Will Johnson

[BearcatSA]

Thoughts on playing Atiba at RB.

Maybe the first tactical thing that I (or anyone of us may have played any kind of organized soccer say at minor, high school, rec league, mens league, intramurals etc) learned was that you want to make sure that your best, most skilled and most talented player, plays someone in the the middle of the pitch. That means central mid field, central defender(For the best d man), or fwd. Thats because thats how you get the maximum from his abilities. When you play in the middle you are involved in the play wherever the ball ( left side or right side of the pitch) is played and you want your best played involved in the play as much as possible and be given as many responsibilities as possible.

So if Atiba is our best player and we put him on the right side that means he cant influence anything that happens on the left side of the pitch during the game. I'll stick to this philosphy even when it comes to our nation team. Imo, we dont have an abundace of talent and depth to afford not having Atiba involved as much as possible in the play. So i say no to the suggestion.

Exactly.

[villus]

I think playing Atiba at RB is a terrible idea. Hes so much better than anyone we have in the middle of the field. His passing and ability to dictate the pace of the game is so important to us, nobody in our ranks can come close to Atiba right now. Center midfield is more important than RB because it has so much more influence on the game. Many of WJ's skills will transfer over to RB and Will has played wide a decent amount. I honestly think RB might be his best position if he had some time to play there, Atiba is def a central midfield and that is where he is needed. Add all of that with the fact that if JDG gains form he will start over WJ so getting WJ in at RB allows us to get another skilled hardworking player on the field.

[Grizzly]

While I would generally agree with the notion that you want strength down the middle of the pitch, I would argue what you want more than anything is the best team you can field. The part that makes sense in putting Atiba at right back is if you believe Will Johnson can play the midfield position played by Atiba. If not, then it is probably better to leave the midfield alone because it was in fact the strongest part of the team against St. Lucia.

If Johnson is viewed as capable of playing a little more of a defensive role in MF, we know Atiba can play RB probably better than anyone on the team. And in fact, if Atiba is capable of making accurate cross field passes (I think he can), he can influence what happens on the left side of the field. His position on the field would also pull the opposing defense out of the middle of the field and open things up. In the hey day of Total Football in the 1970s, Johann Cruyff (the Dutch's most dangerous player on the field by far) would pull back into a fullback position from time to time during a game and really complicate defensive adjustments because you knew he could jump back into his No. 10 role (even though he wore 14) at anytime.

Bottom line is that systems need to be designed to fit the players you have and maximize the overall strength of the team. If a move can strengthen the team, it should be considered. If the feeling is that it won't help then it should be avoided. At this stage, I have no confidence in Hart being capable of making within-the-game adjustments so I think it might be wise to stay away from attempts at making player positional moves during a game (except basic ones).

What you wrote is correct but I think the argument that most people have against putting Hutch at RB is exactly that the drop off in quality between him and anyone else playing the central offensive midfielder role is immense. We can't put him at RB without downgrading our attack significantly. Had JDG2 chosen to play for Canada we probably could justify putting Atiba at RB but I do not think there is a suitable replacement.

I think the RB question is overshadowing the real issue a bit which is that our whole right side is terrible and a level below our left side at every position (Jazic is 3rd choice at LB but still looked better than anyone on the right side) . Given this the right back is always going to look a bit poor (which is not to say I think JBB should get another start). I don't think JDG was terrible in the game but he is at best mediocre right now. It certainly might be good to try someone new in this position, I certainly would like to see DiChiara given a chance at the next set of games. In the offense we have real problems on the right and really need to have either Gerba or Occean available because at the moment the only good option for Hutch or anyone else in the centre is to pass to the left to Simpson because going right is basically wasting the ball. However, this allows the defense to defend Simpson much better. Again moving the ball up the right side also usually ends in a broken play because there are so many weak links on the way. I think Jackson and particularly Hume really are not the solution for us at striker. Both were terrible against St. Lucia and basically played like they have always played for us. Neither have any ball skills and rely entirely on their speed and having a good (though not accurate) shot. These skills net them an adequate number of goals in lower division England playing against slow physical defenders but they need open field and defenders they can outrun to be effective which is not CONCACAF style.

DeRo creates a further problem in that he seems unable/unwilling to play any other position or role than lone wolf. He is a poor passer and has poor soccer intelligence, he basically has to score on his own to be effective. Yet he seems unable to do this against teams that don't give him the type of room he gets in MLS either because they have more skilled players (like the opponents in the next round) or they are just playing everyone back like St. Lucia was. At the moment the main reason for starting him is that so far no one else on the team has shown that they can take penalties properly.

And once again I have to say that our number 1 problem is we do not have a coach who seems able to analyze all the strengths and deficiencies of the various players and employ them properly. Why is it so rare that we see our team and say, "Wow they really played above their ability". Indeed it is almost always a case of looking at the lineup and even acknowledging that our players are not top class, still thinking, "These guys are capable of playing much better." In particular, the few times we have played impressively have been in meaningless friendlies against top ranked opponents, ie. the opponent is playing at less than 100% and the players are probably self-motivated to perform. Yet when we have games that count against opposition at our level or below our level we almost always seem to disappoint.

And to return to the right back question, I doubt it will happen but I would really like for a journalist to ask Hart some hard questions about who he was planning to start at RB and who the backup was. Why does he continually call up Peters and then not play him? Was Ledgerwood really his first choice at RB after his Gold Cup performance with an out of position and lower division player in JBB as the backup? Or was one of the CBs going to slide over but Jakovic's injury prevented that. From what I can see, Hart did not even call an adequate starter for RB let alone a decent replacement. Straith and Pozniak were both not called and while one can argue as much as one wants about their quality, it seems pretty hard to justify a RB tandem of Ledgerwood and JBB being called. And if there is some training/attitude/fitness problem stopping Peters from playing, shouldn't that have been apparent in the Gold Cup and an alternative chosen. If Hart is going to continually be making mistakes, I would like to see some sign that he is learning from them and so far I do not.