Danny Williams’ efforts with Redding are reportedly drawing the interest of several bigger clubs.
According to the Sunderland Echo, both Sunderland and Newcastle have registered interest in the U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder. Swansea and Aston Villa have also been linked with the current Reading midfielder.
Both Swansea and Sunderland are set to remain in the Premier League heading into the 2016-17 campaign, while Newcastle and Aston Villa are bound for the Championship after failing to escape relegation.
Williams is reportedly entering the final year of his contract with Reading. The midfielder made 46 appearances for the Royals last season, while adding six goals.
What do you think of the reports? Should Williams move on from Redding? Which club would provide the best fit?
Share your thoughts below.
JohnnyR, the MLS app has a lot of team and player data but not sure if they have the same data for USMNT? Stumptownfooty on SBNation uses a lot of the passing maps and heat maps for Timbers analysis. Timbers breakdown on Stumptownfooty is the most comprehensive coverage and active forum in all North America from front office management, MLS economics, and of course ton of soccer talk and knowledge
Going to team that has an emphasis on box to box midfield play is important. A greater emphasis on holding the ball and building from the back is a crucial piece to the USMNT
Bradley desperately needs another midfield player to help him in possession. Bedoya when pressed gives the ball up and even Jones does not hold the ball well. Nagbe fits really well as an outlet for the back line and tandem for Bradley in possession but JK finds some liability possibly on defense for giving Nagbe 90 minutes
Another plus for Williams is he is hard nosed player
Bradley gives the ball over when pressed more than Bedoya and Jones and tends to do it in much more precarious positions.
If you looked at an Opti chart for the amount of touches to turnovers Bradley would far exceed Bedoya in touches and higher percentage of passes completed. Zusi’s percentage would be even worse then Bedoya. Yedlin would be even worse. Jones tends to make more long diagonal balls but will to move the ball on the dribble.
Would be really helpful if SBI used actual game statistics for game analysis.
are you basing that on anything? i can see jones, as he’s more likely to boot the ball away while bradley tries to pick the “smart” pass too often, but bedoya doesn’t sound right.
and the “precarious positions” line is a little silly, considering they don’t play the same role. bedoya, obviously, but even jones plays more of the box-to-box role, and bradley (more recently) sits back as the “metronome”. i bet cameron gives the ball away in more precarious positions than dempsey.
Twomile where do you find the passing data? I’ve tried searches for it but can’t find it.
What’s Bradley’s percentage of backwards passes, has to be considerable?
Keep in mind Klinsmann’s aware he’s a German coach under some fire and political pressure as the coach of what is an American national team. Williams has had some good games and some stinkers, and Kitchen is a much more physical, imposing presence than Morales…and more to the point, Kitchen is a “real ‘Merrican” and not one of those “passport guys”, as Williams and Morales would be considered. Moreover, Kitchen did exactly what Klinsmann has been advocating: challenge himself, and head over to Europe rather than languish in more comfortable and familiar environs in MLS. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which are politics and locker-room cohesion, you can understand why Klinsmann would be inclined to lean in Kitchen’s direction rather than just keep calling up Williams and Morales…one of whom has, as I mentioned, been inconsistent, the latter of whom was especially disappointing in the Gold Cup last year. Klinsmann is not an idiot; he cannot be seen to be favoring the Germanamericans over the natives; he’s got to be seen to be fair or he’s lost the team.
Wasn’t Morales one of the guys sent home early when USA was allowed to tweak their roster after Group? Pretty sure. Which is a bad sign.
I do think Williams ultimately does become a regular and I think Morales has a chance to, but especially in the past year it does appear Klinsmann is also doing his best to establish some continuity, which is one of the biggest complaints people always had about him. He’s certainly not making it easy for then newest and shiniest to just push an established vet out of the way.
They don’t play the same position. Williams is not a DM. He is a B2B midfielder who would replace Jones, allowing Bradley to remain as the #6. Kitchen is a pure DM. Also, the rest of your statements are ridiculous. The coach will play the player who he thinks is best regardless of their background.
Regarding Morales, he did well with Ingolstadt while they were in the second division, but when they moved up he lost his starters job, then was injured, then got a couple of starts, but never really impressed. He could be one of those players who shine in the second division but isn’t good enough for a league like the Bundesliga. The jury is still out on him, IMO>
morales was in the top 10 for most minutes played last season, even after losing a month to injury. he did start to taper off toward the end of the season, but it’s hard to say how much of that was injury-related; in any case, it’s a little presumptive to say that he suffered due to the level of competition any more than his entire team did (and i think they finished mid-table).
Morales has had 3 goals for Ingolstadt in 84 appearances per Wikipedia. Bocanegra did better than that for Fulham, so Morales is not exactly a prolific scorer.
that’s true, and he wasn’t in the 2. bundesliga either. i’m not sure what you’re saying.
to clarify: i agree with you regarding the “jury still out” comment as far as the national team goes; he needs more usmnt games to show what he can do (and the copa america would’ve been good for that). just was disagreeing with your “not good enough for bundesliga” remark based on the past year; as far as one season can show anything, i think he’s shown that he is good enough.
You don’t really expect to get a lot of goals out of your holding midfielder, but you do from your target CB on set pieces. I mean Boca has the same scoring rate for the national team as Bradley and has scored more national team goals than anyone on the roster not name Bradley, Altidore, or Dempsey. I believe the most by any CB in national team history but I didn’t confirm that.
Klinsmann under rates Williams and Alfredo Morales both. A healthy Aaron Johnasson would have been a big help too. But Williams and Morales, they should have been on the roster over over Beckerman and Wondosucksski.With Jones and Kitchen Beckerman should have not been on the roster.
He actually rates both players. Not as highly as he rates Jones, Bradley or Beckerman (the 1st are the only ones who were really box to box midfielders at the international level). Funny, a lot of people on this board slam both. Both players have faults but have potential and are still growing into those roles at a high international level.
Morales is overrated. He seems to try pull fancy moves with no effect and fails in wrong parts of the field. i.e., Useless. Can he just play simple to move the ball along and do the fancy moves when he’s near the box?
Lleget is better than Morales if you want a player who is unpredictable with useful fancy moves.
They play different positions so not really much use to compare the two.
Lletget has 0 goals in 12 starts this season and no goals in his last 19 starts going back to last season. He seems much more concerned with his instagram and his “B” List pop star girlfriend than his soccer game these days.
johnnyrazor:
When Morales plays for the US, he plays as an outside midfielder.
When Lleget plays for LAG, he plays as an outside midfielder.
How do they play different positions? Lleget makes things happen, like a difference maker but people can’t finish his end product or in synch with what he’s going to do. I don’t expect him to be a prolific goal scorer but more as a person who creates chances for others in the attacking third of the field.
Morales is not a wide midfielder and rarely plays that for the US, perhaps a couple times as JK played with lineups or just so that he could get on the field as Bradley and Jones have taken most of the central minutes.
Yes it is too bad that Lletget doesn’t have quality offensive players on his team to finish all these great creative plays he makes.
I think JK rates the pretty highly. They maybe don’t get a lot of gametime, due to being in a position of excess for terrible USMNT. But they’re called in to a lot of camps. And they’ve hardly placed their mark on a game when they do.
Also, with the 433 formation we’ve been running, I eagerly hope for Aron’s return. He can’t play outside, but that tucked winger/outside forward role is much more suited to his game.
Don’t know where the terrible came from
Did Benitez extend his contract with Newcastle? It would be a pretty good step to be under his wing,
Of course, you have Swansea, which the new ownership group may include Landon Donovan, who reportedly will exercise some decision over football operations, What does he thing of Danny Williams?
Would “Big Sam” Allerdyce transfer two young Americans to his squad and strengthen it to avoid a relegation fight next year in Yedlin and Williams? While he is fair, he is not particularly favorable to Americans, only giving Sebastian Lleget one game (a FA cup game) with the 1st team while he was manager.
Aston Villa has parachute money, and still many of its EPL players (we will see how many after the transfer period opens up) and Bad Guzan still the GK. But they face bringing in yet a new manager, who may or may not like what AV brings in before he is appointed? With their dismal record last year, they are he least likely to regain EPL promotion.
Reading does not seem to be investing much in bring in new players for a promotion push, and the better players are “reading” this and will probably not going to extend.
Bad Guzan. Very funny.
He needs to take over for Bradley and move Bradley to bench for national team.
No, he should take over for Jones and become our box-to-box midfielder as that is what his role was at Reading.
Please be Swansea! I don’t think I can handle watching any more Sunderland games.
the only good thing about a potential move to Sunderland is building a better relationship with Yedlin on the field. It never hurts to have multiple americans on the same european team, ala Fulham some years ago!
Yedlin doesn’t play for Sunderland.
Well he sure as hell don’t play for Spurs
I’m assuming he meant if Sunderland sign Yedlin considering his apparent value to BSA and Sunderland. It was almost a foregone conclusion, but of course, you never know. If they sign together, that could be interesting. Sunderland were playing significantly better once BSA took over, so if they sign some decent players and trim the fat on the not so useful players, they could be a good team to watch.
Swansealona would be great. Newcastle would also be good as their squad are too good for the Championship and will make a quick return to the PL.
He needs to play to be valuable to us, so the Championship offers might be a better big picture option. Kind of depends what his lineup chances are at each team.
I know so many wasted early Saturday mornings on the west coast watching horrible Sunderland when Altidore was there and slightly improved with Yedlin
It was brutal.
Poyet was horrible. Even when the Black Cats were playing at home against a team in the bottom third of the table, he would still play only one striker and play defensively.
@gary page
“he would still play only one striker”
…when jozy was on the field; on rare occasions he would play a two-forward system with borini and fletcher, but never with jozy.
i try to remind myself that these guys know more about soccer than i ever will, and i don’t think jozy would’ve suddenly thrived there with another forward alongside him (although it couldn’t have hurt), but poyet’s insistence that jozy worked only as a lone forward was maddening.
L…….O……L……
good thing this guy wasn’t available when jones was suspended
I also thought it was a mistake to leave him off the roster. I really hope he starts getting regular invites into future US games because he is a natural replacement for Jones. Box-to-box midfielder which would allow Bradley to stay at his preferred #6 role.
Let’s be real, he’s had some lousy games in the shirt, but I think Beckerman in particular is past it and with the age of that whole central midfield some contingency planning would be wise.
He has also had some fairly good games in the shirt as well. I think he has grown significantly the last 2 years and if given time, could be a natural replacement for Jones. He has been outstanding for Reading in the games I’ve seen.
The Imperative Voice: every single player in our pool with more than a handful of caps has had awful games in the shirt. I always laugh when some fans pick and choose who they want to use the “he’s had some bad games” card with. I had this conversation with some people here when Birnbaum was chosen over Gonzalez and people were like “Gonzalez is prone to make a big mistake and Birnbaum isn’t”. Then I reminded people that Birnbaum only had like 3 or 4 caps to Gonzalez many caps and in big tournaments. Then we see Birnbaum brain fart and give up that goal against Argentina, much worst than anything Gonzalez has ever done. I guess it’s time to change the narrative about Birnbaum.
UCLA agree with your premise but Gonzo/Orozco letting the goal kick bounce right between them to Ruiz was equally as bad.
Gonzo fell into the same category as Villafana in that neither had much down time between the end of MLS to Liga Mx season, certainly had to be a consideration to give those two time off over the Summer so they had legs going forward to maintain their club positions and thus chances with the Nats this fall in qualifiers.
Gonzalez gas had some nice moments in the US shirt but idk if there has been a more frustrating player to watch in the pool. His size, athleticism are dreamy but you fee he never consistently performed to his potential and he may be starved of caps going forward with the emergence of Birnbaum. Speaking of Birnbaum, and no disrespect UCLA, but I put more of the blame on Bradley for that Birnbaum turnover which ultimately led to a goal. Bradley put him in a precarious position with that pass into no man’s land and Birnbaum didn’t react well to it. It looked comical if we’re being honest, and that was one of the worst spells of football you’ll see! I’m more pissed that JK put in Birnbaum that someone like a Nagbe in the first place. If he wanted a back 3, put in Besler as the left side CB, Brooks in the middle and Cameron as the RCB. That move JK made was another defensive one and your down 3-0 at that point. Didn’t make sense to me
I wish he had been brought in instead of Beckerman. However, in addition to a real lousy game last time he played for the US, toward the end of his club season he had a scuffle with his team captain and his team suspended him for 3 games. I wonder if that had something to do with his exclusion since Klinsmann seems to put a lot of emphasis on player attitude. I hope he goes to Swansea and shines and can be the replacement for Beckerman or Jones.
I seem to remember him scoring a goal against the Netherlands. I liked that.