Can you explain what Bradley's role on this team is then.
Right now? Anchoring DM that sits in front of the CBs, cleans things up and starts counter attacks with his passing range. And he's been doing it well - he's leading the team in tackles + interceptions, key passes, and is 2nd in passing percentage (among players with significant minutes) despite playing almost 10 long balls a game.
Whether this is Bradley accepting that he can't do everything in midfield, or Vanney finally sticking him to a particular task, or a bit or both... whatever it is, Bradley is doing his job well and that's a big part of why we've been so defensively solid thus far.
FWIW
Lalas said during the game on Sunday that Bradley told him the night before that he likes his role. i.e He knows what he is doing.
Notthesun summed up his role this year.
Last year his role was to roam the channels constantly, either harassing fullbacks or the opposing DM. when we were attacking his job was create space for the shuttlers below him and pull players away from the Seba and Jozy. With the ball his job was to hit Seba and Jozy and spring a counter-attack when the option presented itself, and to hit overlapping runners when we had settled possesion and make late runs into the box.
Asking him to be the link between midfield and defence is asking the team to literally skip three passing options, and makes him, our most advanced midfielder drop way too deep, making us unable to provide any solid penetration when in possession.
If MB and JA put this up on the bulletin board and proceed to wreck the league this season, I'll finance the gift basket to the author, Anonymous ESPN Dick Nose.
He could have more control on those passes over the top. Too may plays end up with a long pass out past the goal line. He either needs to halt the advance or work on those weighted balls a lot more.
Are you sure you are not mixing Bradley passes up with Cheyrou?
this doesn't require paying someone 5 mil a year to do.
you can find a ball playing DM for far cheaper.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Not one nearly as good a him. He's the best in the league at his current role by a significant margin.
disagreed. Alonso, McCarty, Beckerman all do the job as well as him at DM
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
I agree with this 100%
Also - I find it hard to see him as a DM - far too often this year he has been found pretty high up the pitch for a DM.
DM shouldn't spend more than half his time in front of the rest of the midfield line.
None of them are also their teams primary playmakers. If you want someone who can pass sideways and backwards really well, then sure, those are your guys. Bradley's skill set far exceeds those of the guys you mentioned.
And yet we've had a stout defense through our first three away games. Maybe that has something to do with Bradley being in a position he's very good at.
Bradley has not been up the pitch this year at all, certainly not compared to the last two years. Unless we have the ball in possession around our opponent's 18 yard box he's been firmly planted on our side of half.
Here are Bradley's heatmaps taken from Squawka.com. Brighter areas means more interaction in those areas (touches on the ball, tackles, passes, etc.). TFC's half of the field is the right side.
Vs. Red Bulls: http://i.imgur.com/8CqmSc1.png
Vs. SKC: http://i.imgur.com/7IqiXTQ.png
Now compare those to our final two games last year.
Vs. MTL, end of the season: http://i.imgur.com/D5tcfwt.png
Vs. MTL, playoffs: http://i.imgur.com/pG5El9N.png
You can see he has had a much greater concentration of interactions in the defensive half this year, and his interactions are less spread out as well. He has a defined role. Look at that playoff loss to Montreal, for example - the guy was all over the field, trying to do everything (in particular seems to be trying to compensate for us having pylon Robbie Findley running down the right side).
I don`t get all the hate for Bradley or Altidore. Jozy had 13 goals last season and was in the top 5 for goals per 90 min. If he wasn`t injured so much could easily have had 17 or 18 goals. I don`t know about Diskerud but Dempsey is by far the most over rated player in my opinion.
Bradley has not been used as a playmaker, even deep lying playmaker for TFC so far.
Playmaker implies that the offence is run through the player. TFC does not run its offence through Bradley.
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Primary playmaker meaning primary distrubtor. He's still the guy starts every counter-attack and is the most like guy to play a ball in behind the opposing defences. I.E. primary playmaker.
Simple reason is their salaries. If Michael or Jozy were making $1M or less, they probably wouldn't be getting any hate at all. The poll is pretty flawed... they basically picked players who are overPAID (ie. overrated by a specific team's management) rather than players that are overrated in general based on their performances in MLS. Jozy especially is far from being "overrated", overpaid sure, but he gets crap from pretty much every fanbase (including our own) for being a "flash in the pan" and pretty much nobody touts him as a top striker in this league.
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