re: Gregg is tactically inept

quote:

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Can someone give me a decent summary of why Gregg's tactics are allergic to scoring (or, often, even attempting to score)?

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It's the classic case of favoring solid structure over creative freedom. Given the 4-4-2 we played yesterday, we might as well go full 'empty-bucket' as a way of giving the LM and RM free roles while still retaining defensive solidity. Given how international football plays out, it isn't a bad decision per se, but it takes a long time to implement. We were basically drilled for several years in the empty bucket, so players knew where to go and could play just play. We obviously drilled that shape yesterday, but the fact we've employed different formations really accentuates the problem with the USMNT, as we have to be much more tactically versatile than our opponents, due to the fact we have relatively weak competition in our confederation.

If some variation of that 4-4-2 becomes our standard, that's useful going forward. The version we played yesterday was a 4-4-2 shape defending, and became sort of a 4-3-3 attacking. We need to commit to a base formation that we can deal with every type of team we will play.