With the recent news of Jordan Morris arriving in Germany to train with Werder Bremen (their site and coach both seem non-committal), many of the Sounders faithful are ruing a squandered chance at an up and coming star of the National Team as well as the joy of watching another product of our youth system on the rise playing at CenturyLink Field. But what most people are not asking is, where would Jordan Morris have fit into the Sounders starting eleven?
Can we call him a former Cardinal? Photo via www.firsttouchonline.com
The knee jerk reaction is he would have started up top, classic striker that he is.
Ok.
Where would we play Dempsey? Or where would we play Oba? Isn’t Nelson Valdez a forward? Didn’t we just sign Andy Craven? What about our other Homegrown Players Victor Mansaray and Darwin Jones? Basically, we have strikers. And yes, I know that we cannot play all of them at the same time or put the rest on the bench. Striker is not the position we should be worrying about at this point in time.
So what if we did snag him away from a career in the Bundesliga? How do we put our formation out there? Oba is a striker, through and through. He plays up top. Dempsey has it in him to tuck in behind the strikers, but that has not been his normal position, supporting two strikers. Supporting Oba and making runs up, yes. Nelson Valdez can operate on the wing, but that is not his normal position. Nor is it for Craven, Mansaray, or Jones.
So let’s say that Sigi Schmid were to go with two strikers and one player to feed their runs playing in between the midfield and strikers. We would then be playing a type of 4-3-3, more or less. This would rely heavily on a defensive midfielder and two outside mids who would not get caught out pushing too far forward too often. Who would they be?
That is the question which Sounders fans should be asking. Bringing Jordan Morris in would be great, but what we need are outside midfielders. No contract was offered to Thomás for the upcoming season or Gonzalo Pineda. Andy Rose is now in England with Coventry City. Marco Pappa is now with Colorado Rapids along with Michael Azira. Lamar Neagle has once again departed us, this time for D.C. United. Aaron Kovar is off to Preston North End for a winter training session. That doesn’t mean he will be offered a contract, but he certainly will get some good exposure, which he did not get very much of with the first team this year.
Ivanshitz would be a good fit outside, as would Brad Evans (the man who knows all positions). We now have only three other midfielders to look at. Osvaldo Alonso, Erik Friberg, Kovar, Cristian Roldan, and potentially Oniel Fisher. Numbers currently have us with six strikers and six midfielders, seven if Fisher is not pressed into the back line. And from what we saw last year, that could also bring us down to five if Brad is needed to shore us up again in our back line that is without two of the original MLS Sounders, Zach Scott and Leo Gonzales. Though we did lose Chad Barrett as our other attacking option, numbers do not lie. One forward to six midfielders.
And this is just a normal day to day club. We also have to consider that Jordan Morris has been playing for the National Team. In most situations we will be looking at National Team call-ups that involve both Morris and Dempsey, at least for the upcoming matches, as their run of form has been good as of late. That would mean as a team we are without two major pieces of our club puzzle. If Roman Torres is fit and healthy again, he will be called up by Panama, along with potentially Nelson Valdez who returned to the Paraguay National Team this year for Copa America. Then we need to think of Mansaray who has been called up for the U-20 team, along with Oniel Fisher who is on the radar for Jamaica and the return of Oba to Nigeria’s Super Eagles. The joy of being a club that attracts great talent means we have exciting matches to watch. The downside of the MLS is that International breaks don’t always mean a break in league matches.
The Sounder’s draft mentality should certainly be heavily focused on the midfield expansion of the club. Predictions show that the Sounders will take a midfielder in their first round, but nothing is certain until we call a name on draft day. Only time will show what players the Sounders walk away with. If it is not Jordan Morris, we might be better off going with more depth in the midfield.
