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Morris stretchered off in Swansea City loss

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Jordan Morris came into his loan move to Swansea City with a major opportunity to test himself overseas, but that goal looks set to be put on hold for the time being.

Morris was stretchered off in the 65th minute of the Swans 4-1 EFL Championship loss to Huddersfield Town, only 20 minutes after coming onto the pitch as a halftime substitute.

The Seattle Sounders loanee had appeared in four matches prior to Saturday’s visit to the John Smith Stadium and was hoping to help Steve Cooper’s side continue its push for automatic promotion.

“We will know more in the days to come, but it did not look a good one, that’s for sure,” Cooper said post match.

“He will travel back with us, he is currently in a knee brace and on crutches.”

Morris had yet to score a goal or register an assist on loan in England, but showed promising signs in Wales so far. The 26-year-old will hope his injury isn’t longterm with a busy year coming up for the U.S. Men’s National Team.

Morris missed the entire 2018 MLS season due to a torn ACL suffered in Concacaf Champions League action, but since has been one of the top attacking players in MLS and the USMNT pool.

For now the winger will have to wait to learn how long he could miss for the Swans, the Sounders, and USMNT going forward.

Comments

  1. Setting aside my concerns about rest, the people blabbering about the value of the loan need to understand that (1) Swansea was trying an idea during an unusual long pandemic offseason, (2) Swansea is owned by an American, (3) exploring an idea doesn’t necessarily have to result in absolute perfect sporting success. This could open a window to offseason or early season loans to teams like Swansea as we used to do c. 2000-2010. You might then consider being smarter about such loans eg maybe don’t try them on a pair of knee knacked guys. If you were asking players to double up their workload maybe go with people with healthier histories.

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    • Except it wasn’t an excessive amount of play. MLS is Back tournament began in July the same time as Euro seasons typically begin. Starting with MLS is Back Morris played 32 club matches between Seattle and Swansea. Swansea’s other forward Lowe 32 appearances Ayew 29. Morris also had basically the month of August without game matches plus most of December and January.

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      • Misleading. He played CCL and MLS in spring 2020 beginning January 2020 traijng, 25 games in half a year after the pandemic, played through the final, back out on loan in January, another half dozen now. You’re also ignoring my point that he already had a knee problem, so does Arriola, maybe there are better injury risks for low rest players.

    • They had most of March, April, and May without training you can’t go back and count CCL and two weeks of MLS his body had plenty of time to recover from that sorry.
      ———————————
      Bottom line there is never a good time for an MLS player to move or loan to Europe because of the difference in calendar. They’re typically going to play 15 straight months whether they go in July or January. This year with unusual pandemic break was actually far better than any other year.

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  2. It is not riskless to reduce a player’s rest and increase his mileage when he already had an ACL. Even Landon who did the offseason loans arguably burned out faster than one would have anticipated from a fitness freak.

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  3. If people were using their noodle the smart NT response would be shift Musah wide into the RF slot where he plays club, and play Reyna at CAM where he belongs anyway. You then have a wealth of young wing prospects eg Weah Konrad plus Arriola who is underrated. I’d be more concerned about midfield or back.

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    • Weah is a more accomplished winger than Musah who has only started playing there this year and Valencia uses him more as a two way RM than the RW running in behind the defense Berhalter usually asks for. Weah on his current may well be playing himself ahead of Sargent at CF. Who knows maybe Gregg will nab 18 year Nottingham Forest winger Alex Mighten who scored this weekend.

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  4. Has anyone actually seen footage of the injury incident? From the sounds of things, it was very much a non-contact, off-the-ball incident, but since the game was not on ESPN+, I am not seeing any footage of what “happened”

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    • Couldn’t find video either but heard he was actually in possession and either stepped on the ball or injured it the step prior and then misplayed the ball because of the injury. Non-contact by the reports I’ve heard.

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  5. Hopefully Arriola will get his minutes. Hate on me but Arriola has better technical ability than Jordan though less physical or the speed of Morris. Get well Jordan and good luck Paul hopefully you get minutes

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    • Ha well I also kinda hope Arriola gets more minutes. But after today I’ll bet DC United’s management would happily settle for Arriola coming back in one piece.

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      • JR I’m not sure you’re addressing Glove69’s point. Morris is now gone and it would seem that leaves a vacancy. Just because Arriola hasn’t played in that space in his (almost) 20 days at the club, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider him for the same purpose now that their coverage has been reduced.

    • Gomer just trying to address that although most people would say for the NT or even their MLS clubs Arriola and Morris play the same position. However, for Swansea Morris was back in his original CF role that Arriola hasn’t really played, according to Transfermkt he played CF once in his career for Tijuana in 2013. I’ve only seen their match against Man City so I can’t say they couldn’t adjust their formation against Championship opponents.

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  6. That’s probably it for Morris at Swansea unless the injury is much less than it appeared by tomorrow. Having watched him at Swansea, I have to say that it didn’t seem likely that the club would end up buying him at the end of the loan based on his play. He wasn’t poor, certainly worked hard, and brought his pace as a threat. But in order to really make the case for yourself on loan, you need to have more of an impact and I just haven’t seen it. He doesn’t look better than any of the other players there already, and if Morris can’t start for a Championship side in England, albeit a pretty good one, I’d think that maybe he might go back to MLS and continue to excel there and earn good money and provide squad support for the USMNT. Personally, I have left that the US Soccer press has overhyped him and overrated his talent and has spoken if he should be an automatic starter for the national team over players that have achieved a higher standard in leagues where it’s harder to make an impact, as he has no doubt learned. This is no shame – he’s still a fine player and an MLS stand out who I wouldn’t say shouldn’t be in the national side, but after watching him play at a higher standard it’s hard for me to give much credence to the idea that we should be trying to shoehorn him into the national side starting IX on the back of what he’s done putting up numbers against poor competition when we have other players producing better results against better competition while playing in superior sides to Swansea. I think it’s time some of us step off the hype train, give the guy his due in terms of where he fits in MLS (which is an improving league with a long way to go still) and trust that he can potentially be an impact sub for us.

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    • While I wish Morris a quick recovery; I have to agree to a certain extent.
      Morris may not be an every game starter for the Swans or the USMNT, but he can be a spot starter against certain types of opponents and an effective contributor off the bench. Both are useful attributes to have for a roll player.
      Morris has improved sine returning from his ACL injury a couple years ago. While he’s still a dangerous straight line speed player, his passing & crossing ability have improved greatly. His physical size/structure makes him difficult to muscle off the ball and his ability to play across the front line gives him a versatility that help keep him an attractive player to have in a squad.
      If used correctly…a starter against in games you expect sloppy conditions, a physical opponent or where you’re playing for a counter attack. He’s a good option. In situations where you expect to control possession he can be a set of fresh legs to run at a tired opponent or if you need to change your tactics late in the game.

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      • Yeah I agree with this whole heartedly. I think with some US Soccer fans, it’s all or nothing with Morris – either you think he’s on par with our best players or you are a hater – and I think the truth is just as you’ve said, a very useful player for the national team squad and a good player, not great and not elite, but one that can stand out against lesser competition and who can do a real job and play an important role, especially in certain types of matches.

    • I’d like to remind you that you are basing your evaluation on a very small sample size. Moving to a different team in a different country in the middle of the season rarely produces immedciate results. Here are just a couple of examples. In the first 10 games or so at Chelsea, Pulisic produced basically nothing and many US fans were very concerned.It was only about a third of the way through the second half that he started to hit his stride. And that was after he had a pre-season to be with the club. A great example is Dempsey who came at mid-season to Fulham from the Revolution. He only came on as a late substitute for the rest of the season and only scored a one goal, a memorable one vs. Liverpool. In that instance he came on around the 70th or 75th minutes. Even when we have seen players go in the opposite direction, from Europe to MLS, many players need at least half a season to their new environment. Tim Cahill is a good example of that when in his first season at the Red Bulls he scored only 1 goal.His next season he scored 11. There are other examples. In short, you are jumping to conclusions.

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      • I agree. Swansea would not have taken him if they did not rate him and believe that he could help with their promotion push.

      • I don’t think it’s jumping to conclusions when someone comes in on a loan signing versus a permanent transfer. Loans are a player’s chance to jump directly into the fire and make an impact, as well as prove you’re worth a buy. When a club pays a transfer fee, it’s in their best interest to bring the player along in the best way for the club and for the player both. I’m not saying it’s an objectively fair process! What I am saying is that I don’t think Morris is of the level to really rise to the top to necessitate a buy in the time he’s been there, which is what a loan signing is about.

        Also, your assessment of Pulisic’s start at Chelsea isnt quite right. He wasn’t showing play worthy of a 60+ million Euros signing, for sure. But he never looked out of his depth, just left questions about his actual value versus the monetary cost, which he answered later. Even if your comparisons were directly correlative, loan signings aren’t development projects. You produce or you fade away. And there’s no shame that Morris didn’t maybe have a bigger impact in the time he was given. The Championship is a hard league. He’s a good player. He’s just overrated by US Soccer media and fans.

    • I hear you but there is little context to this post in that ppl have to remember both Paul and Jordan are in preseason form, so this idea that he and Paul would ve on the same level as their teammates is ridiculous….Id also argue that unlike yout sentiment towards American soccer fans, its more.likely that american players are underrated or less heralded than.others around the glibe with seemingly no fact based analytics or otherwise to verify those beliefs!

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      • The both of them.have played what amounts to 2 games, hardly enough time to make any conclusions on whether they can hack it at that level with 18 more games to go in said loan

      • I don’t think you’re actually looking at what I said. I’ll repeat it, though, as my post was quite long: because of his injury, I think this is it for Morris at Swansea as I don’t think he made an impact enough in his stint on loan to justify a buy. I don’t think that he’s not good enough for the Championship, but that he’s probably about what he looks like – a squad player for a good championship side. For what Seattle (or MLS really) would want for him versus what he has delivered – again not a criticism, just the facts of life on loan – it’s hard to see them buying him and him not coming back to MLS. There are some, and I’ve seen them post here but also in subreddits, that seem to think that Morris is one of the US Men’s top players that belongs in the best IX. I’m simply saying that they inflate his level compared to the other players in our pool. It’s in that sense that he’s overrated, but that he’s not a good player or could ONLY play in MLS.

      • Kinda weird, but after reading all of the above comments, I’m convinced everyone is saying different versions of the same thing. I think a lot of folks were hoping that this loan would “resolve” questions about Morris’ talent relative to more global context, and it hasn’t yet (and probably won’t, given the injury)

      • Correct John, that’s what Im saying, so I dont know what Gabe is referring to! There were 20 games left in the Championship when JMo and Paul got over there, so being in preseason form coupled with having only played in 3 games is nowhere near close enough to ascertaining if the loan was a failure or not or if those 2 could hack on that level. People already had their reservations about if those 2 could hack it on a higher level bc they werent rated by said people, so tbh saying that it didn’t work out or otherwise just comes off as a a put down driven by a narrative set from jump street

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