Pulisic faced another in the endless parade of injury setbacks, exiting the Champions League victory with a recurrence of his hamstring issues. Still, he is supposedly practicing and close to returning. Milan seems to desperately need him, which makes me worry about their level of caution. Musah was deployed by AC Milan as an FB last week. It went as expected, similar to Harry Mcguire playing CB. Not only has Weah been out with a thigh injury for Juventus, but Weston Mckennie left the US camps after the Trinidad game because of a flare-up of Tendonitis in his knee. Aaronson is barely playing lately for a relegation battle Union Berlin team, so that’s probably not a great sign. Matt Turner hasn’t played since October for Forest because of his crappy error against Liverpool. Gio continues to be brutally under-utilized given his raw talents. There might be a theme emerging here….
But alternatively Tim Ream (with an arm cast) and Antonee Robinson continue to put together rock solid minutes for Fulham.
We’ll dive deeper into some of the Trinidad series takeaways next.
Leaving it to the 82nd minute against a 10 man Trinidad is not really the ideal result you would hope for in that situation, but then again given the 2 leg series the timing is pretty much inconsequential. Not only was Antonee Robinson’s goal in the first leg an absolute beauty (and this 2nd leg diving header), so was his backflip sequence. I also can appreciate his emphasis on coordinating hair styles with Gio, who coincidentally bagged a much deserved goal of his own on a beautiful give and go through the middle of the 18, which is not to diminish the other 89 minutes of a very impressive display. History may still out Greg as the imbecile we think he is, but at least he’s playing Gio correctly even if it was only after Gio’s mommy taddled. Ricardo Pepi’s goal to start the scoring (assisted by none other than Robinson) may have been the prettiest goal of the match.
The 2nd leg was a mess to forget (I think Sergino Dest has had his fill of CONCACAF officiating, we can all relate), up to and including good ‘ol Greg throwing one of his own best players under the bus. Wtf is this formation? Yes, this is Gio’s best position, but it doesn’t help anyone else, and Luca de La Torre doesn’t need to be starting for this team. I’m not sure a two striker formation is anything that plays in modern football…. but sure, yeah, ok, let’s pretend it’s all Dest’s fault. Let’s also pretend Turner isn’t good enough to make either of those saves.