I have long been a card-carrying member of the “Josh Sargent will figure it out when he’s in a coherent system with talented teammates.”
He has that with the USMNT. At this point, though, I think I am more discouraged by his lack of goalscoring output than I am encouraged by the fact he did, in fact, make a number of good and dangerous runs in this one. He really was trying to be a threat and often was, but the payoff was not… great. It was not great.
More frustrating is the reason Sargent presumably tops the No. 9 depth chart is because of his link play, which has occasionally been awesome (I still fondly remember that Peru game a couple years back). In this game it was non-existent to the point of being a liability rather than a strength.
The competition for this spot is wide open. I suspect we’ll see Jordan Siebatcheu get a crack at it for at least a few minutes vs. Honduras, and it seems likely that Daryl Dike is going to get the final game of this camp, a friendly vs. Costa Rica. Gyasi Zardes is, of course, still waiting in the wings.
I don’t know who we’ll consider the starter by the time World Cup qualifying begins in September. I just hope that whoever it is earns the job, rather than takes it by default.