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Soccer Sunday: Your Running Commentary

AndreiArshavin (Reuters)

Arsenal has been hot on the trail of EPL leaders Chelsea and Manchester United for most of the season, but now the Gunners are feeling the heat from Aston Villa. Arsenal can close the gap on Chelsea with a win against the Villans, but a loss would suddenly drop the Gunners to fourth place.

Arsenal-Aston Villa headlines a light day of action that also includes red-hot DaMarcus Beasley and Rangers facing Hibernian.

Here is today's schedule of matches:

8:30am– Setanta USA- Arsenal vs. Aston Villa

11am– FSC/FSE- Hull City vs. Manchester United

1pm– Telemundo- Catalonia vs. Argentina (Taped)

11pm– FSC- Hull City vs. Manchester United (Delayed)

If you are watching today's matches (or if you want to discuss any of Saturday's action), please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Enjoy the action.

Comments

  1. He’s not Lazy, he’s dejected, its tough to make runs when your teammates hold the ball that extra touch and it gets stolen, or when you hold the ball up and turn to get in a good position and your midfield has already lossed the ball. Jozy’s problem is that half way through the game he starts to lose trust in his teammates, and stops working for them, its a bad habit to have but one you see with a lot of young players who feel they aren’t getting the ball in good positions.I think the whole game he was pointing that he wanted the ball at his feet and that pass never came. Wow your man crush on Dempsey is so sweet. But I’m pretty sure Spector, dolo, donovan, bradley, ching all of those guys understand spacing, The nats don’t have a spacing problem, every team plays with different tactics, the Nats tactics are different from Fulham. Just sayin.

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  2. Clint Dempsey is miles ahead of most US players when it comes to tactical knowledge… John Harkes has a personal vendetta against Dempsey, it is fairly obvious… Dempsey plays and succeeds for the most tactically versed team in the EPL… I am going to trust that Roy Hodgson has personally tutored Clint about tactics.. spacial relationships with others on the pitch etc.. unfortunately most our players dont have a clue where to be with the Nats… Jozy was not singled out today… Jozy is just lazy off the ball and rarely makes runs..What was said about him is dead on.

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  3. I did not think the commentator was singling Altidore out (for that, see Harks comments on Dempsey in recent national team games — now that IS singling a guy out for no reason). It’s fairly obvious that Jozy hasn’t been running all that much, either walked or lightly jogged. He cramped up at 60 minutes. So, there was nothing unfair about the fitness issue.

    And he was, as the commentator said, raw. He did have a couple of good passes and earned a penalty for Hull (though he did not look like he was going to put it in — MU player bailed him out by pushing). But he also gave the ball away today a few too many times.

    Hopefully, he showed enough progress to earn some additional time. It’s not like Hull is teaming with talented offensive players.

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  4. I remember Bullard from his days of playing at Fulham. He is a good player. I just don’t think their overall set up is sound — they had trouble passing out of their own half with any degree of confidence. The only guy attempting to make runs consistently was Hunt, but he is more hustle than skill. Garcia had flashes of good play, but there is no coherence to Hull’s game. Next to the them, Fulham looks like a Big 4 team. I suppose that also speaks about how much Fulham has improved, but still, at least today, Hull looked like a Coca-Cola Championship team.

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  5. RE: comments about his conditioning and work rate. He has a disposition that appears that he’s not working that hard…that’s just the way he is. I think he works extremely hard and was causing alot of problems for the MU backs. His conditioning appears good to me.

    If he and Rooney changed teams today I am convinced Jozy would have had at least 1 goal and Rooney would have had at most 2 shots

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  6. Jozy is by far the best player on an otherwise crappy team. For someone who just turned 20 I think his play has been remarkable to say the least.

    Are there any players younger than Jozy in the EPL ? if so I bet there are not many

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  7. who has ever said that Obertan is the best young french player? That’s laughable. Plus, Obertan is light years ahead of Altidore and is less than a year older.

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  8. DMB out again (from the Rangers/Hibernian match report on Soccernet):

    The Rangers boss also looks set to be without DaMarcus Beasley for the next few weeks after he suffered an injury in training that kept him out of the clash with Hibs. The United States international has enjoyed a fine return to form in the last few matches and Smith admits his absence is a blow.

    “He has a tear in his thigh,” said the Rangers boss. “I’m not sure how long that will keep him out – two or three weeks maybe. It’s disappointing in the sense that he is just back in the team and doing exceptionally well so it was disappointing it happened.”

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  9. the bottom line is that jozy still has a goose egg in the goals column. stop singing his praises so much. at some point, lack of service ceases to be the problem.

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  10. jozy was alright. I liked Fagan and Hunt. But mendy! my gosh that guy is horrible! cant cross and cant pass and cant even defend. so what can he do?

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  11. You don’t even have to say American you could just mention that he is only 20. Gabriel Obertan who some consider the best young player from France and someone who has gotten comparisons to Henry and Ronaldo is OLDER than Altidore and he doesn’t look like he is ready to contribute at a high level in the EPL yet.

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  12. I agree with that take. Jozy spends most of he game in a walk, or a very light jog that looks really heavy with his legs. A remarkable contrast with the running that Rooney did all game.

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  13. We all know Jozy is raw. He is 20 year old AMERICAN playing in the EPL. I put AMERICAN in caps becuase we all know that our youth system is a little behind the rest of the world. So Can he be better? Of course. But to question his fitness and training habits becuase he got a cramp. Really? He got kicked by Wes Brown so maybe not even a cramp. The announcer was stupid with that comment.

    How many times did Jozy or Fagan get a chance to go at goal? 1 or 2 maybe? How many crosses came into the box for them to attack? 1 or 2? That to me is the midfield. Hunt is the only mid that is worth anything IMO on that team.

    Jozy has played better than he did today for sure. But question his fitness and calling him lazy (like some guys here have) is just stupid.

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  14. I completely disagree about his fitness. He looked fine out there and chased the ball about as much as Torres or Keane do. The announcers had a go at him about his “cramp,” but who knows if it wasn’t a knock. He got about 70 productive minutes against Man U in the Premier League. That’s…..pretty good. Brown showed a lot of faith in him to give a young kid that much. Or perhaps you’d prefer him to get 90+ against the Chicago Fire?

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  15. I have to agree with you on this one. The game is blame anybody but the player. We know hull are shite but some how Jozy is above all that and should be playing with arsenal….i don’t figure.

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  16. The Guardian and Sky announcing crews are merciless when it comes to criticizing Jozy. But it just goes to show that in the Premier League people are used to perfection….no misplaced passes or lead-foot stops will cut it. When it happens it’s fairly obvious. Still, I’m not sure if the Hulls of the world can be expected to afford perfection from their strikers.

    I’m disappointed for Jozy. He didn’t have too much service, but to be fair he had more than I expected. He didn’t capitalize on his few chances and had only 2 or 3 moments with the ball that would cut it against, say, England in the World Cup…

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  17. I don’t know what feed you guys were watching, but the SkySports one I found on veetle barely spent any time commenting on any one player and rather called the game. Anyway, Jozy looked decent enough given the few opportunities he got. It would have been nice if at least one of the free kicks Hull earned hadn’t resulted in abysmal service.

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  18. The most troubling part of this game is that jozy is not fit at all. He didn’t chase the ball and cannot hold the ball. Its clear he has not been seeing regularl time. We desperately need him to get productive minutes.

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  19. due respect, Jozy has fallen off as the game progressed. He is still very young and raw, and has a long way to go. He has the talent, but lacks the desire. He never is a player like Rooney or Charlie Davies, who hustles and has a very high work rate. As the game went on, he got worst.

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  20. Josy’s best moments come when he’s wider. He had two nice bits of movement, one on the right that lead to a corner and one on the left. He’s got a nice touch for a guy with his size and strength. Letting him get moving towards the defense creates a lot of problems. Asking him to stand in the box and hold up the ball negates that.

    It was a much better second half from him.

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  21. Jozy has progressed very well with his back to goal. He is still lazy and lacks movement off the ball. He is going to be one hell of a striker for the next 10+ years.

    Hull made this game very exciting, thank you.

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  22. I think Phil Brown needs to pick a starting forward tandem and stick with them. Part of the problem for Hull is that there is no consistency up top — Brown has four or so forwards that he cycles through, and they don’t have enough time togehter to develop an understanding.

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  23. that is where i see the bias, because he has actually flashed some moments which have gone without a mention. and the pathetic midfield has gone completely unnoticed. its either a bias or as someone mentioned earlier jozy is really the only player in the first 11 who generates any interest

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  24. I’m starting to see why brits don’t like yanks in their football. The commentator is biased? Hardly. If anything both commentators were praising him in the first half, while noting that he is “raw”, which he is. Both were definitely impressed with the shot on target he had just after the first United goal.

    If you’ve watched the game, Jozy has only had a couple of moments to be proud of. His hold-up play is still 3rd rate (in the EPL, in MLS he’d be top-quality) and he doesn’t always make good decisions when bringing his teammates into the play.

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  25. I think they can see that he just doesn’t look that fit (seems reluctant to do any heavy running).

    Of course, next to Garcia he’s a marathon runner.

    But what someone else said, he’s probably the only interesting thing on the Hull team to talk about.

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  26. He was talking earlier about how much he liked him in the Confed Cup this past summer. Thus far, I haven’t heard him say anything so farfetched as to be construed as anything other than constructive for Jozy to learn from: get better at playing with his back to the goal, make better decisions with the ball at his feet, combine better with his teammates.

    I for one would like to see Jozy do all these things.

    NM

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